Lent - Day Six - Sheep and Goats

Gospel
Matthew 25:31-46 ©

I was naked and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All the nations will be assembled before him and he will separate men one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.

  ‘Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.” Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”

  ‘Next, he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.” Then it will be their turn to ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.”

  ‘And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life.

I awoke on Sunday after a night where my bed had a tendency to spin merrily as I lay upon it as the vino projected its effects and wound me up for the morning's hangover.  The coffee pot was my savior that morning.  Everyone was around the fire which was burning low and the Master was enjoying a breakfast of figs and grapes. I sat down after claiming coffee and a hunk of bread, this was the most that my body would be able to accept.  A wise man once said, "The man drinks the first wineskin and the second, but the third, the wineskin drinks the man."   I felt that I was living proof of that wisdom. 

A man wandered into our camp.  He was dirty and disheveled and it was apparent that bathing was not his habit.  His eyes held the look of madness and I could not imagine how he had come here in this oasis in the middle of the desert.   I felt a tug at my heartstring for the man who was looking longingly at the great amount of food that was on display. My companions took no notice of the man, it is as if he were invisible to them.  They kept their eyes on the Master and tended to His every want.  I noticed that the man hand no sandals and his tunic was worn to a frazzle.  No one in the camp paid him any attention.   I got up and went to my collection of belongings.  I took out a pair of new sandals, a tunic, one of my best, and I approached the stranger and presented them to him and asked him to please accept them as a gift  He looked at me and tears formed in his eyes.  He said that this was the first kindness he had experienced in a long, long time.  I took his hand and set him in my place and gave him some of the dates and figs, and bread along with a large cup of water which had just been drawn from the well and was ice cold and he ate and drank and I was pleased to see him become more human as the food gave him energy and new clothing gave him dignity.  I bent down to ask if I could get him more food or drink and when he turned and looked at me,  I saw that it was the Master's face. 

Reading The Fine Print in The Gospel

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
"Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.  
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants

who owed him a much smaller amount.

He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,

'Pay back what you owe.'

Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,

'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

But he refused.

Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison

until he paid back the debt.

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,

they were deeply disturbed,

and went to their master and reported the whole affair.

His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant!

I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.

Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,

as I had pity on you?'

Then in anger, his master handed him over to the torturers

until he should pay back the whole debt.

So will my heavenly Father do to you,

unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart."

The truth is simple, by Christ's death on the cross we were forgiven of our sins and on that day the gates of heaven swung open wide to admit believers into the bliss of eternal life with God in heaven.  This is truth in its simple yet glorious form, and God will certainly keep His end of the bargain.  

Do you remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the first version with Gene Wilder?  At the beginning of the tour of his candy factory each child had to sign a contract. The contract started with huge print and as it cascaded down the wall the print got smaller and smaller until it was minuscule.  The words, no matter how large or small all formed the basis of the agreement between Willy and the children. God does not use fine print in His contract with us, but we as humans tend to read the "good" things and gloss over the things that obligate us.  

It is true that we are forgiven.  The sins we commit against the dignity of God are forgiven as soon as we confess them.  We, in turn, are expected to forgive our fellow humans for what they do against us.  I can hear them coming now, the "buts."  Some of us are willing to forgive everyone except him or her or this group or that group because the evil that they committed against us was so great.   Those of us who are "But" people are in a whole heap of trouble because we are the unforgiving servant in the reading above and as you can see, it does not go well for him 

Forgiveness is the one selfish thing we can do that is approved by God.  When we forgive someone who has hurt us deeply, we are accruing graces through that righteous act and we are making our soul more God like in its attitude and outlook and we are doing something good for ourselves.  By forgiving even the biggest grievance we have against another, it becomes easier to forgive the smaller things and our life and our serenity is not disturbed as much by the thoughtless acts of others.  We also become more thoughtful ourselves and gain greater ability to put ourselves into someone else's shoes and in doing this we are offended less. Forgiving is a win/win situation for us while not forgiving is a lose/lose. 

