Santo Subito!

Reading about Pope John Paul II’s upcoming beatification reminded me of an entry I had written in my journal back in 1980 describing his visit to Boston the year before. Though my memory of the day is foggy, I suspect I took some liberties in describing the event. In fact, I distinctly remember that my grandmother would not let me take a bath when I got home because she claimed it would make me sick. The part about some black guy pushing me into the mud also sounds suspect. Anyway, the uncorrected, unexpurgated entry dated October 1, 1980 follows. The picture below is from a much later encounter I had with His Holiness after my deaconate ordination in 1991.




I remember being in Boston Common a year ago today literally soaked to the skin trying to listen to the pope’s homily. There was no way we could keep dry because if you put your umbrella up to protect yourself people would complain because “they can’t see his holiness.” I tried to listen to the pope’s homily but there was this lady next to me who was praying out loud and saying amen to everything the pope said. It was finally drawing near the end, the experience was great but the conditions worsened my attitude, and I had gotten in line when this black guy cuts me in line, makes me lose my balance, and fall right in the mud. I got up fast and told my mother that we should skip communion before we get killed. When we got home the best feeling I ever had was that hot bath I took. If the pope ever returns to Boston and it rains then I’m staying on the bus.

Stunning but True

I wasn’t sure what to say or how to react.

We hadn’t seen in each in well over ten years when I bumped into her at the hospital. So the talk naturally gravitated to our children. Hers are older and are already having children of their own. However, her youngest had just lost her baby five months or so into the pregnancy.

“How awful,” I replied. “You must have been devastated.”

“Well,” she said, “if the baby had been born, the doctors said she would not have lived long and would have needed to be on a feeding tube. So they decided to have a medical abortion.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“We called a priest to baptize the baby,” she continued, “but he refused to do it. That’s the kind of thing that turns people off to the Church.”

She must have sensed from my blank look and silence that I was stunned by what she had told me.

“I guess you can see both sides of it,” she said and decided it would probably be better to change the subject

I was indeed stunned because she and her family are well meaning people whom I thought should know better that we do not put children, babies or the unborn “ out of their misery” because of their disabilities. Instead I was brought face to face with a reality of life in our society - some ninety percent of unborn children diagnosed in utero with down syndrome, spina bifida, hemophilia or cleft palate are aborted in the United States and Europe. We might not want to frame it this way, but we are deciding that only perfect little babies should be allowed to live.

In India and China, much the same dynamic is taking place. For several decades now it has been a common practice for couples to abort unborn female babies. These sex selective abortions reflect the strong cultural preference for sons. It is creating a widening disparity between the number of men and women in those countries meaning that very many men will never be able to marry and raise a family.

The reality of sex selective abortions puts the lie to the claim that abortion is a woman’s rights issue. If women who behave rarely make history, we can be sure that women who are aborted never make history.

Arizona recently passed a law prohibiting abortion based on a fetus’s race or sex, reflecting the growing number of immigrants from countries where these practices are common. It would have been interesting if they had also criminalized abortions against unborn children diagnosed with disabilities. The law might not have passed as easily, but it would have sparked an interesting debate and made it much harder for the pro-abortion lobby to deny that they are interested in purifying American society from “undesirables.”

I don’t want to sound insensitive to couples who receive the news that their unborn child has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome or spina bifida. It must be heart wrenching. However, they deserve better advise from their doctors than to terminate the pregnancy. They deserve more options than abortion and the physical, emotional and spiritual toll it takes on couples. And they deserve to have their unborn child treated with the same dignity and care as the healthy unborn child of the fair skinned couple in the next room.

Today is the feast day of Saint Gianna Molla. When pregnant with her fourth child, she learned that she had a fibroma. Rather than undergoing a hysterectomy which would have resulted in the death of her unborn child, she chose to have the fibroma removed. After the surgery she continued to experience intense pain which she suffered bravely until her daughter was born on April 21, 1962. Gianna Molla died seven days later. She was recognized by all who knew her to be a woman of tremedous courage and faith, and was canonized as a saint by the Church in 2004. May she and so many other women who have foregone treatment to spare the lives of their unborn children be an example to us of the dignity of all human life.

