Fr. JC Maximilian

[Statue of St. Paul, picture taken by me at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome]

Today we begin a joyous chapter in the history of the Church:  The Jubilee Year of St. Paul.

What do we know about St. Paul?  We know that he was a young Pharisee, who studied under one of the great rabbis of the First Century A.D.  We know that he was a man of great zeal and commitment.  At first he directed that zeal at spearheading a violent persecution of the first Christians in Palestine, soon after Jesus crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.  At the height of this first persecution of the Church, while he was on his way to the city of Damascus in Syria to arrest the Christians there, our Lord appear to St. Paul, and that encounter completely changed the direction of St. Paul’s life, and it had a profound impact on the course of world history.  After his encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, St. Paul turned his zeal and commitment towards spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ.  He became the great missionary, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who tirelessly traveled throughout the Mediterranean for nearly 30 years, starting Christian communities in city after city.  During this missionary life, St. Paul suffered much all for the sake of preaching the Gospel, and he wrote a major portion of the New Testament.

One of the reasons that Pope Benedict XVI decided to dedicate this year to St. Paul is that the best scholars tells us that St. Paul was born between the years 7 and 10 A.D., so we are celebrating St. Paul’s 2000th birthday.

However, the Holy Father has a deeper reason for promulgating this Jubilee Year.  There is an urgent need to remind all Christians of their most basic identity:  every Christian is meant to be a missionary.  Each of us, by baptism into His Mystical Body, and Confirmed in the power of His Holy Spirit, are called to give our lives for the sake of spreading Christ’s kingdom, just as St. Paul did in a most excellent way at the dawn of the Christian era.

In announcing the Jubilee Year, Pope Benedict said, “Dear brothers and sisters, as in early times, today too Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves….He needs witnesses and martyrs like St. Paul….  St. Paul did not hesitate to change sides to the Crucified One and follow Him without second thoughts…. He lived and worked for Christ, for Him he suffered and died…. How timely his example is today!”

This Jubilee Year is a time for us to reflect more deeply on what it means to be a Christian, a disciple of Christ Jesus.  It is a time for us to re-commit ourselves to being missionaries, in the footsteps of St. Paul.

What does it means to be a missionary?  Most of us often think of missionaries as people who go to Third World countries to work with the poor, and these are certainly excellent examples of missionaries for Christ Jesus.  However, we can be missionaries right here, in our own families, neighborhoods, State, and nation.  In the world today there are many social trends that go directly against Christian values.  As Christians we can either give in to these trends, or complain about the, or change them.  The missionary thing to do is to whatever we can to change them.

I found a wonderful example of just what I am talking about.  In 2004 Ella Gunderson, an 11-year-old Catholic girl from Seattle, went into Nordstrom’s store to buy a pair of jeans.  She could not find a normal pair of jeans.  Every style was either so loose that they would fall down, or so tight that she would have to wear them so low that they would become provocative, but she did not want to be provocative.  As a Christian, she knew that her body was a temple of the Holy Spirit.  She knew that God intended beauty to be pure, inspiring, and tasteful; not degrading and objectifying.  She had learned these lessons by her involvement in a Catholic girls program called “Pure Fashion.”  Instead of just complaining and whining about the problem, Ella decided to do something about it.  She wrote a public letter of complaint to Nordstrom’s.

Her experience resonated with unvoiced concerns of teenagers and women across the country, who also believed it was possible to be pretty without being provocative.  Ella ended up being interviewed by the Today Show, CNN, and various newspapers and magazines.  The media firestorm motivated Nordstrom’s to create a new category for juniors on their Website called “Modern and Modest.”  It also gave a huge boost to the “Pure Fashion” program, which until then had been quite small.  Now Pure Fashion is training young women in Christian values and organizing fashion shows with teen models in 24 American cities and nine other countries (see www.purefashion.com).

All this resulted from one Catholic teenager who decided not just to complain about a destructive social trend, but to change it.  That’s the mark of a Christian missionary.

All of us are called and equipped by God to be His missionaries; His ambassadors.  If we actively carry out that mission we will find the meaning and fulfillment that we long for.  Being a missionary means being always ready to talk about Christ Jesus and explain the Church’s teaching.  To aide you with that, our parish is has various opportunities for Faith Formation, both for our youth and for our adults.  To be a missionary also means being like Christ, letting His saving goodness shine through the way we live.