God could not make his desires any clearer, but He does repeat Himself so as to make sure we have the opportunity to absorb the requirements he has placed upon us. 

1.  "Father forgive them, they know not what they do"
2.  "Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times."
3.  "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us"  
4.  “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”
5. So watch yourselves. “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.”
6. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

So, I think it is easily seen that forgiveness is one of the most important parts of being a Christian.  The word "but" cannot be used to absolve us from this duty.  It is NOT easy for us to forgive everything.  The word everything encompasses evils that are unimaginable in their scope.  Can we forgive Hitler for the Holocaust? We have to!  Can we forgive Stalin the millions of people he killed? We have to.  Forgiving is not approving what a person has done. The judgement against the Hitler's and Stalin's and bin Laden's of this world will be rendered by God, not by us.  We need not and should not approve what these people have done but we should leave it to God to mete out what payment these evil people should receive. No, it is not easy to be a Christian, if done right, being a Christian will always cause at least a little inconvenience in your life as you look deep inside yourself to see where you and Christ are most alike and where you are not.  Forgiveness is a habit and like all habits, it becomes easier the more you practice it.  When someone offends you, just think of Jesus on the Cross and what He said, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do.   There is no law saying you can't use those same words is there?

PLEASE PRAY FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY. PRAY FOR YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY OF COURSE, BUT DON'T FORGET THE FORGOTTEN SOULS WHO HAVE NO ONE TO PRAY FOR THEM.  

Watermelon

"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;   
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest."

My Dad was a good man. He had two missions in life, the first was to take care of his family and the second was to tend his garden.  His garden was his pride and joy.  He grew beefsteak tomatoes the size of a clincher softball and his radishes were huge.  I love tomatoes, not so much the radishes. Every day during the summer he would come home from work and immediately go out to work in the garden.  One year, he had me and my two sisters plant some watermelon seeds in a patch of ground between the sidewalk and the neighbor's fence line, a space of about eight inches.  The three of us became gardeners for the rest of the summer.  We watered the little patch, made sure no weeds grew and carefully took care of the plants that would produce these wonderful watermelons.  It was getting close to the start of school. The parish carnivals had come and gone and still no watermelon.  We continued to tend the plants and one day, there they were, three watermelons had appeared where just that morning there had been only the promise of fruit in the future.  We were amazed.  Dad had us harvest the three melons, each just big enough for one child. Using a magic marker he placed our names on the melon and we carried our precious product to Mom who put them in the refrigerator to chill down.  The melons made a wonderful desert that day at dinner time.  

Our reading today is about the lack of workers tending the fields of our heavenly Father.  There was a time when a parish had three, four, or even five priests to take care of the local Catholic community.  I remember as a kid, going to Saturday confession and all four of the confessional boxes were in use. There was also a time when in a family if a boy or girl felt called to a Christian vocation, it was a matter of great pride for the family and they young people were encouraged to listen to the voice of the Lord.  

In contrast, I look at what happened to me when I announced that I felt a calling to the religious life.  My family let out a collective yawn and did not exactly encourage me.  Well, I went and tried religious life and as you know, after two years, I returned home.  I think back on those days, which were some of the richest and most joyous days of my life surpassed only by the day I married the lovely Mary my wife and partner in life. But, I wonder if I would have stayed had I received any encouragement from the home front?   This was in the 70's, a time when the Church was experiencing growing pains as we tried to unravel the wisdom that was Vatican II.  We still are working through that council.  

Today, some parishes are served by a single priest who divides his time among several parishes.  In parts of the United States deacons celebrate communion services on Sundays using communion consecrated by the priest that comes once a month.  People in these areas are dying without receiving the anointing of the sick or Viaticum.  We truly need more workers in the field. 