Easter Prayer

My grandmother has some beautiful old Portuguese prayer books. One in particular, O Relicario Angelico, or The Angelic Reliquary, offers this moving prayer in honor of the Resurrection. I have taken some liberties with the translation to modernize it.


O my sweet Jesus, may your Holy Name be forever praised.For, after the storm clouds of your most holy Passion followed the serene calm of your Glory, and the night of your sorrows, tears and death gave way to the joyful day of your wondrous Resurrection.

For this great mystery I offer you my gratitude and praise because You died for our sins and rose for our justification. And you desired that those who took pity on you and shed tears over your cruel passion and death should also rejoice in your glorious Resurrection with you and with your most holy mother, who, according to the measure of her past anguish and sorrows, received the consolations and joys of so glorious a day.

What words would be sufficient to worthily declare the ineffable joy that her heart received when she saw you gloriously risen? The darkness of your passion was transformed into beauty,the humiliation into glory, the wounds into glorious splendor. Victor over death and redeemer of life, you triumphed over hell and brought peace to all of heaven and glory to the universe.

Therefore, I ask you, King of Heaven and Earth,the one who glorifies and redeems me,
that I take such joy in your wondrous Resurrection so as to also rise with you and share your risen life.

My God and only good, detach my heart from all the things of earth, fix it on the things of heaven so that I may live with You Who are my true Paradise. Make me forget and hate all the pleasures, vain comforts and earthly consolations that separate me from your service and love, and grant that I may not die in sin so that through your mercy I may rise gloriously in body and soul and reign with you forever in your glory. Amen.

Easter Joy!

Today is the day of Easter joy!

Over the past 40 days, we have prepared ourselves through sacrifice and prayer so that we could renew our baptismal vows with deeper commitment and embrace the wonder of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. In particular, over this past week, beginning with Palm Sunday, we have delved into the mystery of Jesus' suffering and death. We learned that we have a God who does not abandon us to sin, suffering and death, but a God who suffers along with us and offers us the hope of redemption.

This God continues to be alive and active in our world. Whenever a person changes, leaving selfishness behind, God's hand has moved. Whenever good comes out of evil, God is at work. That is the power of the resurrection continuing to act in the world over two thousand years later.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has the power to transform lives. We see it in today's readings in the person of Simon Peter. When Mary Magdalene tells the apostles that the body of Jesus is not in the tomb, both Peter and John race to the scene. John reaches the tomb first. When Peter finally gets there, he is cautious, not knowing what to make of the empty tomb. John, however, knows right away what's going on. Because John looks at the situation through the lens of love, he sees and believes.

Now, let us go back to the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. We find a much different Peter. He is no longer cautious, but proclaims in bold and uncompromising language that Jesus is the Son of God and that He is risen from the dead. What has caused the change? Nothing less than Peter's encounter with the Risen Jesus. Over the next few weeks up until Pentecost we will read in the gospels how the Risen Jesus appears to Peter, forgiving him for denying Him, and challenging him along with the other apostles to leave fear behind and proclaim His resurrection to all people. Meeting the Risen Jesus transforms Peter from a timid and cautious man to a bold witness of Jesus who would eventually be given the courage to lay down his life for the gospel.

If we were to look around this church today, we would find people here who have been transformed by their encounter with the Risen Jesus. There are people here today who were sick, but found strength and hope through the prayers of others. There are couples here today who struggled in their marriage or with their children and through the gift of faith were able to work toward a resolution of their problems and, so, strengthen their relationship. There are people worshipping here today who doubted and weren't sure what to believe. They searched different faiths and researched exotic philosophies in their quest for the Truth. Finally, by the light of the Holy Spirit, they came to believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

So, how do we encounter the transforming power of the Risen Jesus? One way is through reading the Bible. The Bible is the word of God. Whenever we read the Bible, we can be assured that the Risen Christ is speaking to us. We also encounter the risen Christ through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. The bread and wine will become the very body and blood of the Risen Jesus. Receiving the Body and Blood of Christ is a transforming encounter with the Risen Lord. Every time we receive it in faith, it has the power to change us in a deep and permanent way.