In a sense, we all have three mission territories to work in.  First, we are called to be missionaries to our families.  Each and every Christian family should be a mini-church; a place where peace, forgiveness, order and harmony reign.  This takes constant prayer, effort, and sacrifice from both parents and children.  However, the mere effort yields joy, wisdom and fulfillment, even when the results are not perfect.  Anyone who has made an honest effort will testify to this.

Next, we are called to be missionaries at work or school.  We show forth God’s goodness and glory by being the very best and most dependable students, athletes, workers, and professionals that we can be.  God wants us to maximize and develop the various talents that He has give us.

Finally, we are called to be missionaries here in the parish.  A parish is meant to be a lighthouse for its community, a spiritual task force that builds unity, combats evil, and spreads virtue as the sun spreads light.  There are many areas in the parish where you can be a missionary.  The Religious Education Program is looking for volunteer teachers and aides.  I am sure that Michael, our Music Director, would love to hear from you if you are interested in joining the parish choir or to be a cantor.  There is Caring Hearts that provides “neighborly care” to the elderly and homebound.  Just call the parish office or ask one of us priests, and we can point you in a direction that needs missionaries.

As we begin this Jubilee Year of St. Paul, let us ask Christ to show each of us how we can live our mission better, so that at the end of our lives we, like St. Paul, can say:  “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”

["Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem" by Rembrandt van Rijn]     [Jiang Zongxiu, possible martyr, 2004]

“Terror on every side!”  So cried the Prophet Jeremiah in today’s first reading.  The word “terror” has become a fixed part of our modern vocabulary; even if it is an unwelcomed one.  Terror has become a too common tool in the arsenal of people who want to make strong political statements.  This became especially real for many of us after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.  The fear that arises from terrorism comes not only from the gravity of the act itself, but also from its unpredictability.  This kind of fear can paralyze us; preventing us from both thinking and acting according to our Christian values.

This kind of fear and intimidation was not a stranger to the Prophet Jeremiah.  He never thought of himself as being well suited for a career as a prophet.  Yet he knew that God had called him to be “a prophet to the nations” from before his birth.  Jeremiah warned his people that God’s judgment was upon them because they had sinned against the covenant they had with God.  Despite the threats and plotting made against him, Jeremiah insisted that the crimes that the people were committing against each other were really crimes against God.  He condemned the military pacts that the king made with neighboring countries, saying that instead Israel should rely on God.  He predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, and thus was labeled a traitor.  He was publicly punished, then was exiled to Egypt, and, according to tradition, was murdered by his fellow Israelites in exile.  Why did Jeremiah not give in to the intimidation and fear?  He tells us, “The Lord is with me.”  Despite his reservations, despite his anxieties, despite his frustrations, Jeremiah placed all his trust in God, and he offered up all his sufferings for God’s greater glory.

Today’s Gospel reading wants to drive this point home.  This passage comes in the middle of Jesus’ instructions to the Apostles as He is preparing to send them on their first missionary journey.  Three times does Jesus tell them not to be afraid.  Jesus does not want fear and intimidation to paralyze the Apostles.  He wants them “proclaim on the housetops” the Good News of God’s Kingdom.    He reminds them not to be afraid of those who can kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, because eternal life in heaven is more important that the passing life of this world.  And the reason that they can have this courage is because His power, His life, is with them.  “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.  But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”

The terror and intimidation did not end with Jeremiah, nor with Jesus and the Apostles.  The early Church faced much terror, intimidation and persecution, but it did not end there either.

In 1902 a young Italian girl refused to be intimidated by a man who threatened to kill her because she refused his sexual advances, and he did kill her.  Her courageous witness to Christ, in whom she placed all her trust, had a profound impact on so many people, including her murderer who later turned away from his sinful life, and once out of prison devoted his life to humble service.  In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared that young Italian girl, St. Maria Goretti, and her mother and Alexander Serenelli, the man who murdered her, were present at her canonization.

During the Second World War, a sickly, bookish Polish priest refused to be intimidated by the Nazis, and offered his life in exchange for a fellow prisoner.  St. Maximilian Kolbe was canonized as a martyr of charity.

In June, 2004, a 34 year-old Chinese woman went, with her mother-in-law, to the neighborhood market place where they began to hand out Bibles and talk to people about Jesus Christ.  They were arrested by the Chinese police, interrogated through the night, and condemned the next day.  Sentenced to 15 days in prison for “suspected spreading of rumor and disturbing the social order,” Mrs. Jiang Zongxiu never got to serve that sentence.  The police said that she died, while in custody, of natural causes.  Yet secret sources inside the prison where she was held smuggled out the news that she had really been beaten to death during her interrogation.  All for witnessing to the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Faithfully following Christ and fulfilling our mission as Christians does not guarantee a suffering-free life here on earth - not even in our modern, enlightened world.  But it does guarantee a meaningful life here, and a very warm, everlasting welcome hereafter.