Some solutions are presented, for example, women priests is one thought.  The Church points out that both men and women have different jobs to do.  The role of the priest is reserved to the male of the species.  This is something that will not change.  We are told that we lack priests because of the rule of celibacy that they take on, that it is too hard for a man to live his life without the comfort of a woman to accompany him on the journey.  This is a discipline of the Church and it could be changed.  But, are the people in the pews ready to take on all it means to have a married clergy? A married clergy means that the priest will need to make a living wage so that he can take care of his family.  This would mean the weekly collections would have to go up so the parish could support a priest and his family.  The poor parishes would be at a disadvantage because they would not be able to afford to maintain a priest and his wife and a couple of children.  To be sure, there are already married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.  They have come over from Episcopal Churches, returning home to Rome.  They have been welcomed into the Church and have had their priesthood confirmed and they celebrate the Mass and the Sacraments as they enjoy the comfort of a family to accompany them.  

I do not know the answer to the lack of priests and religious in the Catholic world today. What I do know is that we have to encourage our young people to consider a religious vocation and we need to do it from an early age.  When I was growing up, there was no real talk in our home about the Church, we did not share family prayer and as a matter of fact, my father or mother did not go to church on Sunday, only us kids were sent to sit with our class at 9:15 AM mass. 

Jesus gives us the formula as to how to solve this crisis. He tells us to pray that the master of the harvest to send more workers out into the field, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  So, reserve just a little bit of your prayer time to pray for vocations.  Do you remember Mother Angelica on EWTN telling you to put her between your phone and electric bill, well when you pray put a prayer for our young people to answer the call of God between your prayers for Aunt Bertha and her bunions and Uncle Frank and his need for a job.  We need more priests, nuns, brothers, and deacons and we will get what we ask for and the harvest will be greater if we can encourage those with the call to listen to the voice of God as He calls them forth. 

Feast of the Visitation

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

Brother Michael the Lessor TOR
He had a dream...
October 1976 - Feast of St. Francis

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: 

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever."

Mary remained with her about three months

and then returned to her home.

Those that know me, know that Michael the Lesser is a fugitive from the monastery.  That's me in the picture above, mugging for the camera.  I was Brother Michael TOR.  I still own the cord that's around my waist and the crucifix, which was a gift to me from Brother Ambrose who was my boss at the mission goods store where I was assigned to work, hangs on the wall in my living room.  Those were two years that I would not trade for anything. They were hard years in a way because you were living in a small community and little petty things tended to grow in importance and little annoyances became major issues.  But, for the most part, it was a good life. I remember one day I was cleaning the sacristy and took a couple of old rugs out to beat.  As I came out of the house onto the back porch, I saw the sun glowing through the trees in the and in the distance I heard a crow cawing and it was a moment in my life where everything was in line, everything was perfect, and those moments, I have learned, come few and far between.  

As brothers, we said the daily office. In the morning was Lauds, and if you ever wanted to know what a cacophony sounded like, come and listen to twenty-four late teen and early twenty-something men try to chant in the morning.  After dinner was Vespers and the best hour of the day was Compline or as it was sometimes called, night prayer.  There was a rhythm to the day and it was punctuated by these times of prayer.  What used to annoy almost all of us is that Compline started promptly at ten o'clock, the same time that the news began.  Father Pat could give a rat's patoot about that, we never started Compline late.  

But, it is Vespers that I want to mention today.  Part of Vespers is the Canticle of Mary which is the reading at Mass today. For two years my evening featured this beautiful prayer that was said by our Blessed Mother when she visited her cousin, Elizabeth.  I got to really, really love this part of our daily public prayer.  If you read through the prayer you will begin to understand who Mary is.  Protestants say that we worship Mary.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Mary would not approve of our worshiping her.  She always points the way to Jesus.  She had just been chosen to be the very Mother of God and she does not puff herself up with pride, no, she begins her prayer with the words, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord."  She at once shows her great humility.  Mary speaks very little in Scripture, but when she speaks, she points the way to God. 

On this great feast day, my fondest hope is that I can imitate Mary in her great humility.  There never has been anyone who could claim to have any greater honor.  The old Ark of the Covenant has been replaced by the new and the tabernacle of Israel was now a virgin mother who carried inside her who would be the very Bread of Life for us. 

