Fr. JC Maximilian

I know that I said in my last post that I would be away for a week on retreat.  That was more than two weeks ago.

The retreat was wonderful.  It was the third time that I attended the Communion and Liberation Priest Retreat.  This was the largest retreat yet; about 50 priests, including the Archbishop of Ottawa.  The theme of these retreats are that to be effective priests, one must first have to embrace one’s humanity.  It was a wonderful time to regenerate myself as a man and as a priest.

Of course I hit the ground running when I got back to the parish; I had a wedding rehearsal and a couple of people waiting to be anointed.  Last Sunday (well, actually two Sundays ago) was Mercy Sunday.  We have a remarkable woman in our parish who escaped slavery in Siberia, and then walked first to Israel and then to England before making her way to the USA.  She is Polish, and naturally has a great devotion to St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy.  She donated an image of Divine Mercy to the parish, and during the hour of Mercy on Mercy Sunday I solemnly blessed the image and led the people in praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  We had about 75 people there, which was great.

Last week was very busy with meetings almost every night.  Last Friday my Mother and I flew to St. Louis, MO to visit my sister Ann, her husband Kevin and their four children.  Their third child, Deirdre, made her First Holy Communion on Saturday, and since I gave first Communion to her older brother and sister, she wanted me to give her first Holy Communion too, which I did.  It was a very nice ceremony.  Mom and I are visiting here until Thursday, when we fly home.  This coming Saturday, my other sister, Jennifer’s, daughter, Moira, is also making First Holy Communion, and I am her godfather, so I need to be there for that too.  She is close to my parish; only about 75 minutes away.

After these two Holy Communions I thought I only had one more left; Ann’s youngest Declan.  However, Ann and Kevin told the family this evening that they are 8 weeks pregnant.  Of course we are all very happy, but also a little concerned.  First, Ann is 43, so more of a risk for miscarriage.  Also, Ann had a brain tumor removed last year.  It was benign, but it is the kind of tumor that the hormones shifts in a pregnancy can cause to grow.  They could not take all of Ann’s tumor out last year.  She had not had a migraine since the tumor was removed until 10 days ago.  Since then she has had a total of 5 migraines.  In addition to the normal prenatal care, she also needs to go for a MRI to see if the remanent of the tumor is growing.  Please keep her in your prayers. 

St. Gianna pray for us.

Dear Friends,

I will be going on retreat during Easter Week, so I will not be posting.  As readers of this blog know, several years ago I met the ecclessial movement “Communion and Liberation.”  For the past three years I have been joining a group of priests who are all involved with CL for a week of retreat.  The Spiritual Director of CL in the USA, Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete leads us in our retreat.  The past two years we had encyclicals by the Holy Father to reflect on during our retreat.  I am not sure what Msgr. will be talking on this year.  In addition to the spiritual time of renewal, we also have time to form fraternity with other priests, and we enjoy cultural events.  The first year I went we were in Emmitsburg, MD at the St. Elizabeth Seton Shrine.  Last year we were at the Jesuit Retreat House in San Jose, CA.  This year we will be in Philadelphia.  Please pray for the 40 or so priests that will be on the retreat.

When I get back, with the busyness of Holy Week past, I really plan to get back into making regular reflections on the book, “Is it Possible to Live this Way? Vol. 1-Faith”.  There will be an interruption when I go to St. Louis for my niece’s First Holy Communion at the end of the month, but we will get through it.

Rubens, "The Resurrection of Christ" 1612

HE IS RISEN! HE IS TRULY ALIVE!

Jesus, who was crucified, died and was buried, is now risen from the dead. Evil has had its way with God’s anointed, the Messiah. It did all it could to break down the courage and fidelity of God’s anointed Savior. It exhausted its arsenal of hate, injustice, humiliation, and pain. It fought an impressive, bloody fight – but God’s anointed came out victorious.