We too are called to be witnesses of the Gospel.  Few of us will face the terror, intimidation, and persecution that the examples above faced in proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, yet how often are we afraid to tell people about our relationship with Jesus?  How often are we afraid to “rock the boat” when family, friends, groups we belong to, are espousing actions and opinions contrary to our Christian values, so we say nothing?  How often do we take the Lord’s Holy Name in vain when things are not going our way and we are frustrated?

Let me leave you with some words from Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Spe Salvi:

“I would like to add here another brief comment with some relevance for everyday living. There used to be a form of devotion-perhaps less practised today but quite widespread not long ago-that included the idea of “offering up” the minor daily hardships that continually strike at us like irritating “jabs”, thereby giving them a meaning. Of course, there were some exaggerations and perhaps unhealthy applications of this devotion, but we need to ask ourselves whether there may not after all have been something essential and helpful contained within it. What does it mean to offer something up? Those who did so were convinced that they could insert these little annoyances into Christ’s great “com-passion” so that they somehow became part of the treasury of compassion so greatly needed by the human race. In this way, even the small inconveniences of daily life could acquire meaning and contribute to the economy of good and of human love. Maybe we should consider whether it might be judicious to revive this practice ourselves” (Spe Salvi, 40).

I meant to blog about this two weeks ago; however, I am still not the master blogger.  I have had two rather interesting interactions between Church and State this month.

The first was when I went to vote in the New Jersey Primary, Part II.  In case you are not from NJ, we now have a new and somewhat weird primary set up.  For as long as I can remember, the NJ primary was the first Tuesday of June, following the first Monday.  Thus, this year it fell on June 3.  However, I guess some politicos decided that by having our primary so late in the primary season, NJ was having a lesser impact on the choice of national candidates.  For example, in this year’s Republican presidential race, it was all wrapped up months before the June primary, so the candidates would not have had any reason to really campaign much in NJ.  I believe that this was the first year that NJ moved its presidential primary to February; on Super-Duper Tuesday.  However, it was only the presidential primary that was moved, to give us more of a voice in the selection of presidential candidates, and not the primary for State and local offices.

Now, some people (I am one), do not understand this reasoning.  First, I have to believe that it is more expensive to have two primary elections than one.  In a State that is already too expensive to live in, why waste more money on having two primaries.  Either just have it in February or in June.  Now, which month to have it is another debate.  This year it could be argued that we had less influence on the Democratic Presidential Primary, because, being on Super-Duper Tuesday, the candidates had to divide their time among a lot of States.  I think NJ would have played more influence with its June primary, at least among the Democrats, because of the tight race between Obama and Hillary (please NOTE VERY WELL, I AM NOT endorsing any political party or candidate.  I am just commenting on the effect of the timing of the primary).  Of course, the June primary did not effect the outcome for the Republicans.  Therefore, I do not have a strong opinion for either February or June, just not two.

Now, all of that was basically just rambling.  This June 3, as a dutiful citizen, I went to vote in the largely meaningless primary (I think in both parties there was only one race contested).  But God wanted me to be there to be an instrument of His Grace.  As I was signing in, one of the poll workers said to the worker signing me in, “Ask Father.  He’ll know.”  I said, “Ask me what?” and the woman said, “Father, how would I go about getting baptized.”  We then had a nice discussion about baptism.  Neither she, nor her two children are baptized, and they would all like to enter into the Catholic Church.  I spent time talking to her about it, what it entails (RCIA, etc.), and then left her my card.  It is pretty amazing to think I went into the polling place largely thinking “what a waste of time,” and I left maybe bringing three souls closer to Christ.  God truly works in mysterious yet wonderful ways.  Blessed be His Name!

The next day I received some exciting news.  I have been invited by the Chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives to be a guest chaplain, leading the opening prayer for the House on July 16 (about 10 a.m. EST).  Over 26 years ago I worked as a Congressional Page in the U.S. House of Representatives.  It was an incredible learning experience.  My family has been friends with our congressman, Rep. Christopher Smith, since before he was in Congress (mom worked as his office manager here in the district after he was elected, and now my sister works for him as a case worker).  For over a year, his aide has been working at getting me the invitation.  I am pretty excited.  I need to start working on my prayer.  It has to be short (no more than 150 words), and not directly address political matters.  I have an idea or two floating about my head.  Of course I will post the prayer on my blog.