There are those that think that our prayers to Mary somehow diminishes Jesus.  Nothing can be further from the truth. Mary brings our prayers to her Son.  She pleads for us to get another chance.  To us, she always points to her Divine Son and she is quoted as saying, "Do whatever he tells you to do."

In all things, we are called to imitate Christ.  We are to imitate His love for the poor, for those who are in distress and we are to imitate Him in loving His mother.  Scott Hahn, a convert to Roman Catholicism, says that if we admit that Jesus lived a perfect, sin-free life, then we have to admit that He never even one of the ten commandments.  He goes on to say that if this is true then Jesus honored His father and His mother perfectly.  Further, if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, then our spiritual mother is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We, in imitation of Christ, give her the same honor that her Son gives to her.  Honoring Mary, therefore, takes nothing away from God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. So, if you have a problem with honoring Mary, please talk to Jesus, He is the one who started it!  

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. (1)   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Footnotes
(1) These are the words of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary when she agreed to become the Mother of God.  It forms the first half of the prayer called "The Hail Mary"

Watch Out What You Pray For

Jesus said to his disciples:"Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

Okay, I will admit it.  I have a hard time understanding this bit of scripture.  I, myself, have prayed in the name of Jesus and have not received what I prayed for.  To prove to you how long standing this problem is let me tell you what happened to me in the fourth grade.  We had learned in third grade that the Blessed Mother, Mary, had been assumed into heaven, body, and soul and was with Jesus, in heaven in the flesh.  In the fourth grade, I had the bad luck of being assigned to the classroom of Mrs. R. Reid, one of three lay teachers that taught in the hallowed halls of Saint Joseph and Saint Ann School in the Brighton Park neighborhood, southwest side of Chicago, in the 60's.  I think that Mr. Moreset, the janitor, had more teaching ability in his thumb than Mrs. R. Reid had in her whole body.  For some reason, we did not get along.  She failed to understand that I had no interest in jumping through hoops for her and providing homework for her to grade, especially homework that involved that devil's curse, "The New Math." I was constantly on her "S" list because of her complete lack of understanding.  One time, when she received the news that the math homework assigned the previous day, alas, was not going to make an appearance in her inbox, she smiled a devilish smile at me, and after stationing a snitch to write the name of people who talked while she was gone, she left the classroom.  Whilst she was gone I earnestly prayed for her to be assumed into heaven, just like the Blessed Virgin Mary. I figured it was a double win. She would get to experience the happiness of heaven without having to die and I would be rid of her once and for all and without me having to pray that she be killed by a lightning strike.   I figured if this assumption business worked once, Jesus could do it again and spare me a lot of trouble. Alas, it wasn't to be and to make a long story short, I was the subject of an impromptu parent - teacher conference attended that very morning by my mother, Mrs. Reid, and the beloved principal of our school Sister Victoria.  My prayer had fallen on deaf ears. It was not answered.  Well, I know now that it was actually answered but the answer was, "No."  

Asking things of God is a good thing to do.  We are encouraged to approach God and ask for what we need.  Our wisdom does not approach that of God's wisdom.  God will grant our every request, of that we are guaranteed!  But if this is so, why didn't Mrs. Reid float up to heaven on that lovely winter day so very long ago?  It is because God knew that removing that particular obstacle for me, while it would cure a current craving, it would do no good in the long run. Thus, Mrs. R. Reid stayed with her feet on the ground and bit by agonizing bit Michael learned the joys, as best as he could, of the New Math. My prayer to God, like all prayer, is asking our Father if He loves us.  His answer is always a big, "Yes" even if we interpret the answer received as a big, "No."

We must be alert to watch for the answer to our every prayer. In life, we most likely have received answers to our prayers that we did not recognize as answers to our prayer.  We have to keep in mind that God WILL do for us what is in our best interest. 

On this memorial day weekend, please spend a moment or two thanking God for those who have served in our military, putting themselves in harms way so that we might enjoy the freedoms that we have.   