Jesus’ victory is irreversible and total. Everything that Jesus taught about how much God loves us and the glory of the Kingdom of God has been validated as being true by His resurrection. His claim to be God’s Son, to have authority to forgive sin and reestablish communion between God and man; His universal call to abandon self-centeredness for love of God and neighbor as the path to true happiness; His promise to give grace through a Church that will endure forever. All this has been confirmed by the Empty Tomb. Sin and death have been defeated. We have been saved from our sins and redeemed.

St. Augustine expressed his joy in the irreversible victory of the resurrection by exclaiming, “We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song!” He, however, recognized that there was something much more in this victory of Christ’s than just a reason to rejoice. The reality of the Resurrection brings the power of transformation into our lives. After experiencing the reality of Jesus’ resurrection we should become new people in Christ. When St. Paul experienced the Risen Christ he exclaimed, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).

So, has your lives been transformed – made new – by the reality of the Resurrection? Are all of us “Easter people”? If so, then what do we say about this week’s cover of Newsweek?

For those of you who cannot read it, the cover says, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.” Even our President, on his recent trip to Turkey, said that the United States is “not a Christian country.” Do we feel OK with that? I am not saying that we should be intolerant of non-Christians, but aren’t we suppose to be transforming the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ? In today’s first reading St. Peter, in speaking for all of the disciples says that “He (Jesus) commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” At the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel, right before He ascends into Heaven, Jesus tells His disciples to go, and make disciples of all the nations. At the end of each Mass this commission is renews when we are told to “Go in the Peace of Christ,” or to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

“We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.” Is that true for us, or is it just a nice platitude? When we say that Christ is Risen, and that Jesus is truly alive, do we really believe that or is it just some abstract saying?

JESUS IS ALIVE, HE IS REAL, AND HE IS PRESENT. The victory of Easter must transform our hearts and our eyes so that we recognize the presence of Jesus in our lives, right here and right now. We must see Jesus in all the events of our daily lives. We must witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ with our entire lives. People should know that we are Christians. We must be the channels of God’s love, mercy and grace in our workplace, in our marketplace, in our public square – in everyplace that we are. We must live the reality of Jesus’ resurrection every moment of our lives. Jesus is real and Alleluia must be the song constantly on our lips.

“Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men and women of light, filled with the fire of your love” (Pope Benedict XVI, “Homily,” March 22, 2008).

It was 3 a.m. on May 15, 2005 when first the beeper, and then the telephone started going off.  Like most people, I was not thrilled about being awaken with such a start.  I quickly got to the phone, so it would not wake up the other priests.  It was the hospital, like I knew it would be, and I heard the person say, “Father, someone on the fourth floor needs a priest.”  I asked them for the person’s name and room number, and was a bit annoyed when the person I was speaking with said they did not know.  I told him that I would get dressed and call him back in 5 minutes, so please have the name or at least the room number because I could not go through the whole fourth floor at 3 in the morning trying to find the person needing a priest.  When I called him back 5 minutes later, he told me he did not know the patient’s name, but it was in maternity.  I had never been called to the maternity ward, but my heart started beating faster because I knew it meant either a dying new mother or a dying new baby.

When I got to the maternity ward there seemed to be a silence even more profound than what would be typical given the time.  The nurse lead me to a room where a tiny baby boy laid in one of those clear plastic cribs.  There were several doctors and nurses gathered around this tiny baby, who was not crying, but rather struggling to breath.  Someone whispered in my ear that the baby was not going to make it, and the parents wanted the baby baptized.  I opened my sick call kit and asked for some water.  Then as I drew close to the baby, all the doctors and nurses also gathered around.  In the quietness of that early morning, they joined me in the prayers as I baptized and anointed that small, little baby who died not long afterwards.  A little later, I was taken to the parents of that little boy, and I prayed with them in their grief.

I guess I was at the hospital for about an hour, and when I got back to the rectory, I could not get back to sleep.  The prayers of those doctors and nurses, joining me in the rites of the Church was such a powerful experience.  While sad, there was also an sense of awe, a powerful sense of the divine.  It was not how I thought I would have started my first anniversary as a priest, but I could not have asked for a better way of celebrating the grace of my priesthood.