[Filippino Lippi, Madonna with Child, St Anthony of Padua and a Friar, before 1480 -- Tempera on wood, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.  Some readers may be wondering why I have entitled this homily as for "the Solemnity of St. Anthony of Padua," since in every Ordo and Catholic calendar it is listed as a memorial.  One of the benefits of being at a merged parish with a hyphenated name is that we get to celebrate two solemnities for our co-patrons.]

Today our parish celebrates the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, one of the co-patron’s of our parish.  Maybe one of the first questions that comes to mind is “Who was St. Anthony of Padua?”  One of the first surprises we learn about St. Anthony is that he was not Italian and not from Padua.  St. Anthony was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1195.  He was ordained a priest for the Augustinian Order at age 24, but after seeing the bodies of the newly formed Franciscans who had been martyred in Africa preaching to the Moors, he joined the Franciscans with the hope of becoming a martyr.  His missionary days in Morocco did not last very long, because of his poor health.  His superiors called him to Italy, where he became the first Franciscan to teach theology to his brothers in the Order.  St. Anthony was known to be an extraordinary preacher.  There is one story of his attending an ordination at a monastery when it was discovered that they had forgotten to pick someone to give the homily.  They asked St. Anthony, without any preparation, to give the homily, and all in attendance were amazed at the words, filled with the Holy Spirit, which came from his mouth.  His preaching demonstrated his great learning, but also his great gentleness.  Sadly, his health was never very good, and at the age of 36 he died in Padua, Italy in 1231.

Who is St. Anthony of Padua?  What I have already said tells us something about the facts of his life, and while this is a good starting point, just knowing facts about a person does not allow us to really know the person.  To know the person we must enter into a relationship with the person, and as we enter into a relationship with St. Anthony we see that the primary relationship in his life was his relationship with God.  This relationship with the Infinite Mystery defined his “I”, the very core of his being.

St. Anthony, a profound Scripture scholar, allowed his entire being to be formed by the Word of God.  In truth he could say, with the Prophet Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me….”  While he had his own plans and ambitions for his life, he always submitted them to the will of God.  He wanted to preach to the Moors in Africa and to die a martyr.  God called him to preach to Christians, mostly in France and Italy, including his only confreres in the Franciscans, and to die not a martyr’s death, but one filled with illness.  Yet in it all, St. Anthony took great joy in giving glory to God.

In one of his homilies, St. Anthony proclaimed, “The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages.  These different languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty, patience, and obedience; we speak in those languages when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others.  Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.”

As Jesus sent out the seventy-two other disciples in today’s Gospel, so He continues to send out His disciples to proclaim to entire world, “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”  As the Apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, where heard in many languages, so may we witness to Christ Jesus in the different languages that St. Anthony spoke of; the languages of humility, poverty, patience, charity and obedience by practicing these virtues in our lives.

We pray through the intercession of St. Anthony that all the members of our parish will be strengthened in their faith and filled with zeal for living our Christian vocations.

[The Calling of Saint Matthew, by Caravaggio. 1599-1600. Oil on canvas, 322 x 340 cm. In the Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.]

Often it is in a hospital room, doctor’s office, or maybe even on the battlefield, but the situation that the Prophet Hosea describes in today’s first reading is a fairly common one, “In their affliction, people will say: ‘Let us know, let us strive to know the Lord….’” In other words, when the going get tough people turn to prayer. The prophet seems to think little of such conversions that are born out of crisis.

Of course the prophet is not saying that we should not turn to the Lord in our times of need, but he is warning the people that they need to really get to know the Lord if they want to know the salvation and peace that He offers them. In a sense the Prophet Hosea is saying that we cannot treat God as some kind of vending machine where we just say a certain number or kind of prayers and God will give us whatever we pray for. This is why he is so critical of the Chosen People; “Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away…. For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.”

It is rather common when visiting someone who is sick, or is going through some other kind of crisis, to hear them say something to the effect of, “Father, I have been praying the Rosary everyday for the past month, but it still does not seem as if God is listening to me.” Or we get the down right silly; “Father, we have been trying to sell our house now for months. We buried St. Joseph upside down just as the kit said, but he does not seem to be working. Is there something you can do?”

So just for the record: I am not some kind of sorcerer. I did not attend Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and while I sometimes pray in Latin, I do not do any kind of incantations and have no magic wand. I am a Catholic Priest. I studied at a seminary so that I could learn more about God — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We call that theology. More importantly I have entered into a deeply personal relationship with God, and because of the special nature of my relationship with God, the Holy Spirit, through the anointing and laying of hands by the bishop, has left a permanent mark on my soul that gives me the grace to be able to act “in persona Christi capitas”, in the person of Christ the Head.