Confirmation - Then and Now - Still Making A Difference

It was the 1970's and the Church was just starting to come out of the Kumbaya, I'm OK You're OK era. The cool breezes of Vatican II stirred the embers of the old Church as the reforms flooded onto the fertile ground of Holy Mother Church. 

These needed modern   reforms were mis-understood and in the attempt to become more relevant the Church shot itself in the foot. This is simply because the changes instead of being rolled out carefully with the due diligence that the old Church was famous for they were poured out like water on an unsuspecting class of believers. The average adult believer became a victim of shell shock as it seemed that the old practices that everyone was comfortable with were gone in a flash. 

Into the arena steps our hero, a twenty something young man who left his secure job at a well known mid western bank, taking his retirement fund, his whole capital of eight hundred dollars and he joined the Third Order Regular of St. Francis of Penance in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He suffered through a very cold winter and in the summer he was transferred and became Brother Michael TOR a novice in the order at the Sacred Heart Monastery in Winchester VA. The lad really grew up in this the springtime of his life. He learned to cook, how to run a retreat house, shoveled manure,worked with what were called back then the mentally retarded and he taught a class of seventh graders enough religion at a little church in Pureseville VA. 

This last job, teaching the seventh graders at St.Francs de Sales Church was among the most rewarding things I ever did. There are a hundred stories I could tell about this job that was foisted upon me but suffice it to say that I could see in those youthful faces the future of the Church. Teaching them was a real pleasure. The big day arrived and the bishop (I don't remember his name) arrived early as did I and we sat down with the Franciscan Conventional Friar (again I cannot remember his name) and ate supper together and the conversation turned to teaching youth and of course here is novice brother Michael telling a bishop just what "we" could do to improve the religious education of youth. He was very polite and did not tell me to shut up, I guess that why he was a bishop, he WAS trained to overlook stupidity.

Today as part of the St.Mary of Vernon choir,some forty years removed from my experience with that class of wonderful kids, I will be singing at our parish's confirmation mass today where another class will take their place as young adults in the Church. It is so different today.  I remember when I was confirmed, there was memorization of facts from the Baltimore Catechism and endless class time spent on what it meant to be confirmed. We were to be soldiers of Christ. Today, thank God, the kids get some practical experience as to what that means. At our parish they are required to put in time doing service work, giving practical application to the book knowledge that they have to attain as well.  

Confirmation for the class of 2016 will give these young people's faith wings. Maybe a good percentage of them will stay active in the Church and take up the burdens that become to heavy for people to carry as they age. I believe that in yesteryear the confirmation classes were the last bit of Catholic education a young person would receive if they did not go to a Catholic high school and college. I think that the classes of yesteryear, through no fault of their own, did not get the benefit of using the book knowledge that they had attained and it became just another class to be taken. 

The future of Catholic Church is being built brick by brick with each confirmation class that we matriculate. Eventually the Kumbaya, feel good years will become a distant memory and the young adults that are confirmed today will help the Church bring the spirit of Vatican II into being in the Church. When that happens, look out, good things will happen. There will be a Renaissance and the Church will become stronger and able to meet the future head on.  Like it or not the Catholic Church is the only thing that stands between us and completely Godless, pagan society. The denominations are slowly sinking into depravity in order to keep themselves relevant. The Church on the other hand still continues her mission of speaking the truth and pointing the way to the narrow road.  The youth we confirm today will be our future. May God guide and keep them.  May God also forgive the old fool who writes these words for being so weak for so long. I cry out in a loud voice; Come Holy Spirit Come!"    

We Are One Body - How To Live A Saintly Life

One of the joys in my life is music. I love to listen to it and I love to sing it.  I am a member of the St. Mary of Vernon Choir and I look forward every week to singing at Mass. This does present a bit of a problem.  I do not read music very well so I am a bit timid when I am the lone tenor at Saturday evening Mass. It is really a lot of fun for me when other tenors present.  Jerry and Todd, two of our expert tenors make it look so easy and as they are "singing in my ear" the notes on the page seem to come alive and I have a better time of keeping with the group.  This is First Corinthians 12 in action! 