Today, Holy Thursday, is truly a celebration of the priesthood.  The only two Masses that can be celebrated today is the Chrism Mass (which Bishop Smith celebrated on Monday) at which the priests of the diocese renewed their priestly promises, and this Mass of the Lord’s Supper, commemorating Christ’s institution of the ministerial priesthood through His institution of the Eucharist.  It is appropriate for us to take some time to reflect on the meaning of priesthood.

If we look at the various cultures around the world we would find a variety of concepts of what is priesthood.  Often the priest is little more than a technician, trained in how to lead various rituals.  Often priests have the role of mediating between the worshippers and the divine.

Jesus came to establish a new priesthood.  In addition to being a teacher about the Kingdom of Heaven, and the mediator between us and God His Father, Christ Jesus was also the victim, offered up in sacrifice to redeem us from our sins so that we can share in the Divine Life.  As such, Jesus is the eternal High Priest; we have no need for another.  The priesthood established by Jesus is characterized by two aspects.  First, His is a priesthood not through inheritance, like the priesthood of Aaron, but rather through a call to consecration.  This call to be set apart for God, marks not just a part of His life, but Jesus’ entire life; His whole human self and existence on earth was marked by His consecration to His Father.  Second, Jesus’ priesthood exhibits a mission that is specifically pastoral; that is having the qualities of a shepherd.

We are all called to participate in this priesthood of Jesus.  There are two ways in which we participate in Jesus’ priesthood; the universal priesthood of all the baptized, and the ministerial priesthood.  Both draw, in distinct ways, from the Redemptive Incarnation of Christ Jesus.

The mission of the universal priesthood of the baptized is to worship in spirit and truth, and to offer spiritual sacrifices.  These spiritual sacrifices are not only for the benefit of all Christians, but for the benefit of the whole world.  As Jesus witnesses in His entire life, particularly in His sacrificial death on the Cross, to the Divine Life and Love, all the baptized in their common priesthood are also called to witness to this Life and Love with the entirety of their lives.  Those doctors and nurses who joined with me in prayer for that tiny baby boy was living their priesthood to the full.  Not just by their prayers, but by the service of their particular vocations to those in needs.  We are all called to live our lives in holiness.  This does not mean necessarily doing special things, but rather doing ordinary things in a way that witnesses to God’s love for all of us.

The ministerial priesthood, which Fr. Mick, Msgr. Ron and I share, is entrusted with a pastoral mission.  To us are given an authority which empowers us to proclaim the Gospel, celebrate the Eucharist, forgive sins, and lead the community of the Faithful.  It is a pastoral mission of service, not privilege.  At each celebration of the Mass, the ministerial priest takes up the prayers “in spirit and truth”, and the spiritual sacrifices of the entire community of Faith, and offers them to our Heavenly Father.  In acting in the “person of Christ the Head” the ministerial priest makes present the Body and Blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, the spiritual food which gives us a share in the Divine Life so that we can continue to bare witness to Christ in the world.

In just a few moments we will re-enact the event of tonight’s gospel reading; the washing of the Apostles’ feet.  While the Apostles are consecrated to participate in the ministerial priesthood, it is important to note that in tonight’s gospel passage they are referred to as disciples.  Why?  Because they first participate in the universal priesthood of the baptized, of all those who have faith in Christ Jesus.  It is a reminder that we are all called to serve Christ and His Church.  We serve by our compassion for the poor, the homeless, the despairing.  We serve by witnessing to the love of Christ as the motivation for all of our actions.  We serve by making spiritual sacrifices, and worshipping in spirit and truth.  We serve by humbling clinging to Christ Jesus, “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  In our participation in the Eucharist, we unite ourselves to  the One, Eternal priest, Jesus Christ, and we give thanksgiving to God, the source of all goodness.