I say all this because too often, many people treat our Christian faith as some kind of magic. They think if they “do and say” the right things, or get the priest to “do and say” the right things, they will magically get what they want. This is the kind of thinking of the people who neighbored Israel at the time of the Prophet Hosea, which the Chosen People too often imitated. God was not someone that they entered into a personal relationship with, but just a ritual duty that they attended to at the proper time, or when they were in need.

Our readings this weekend make it very clear that this is not the faith that God calls us to, in fact it is not really any kind of authentic faith at all. God loves us in an intimately personal way. He wants to fulfill the deepest desires of every human heart, and He knows what will lead us to true and ultimate happiness. However, as a loving, personal God, He will not force Himself on us. We need to freely embrace Him and enter into the relationship that God invites us to.

This is what St. Paul is saying in today’s second reading from his letter to the Romans. He holds up the example of Abraham, our father in faith, who had such a personal relationship with the God who called him, that Abraham accepted as true what God promised him — namely descendants — even though from a strictly natural perspective he and his wife, Sarah, were well beyond the child bearing age. Abraham, through his personal relationship with God, knew that he could trust God. He had faith in God, and thus he was obedient to God.

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus recognizes a deep need and longing in Matthew’s, the tax collector, heart. Matthew, while despised by his own people, seemed to be living the good life. He had a lot of money, and a lot of power in that town. People feared him, even if they did not respect him. He had friends and was never wanting for a good party to attend. Yet deep down, there was a hunger in Matthew. All of his money, material possessions, friends and power where attempts to satisfy this deep hunger in Matthew’s heart, and they did succeed to a certain extent in distracting him from the deep desire of his heart, but they did not really fulfill this deep desire. Jesus in passing by recognized this deep longing in Matthew. The Gospel says that Jesus “saw” Matthew sitting at his post. When Jesus “sees” a person He sees their heart; the very core essence of their being. Jesus sees everything about the person; seeing them in a way that they have never been seen before. And in His compassion, in His love, Jesus says to Matthew “Follow me.” Jesus does not call Matthew to do a better job at following the Law of Moses, or even just the Ten Commandments. No, Jesus calls Matthew to Himself, to follow HIM!

A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, the Risen One, the ever-living God and Lord of Life and history. To be a Christian means more than following some rules. To be a Christian means following a person, Jesus Christ. Christianity is a relationship, a friendship with the one true God who has become Man in order to take our hands and lead us to everlasting meaning and life.

There is a famous painting by the Italian artist Caravaggio who lived in the 16th and 17th century, entitled “The Call of St. Matthew.” Matthew is seated at his post with a few friends around him, and Jesus is pointing towards him, calling him, and Matthew is pointing to himself as if saying, “Who? You want me?” One of the things that I love about this painting is that while Jesus is clothed in the garb common for a Jew of the 1st century living in Palestine, Matthew is dressed as someone from 16th or 17th century Italy. In this painting Caravaggio is not expressing the merely historical fact that Jesus called Matthew the tax collector. No, Caravaggio is expressing the fact as an encounter in the present reality. Jesus continues to see the heart of each and every one of us. Jesus sees past the distractions and addictions in our lives that we try to use to keep us from recognizing the deep desire of our heart. Jesus sees the real us, and He calls us.

How do we respond to this encounter with Jesus and His invitation to follow Him? After his life-changing encounter with Jesus, St. Matthew threw a dinner party, inviting all of his friends to meet this man who changed his life; who truly fulfilled the desire of his heart. St. Matthew did not keep his encounter with Jesus as a “me-and-Jesus” thing. He started to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with everyone, even if he did not fully understand all the “teachings” of Jesus. Having encountered Jesus’ love, Matthew wanted to share that loving relationship with everyone.

Wow! What a novel idea, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ in the context of a meal. Wait a minute! That’s what we do at each and every Mass. At the Mass we do not merely hear words about Jesus, we hear Jesus — the Word of God. We encounter Jesus in a deeply personal way, by receiving His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, and we encounter Him in the midst of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Actually we encounter Him as part of His Mystical Body. How awesome is that?

Then why do so many people seem to treat the Mass as something they cannot wait to be over? What do you have happening in your lives that is better than Jesus Christ, that you have to rush to your cars before the priest has even made it down the aisle at the end of Mass?

Jesus is calling you — YES YOU — to follow Him. Will you accept His invitation and enter into His Joy?