Yesterday I wrote how the Catholic Church formally canonizes those people she considers as worthy examples for us to emulate in living our life. But what can you and I do as people in the real world to become a holy person? 

First let's define what a hole person is. A holy person need not be a religious person. As a matter of fact I know some religious people that are not living a holy life (forgive me for judging them.)  A holy person is a person that is whole.  Their whole being is turned to God.  They are hopelessly in love with God and do not want to turn away from him. This burning love to God is a hallmark of a holy person.  Well, I hear you say, that lets me out.  Not so fast there good buddy. You don't become a whole person overnight, it takes a long time.  For some of us it will take to our last breath and that is okay. A holy person is a person that is making the attempt to be better.  So you probably are on the way to becoming a holy person. Here are some things that we have to accomplish to complete on our journey.  Consider it our bucket list to heaven.

• PRAY.  Prayer is the beginning to establishing a relationship with God.  It is also a simple thing to do. Talk to God like you are talking to a friend.  After a while, perhaps years, you will realize that you are doing all of the talking. That is okay but you may realize that a relationship where one does all of the speaking can be improved. 
• LISTEN.  When we realize that God may have something to say to us we will try to listen.  It is NOT an easy thing to do. When you quiet your mind and start to focus on God events of the day, issues you are dealing with, outside distractions will tend to intrude. That's okay. Chase them away.  Be kind to yourself, do not be discouraged.  At the start if you can be in absolute silence of mind and focused on God for thirty seconds, then consider that a success.  Be faithful.  Talk to Jesus every day and after you have had your say, quiet your mind and try to listen for the voice of the Lord.  If you were able to do ten seconds one day, try for eleven seconds the next time you pray. Slow and steady progress is what you strive for.
• ACTION.  The word Christian and Catholic should bring to mind action. Prayer is good and is heartily recommended but we must be people of action.  As Mother Theresa once said we must be willing to do small things with great love.  Christian action can be as simple as helping a child tie shoe or giving a cold drink of water to a man on a hot day. In other words your actions do not have to be earth shaking. We are presented with dozens of events over the course of a week where we can be Christ to another person, watch for them. 
• CONFESS.  End every day with a brief examination of conscience and an act of contrition. Once a month walk into the confessional and confess your failings. The Church only requires you to go to confession once a year. Would you take a shower once a year?  Would you wash your car once a year?  Would you scrub your floor once a year?  No, each of these things are routine maintenance items. Confession for some reason terrifies some people so they do not go to confession.  When I was a kid we went every week and the priests would be available for three hours on Saturday afternoon and there was always a line to get into what Edith Bunker, Archie Bunker's wife in the 70's sitcom All in the Family, "Telephone booths to God."  I don't know why confession has fallen out of favor today. Maybe people don't sin anymore. But confession will give you graces that will help you to defeat sin and you will have a fresh start. 
• COMMUNION.  Go to communion every chance you get. We can get no closer to Jesus on this mortal earth than when we take Him into us, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.  When you take communion Jesus is truly present in you.  Talk to Him, do not ignore Him.  He wants to hear your needs, your apologies to Him, your praise.  He gave us this great sacrament as a sign of His ever loving care for us until He returns to bring us home. 
• FORGIVE.  This is very important and for some of us it will be very hard. But when you say the Our Father we ask God to forgive us our sin as we forgive those who have sinned against us.  When my mother passed away my heart was filled with rage against the doctor that mis-diagnosed her and indirectly caused her to die young.  I carried that rage inside of me for six long months. During that time I was also in a deep depression. Had that doctor stepped in front of my car I would have done my best to run her down, and this is not a joke.  One day on my way to work I passed a Catholic Church and a thought entered my head. I realized that the Blessed Sacrament was only yards away and brick and glass could not shield me from His love. I knew at that moment what I had to do.  I had to forgive.  When I did my depression left me and the rage I felt was replaced by a deep seated feeling of peace.  Since that time it has become impossible for me to hate anyone.  Would I eat lunch with that doctor? No, I do not hate her, but I also realize that she is one of God's beloved children and I have no right to hate her. So when I released my hate and rage, God granted me a deep peace. So forgive your enemy, you will be doing yourself a great favor. 
• PRAY FOR THE POOR SOULS.  It is a fact that most of us will not make it directly to heaven. There will be imperfections on our souls that will need to be scrubbed away before we will feel that we can enter heaven. Once in Purgatory we can no longer help ourselves. We have to wait until we are ready for heaven or our time can be cut short because of the prayers of the people still alive for us.  If we pray for the poor souls and if we pray even one soul out of purgatory and into heaven, he or she will not forget us when we are in need. 

I think that if we do these things we will begin to enjoy heaven right here on earth because we will have stepped outside ourselves and shared the love that has been showered on us by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

May the light that is Christ guide you this day and this week. 

How To Become A Canonized Saint

Sainthood - is it for me?

What is it that God wants of us? What is closest to His heart? What dream does he dream for us?  

God's fondest wish for us is to be with Him in heaven forever. He wants to share the perfect happiness that we mortals cannot even begin to understand how very wonderful it is!  That is why we are on earth.  Okay, then the question becomes if God is so gungho for us to be with Him in heaven then why did He place us on earth?  Well, go back to the very beginning. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Paradise, which I've always thought of as kind of an earthly type of heaven where everything was perfect. He put us there because he wanted to see if we would want to be in relationship with Him by our own free will.  Well, we know how that turned out.  Using our free will we turned away from Him and he immediately planned and began to implement our return to relationship through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. 

The people who have died in God's friendship and live with Him in heaven are called saints. The media latches on to the Church's formal recognition of certain people as having lived heroic Christian lives through canonization. The last one you may have heard of was the canonization of Father Junipero Serra, the missionary that helped bring Christianity to California. There are literally thousands of canonized saints that have been enrolled by the Church.  But does that mean that only those that the Church recognizes and has canonized are in heaven? Certainly not!  Besides the thousands of canonized saints there are untold millions of people, men and women just like you and I that have lived holy lives and are with God in heaven. The point here is that there is nothing more glorious than a soul entering heaven to be with God forever and nothing so sad and forlorn as a soul that through a life wasted on rejecting the Father's friendship ending up in a place without God.   I believe that we will be welcomed with great joy into heaven by Jesus and the Saints, all of them!  

Okay, let's say you are the type of person that only wants the best/ None of this anonymous sainthood for you. You want the full treatment and full recognition of the Church that you lived a life worthy of being emulated by the faithful.  How do you go about it? Well, I could spend some time discussing canon law but I won't. Here in layman's terms is a rather whimsical view of how get your life recognized as being saintly.

The Canonization Process – Very Simplified

So, you want to be a canonized saint.  Make 

sure you put this document with your will so that your heirs will know what to do.  The most important thing is that you be dead, so take care of that first.  Then make sure your heirs do the following:

1.       WAIT FIVE YEARS.  Candidate has to have been dead for five years.  This is to allow time for “cooler heads to prevail. It allows more objectivity. 

.       GET YOUR FRIENDS TOGETHER. The cause is started in the diocese where the candidate lived.  A promoter group, for example the parish, religious congregation, or pious association asks the bishop to open an investigation. The bishop asks Rome who sends a letter of “nulla osta” or “no impediment” and a tribunal is formed.

.      PRESENT THE FACTS and WRITE ‘EM UP and GET ‘EM TO ROME. The tribunal calls witnesses to recount the facts of the candidates life and how the candidate exercised Christian virtue especially; prudence, justice, temperance, faith, hope and charity. Documents are gathered and sent to Rome, to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.  If the Candidate has made it this far, he (she) is entitled to the title “Servant of God.”

       WIN THE ELECTION. The documents and evidence are examined in Rome by nine theologians. If the Servant of God gets at least five votes the congregation presents the results of the Pope who will give his approval (or not) and authorizes a public decree which is publicly read and distributed.

.       PERFORM A MIRACLE. For beatification a miracle, verified after his (her) death is necessary. This miracle is investigated and if it is shown to be a miracle, a decree is read. The candidate is now called “Blessed.”

   PERFORM AN ENCORE. For final canonization another miracle occurring AFTER his beatification.  It is investigated as was the virtues and first miracle were and the matter is sent to the Pope who can make the final decision if the Blessed candidate is to acquire the title of Saint.  

There you have it!  It is a simple and straight forward process and you will really get to  know who your friends are if they stick it out.  Oh, I almost forgot - you should make some provision to pay the expenses involved in the process.  Here is what you should allow for:  

For decoration of the Basilica, lights, architectural designs, labor, and superintendence — 

Lire 152,840.58 

Procession, Pontifical Mass, preparation of altars in Basilica —  Lire 8,114.58 

Cost of gifts presented to Holy Father —  

Lire 1,438.87 

Hangings, Sacred Vestments, etc.

Lire 12,990.60 

Recompense for services and money loaned — 

Lire  3,525.07 

To the Vatican Chapter as perquisites for decorations and candles Lire 18,000.00 

Propine and Competenza    (unforeseen expenses)                            Lire 16,936.00      

Other incidental and unforeseen expenses —  

Lire   4,468,40 

Total Lire 221,601.05

Total US 1913 Dollars        $42,816.87

Lawyers and Documents     $20,000.00

Total US$                            $62,816.87                                                                                               

Grand total in 1913 US$    $62,816.87   which is approximately 

$209,601.05 in 2010 dollars.

Let's remember, too, that prices may have gone up since 1913!

This whole process can and in some cases has literally taken hundreds of years.  The church is very careful who she canonizes as a saint.  There are a lot of rules that are not mentioned here, for example a "devil's advocate is appointed who brings out the less savory incidents of your life, if he can find any. 

This may be irreverent but I think of canonized saints as those that made the All Star team, and are people we should imitate and respect.  Remember too, that for every canonized saint there are thousands of millions of saints that for whatever reason did not go through this process.  The total number of saints in heaven is known to God alone.  I hope you will be the first human to count them all when you get to heaven.

Sentimental Christmas

About twenty centuries ago there occurred in a little sleepy town called Bethlehem an event so improbable that it defies belief.  It is said that one night the God who created the universe came to earth to live among His people.  It happened on a day that was otherwise unremarkable as people went about doing their daily tasks.  Not to far away on the Temple Mount priests were offering sacrifices to the God. That night God humbled Himself and took on our human body with all of its limitations.  The God who created everything was now dependent on a young girl, said to both virgin and mother. 

We sentimentalize God's coming to earth and sometimes through it all we forget to contemplate what this meant for us.  The first lesson taught by the Nativity is humility. Look at it this way; Fulton Sheen describes it as if you yourself loved dogs and you wanted to improve their life so you became a dog and took on all of the characteristics of a dog and in the end they turned on you and tore you apart. 

Yes, the Nativity is a beautiful feast day but we have to remember  it is the first step on a road that leads to the Cross.  Does this cast clouds on our joyous feast?  No, because we rejoice in the humility of our God.  After His birth he spent the next thirty three years teaching us how to live.  He live the early part of His life in complete obedience to his human parents. He spent the last three years of His life breaking Himself open and showing us how to live with one another. 

So, a Merry and blessed Christmas to you and may this day plant the seeds of peace and mercy in our land.    

Christ The King - Can I Say it Better than John?

Jesus Christ is The Faithful Witness,
the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the Earth,
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood,
who has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father,
to him be glory and power forever and ever Amen.
Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him,
All the peoples of the earth will lament him.
Yes. Amen.
"I am the Alpha and the Omega." says the Lord God,
"the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

On this the last Sunday of the Church Year, I silence my voice, put down my pen, and adore the King of Glory.