Our liturgy will continue this morning with the renewal of our baptismal promises. We will reject sin and profess our belief in the God who saves. And, with that new commitment, we will receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, a life-changing encounter with the Risen Lord! We need not be cautious like Peter, waiting to see what happens. Instead, like John, we can look on the marvel of this day through the lens of love and believe in the power of the Risen Jesus to change us and to change our world.

Jesus Enters Into His Rest

Today Jesus is resting from His labor of love and redemption.

Just as the Father rested on the seventh day after creating the heavens and the earth, so Jesus sleeps in the tomb after recreating us.

We must spend this day in quiet, then. If we had a guest in our home who was still asleep when we woke up or a child who had just drifted off into a nap, we would move quietly to avoid disturbing them. So we must observe this day in silence so as not to disturb our Lord in His rest.

We also need to rest, to catch our breath from our observance of this Holy Week and from the rigors of our Lenten journey. We need to rest from the long proclamations of the passion on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, from the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, from the hour that we spent keeping watch with the Lord and from walking the stations of the cross.

And we must rest in anticipation of the feast to come when our Risen Lord will be welcomed into His Church with candles, singing and the pealing of bells, when catechumens will be baptized, confirmed and given their first Holy Communion, when we will renew our baptismal vows and when the Spirit will rush into us anew empowering us to live for the things above, not the things below.

It is good for us to keep silence today. But it is not the silence of humiliation and defeat. Rather it is the silence of burgeoning life. It is the silence the roots make when they pierce the shell of the seed underground. It is the silence of the giant before he is aroused. It is the silence of musicians queuing themselves to sing a new song. It is the silence of our new life stretching its limbs and yawning. It is the silence of a Church and her Saviour about to fling open the doors and go out into the world to preach the good news that Jesus has conquered death.

For You and Me

Jesus, I don't know what your death means.

I'm afraid to die. I'm afraid to let go of this life and its pleasures. I fear the ridicule, rejection and pain which you endured for me.

I know that to be your disciple I must live by the cross that saved me. But, I also understand the fear of the apostles who betrayed, denied and abandoned you. I understand Pilate's confusion and desire to wash his hands of the whole mess. I understand the blood-thirst of the crowd calling for Barabbas' freedom and your death. I understand the Pharisees' suspicion of you. I understand the soldier's making fun of you. They were used to kings who ruled by the sword, not by the Spirit.

It's you that I'm not able to understand.

Your death turns everything upside down. How can we believe in such a weak God? How can we trust that a God who didn't save himself would ever be able to save us?

Yet you showed that, through the whole ordeal, you were in control. You assured your disciples, "I have the power to lay down my life and to pick it up again." Why didn't you come down from the cross, then? Why didn't you show them up for the hypocrites and fools they were? That's what I would have done. I would have protected myself. I would have shown my power. I would have let them know whom they were dealing with. Everyone would have believed. No one would have doubted me. Fear and awe of me would have bent their hearts to my will.

Ah...that's it. You want to rule our hearts not out of fear but out of love. You want us to give our hearts freely to you, not snatch them away from us.

Oh Jesus, how could you ever love us after what we did and continue to do to you? How could you ever believe that a crowd that humiliated you, spit on you and tore you to pieces could ever have it within them to love? Yet, you bet your life that at least some of us would understand and believe.

Jesus, I don't know if I can love the way you love. I don't understand why this all had to happen. I can only look up at you with gratitude. I can only marvel at the love God has for such people as we are.

(image by Georges Rouault)

Reflections on "Spy Wednesday"

It is a question I hear often during this time of year.

Did Satan know that Jesus’ death would redeem the world?

Though Scripture does not address this question specifically, we can assume that he did.

On the road to Emmaus, Jesus told Cleopas and his fellow traveler that the Hebrew Scriptures foretold that the Messiah would have to suffer and die. Also, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus predicted His death and resurrection three times to the disciples. If Jesus expected His disciples to know and understand the redemptive meaning of His death, we can assume that Satan knew as well.

Inevitably, the next question I’m asked is, “Then why did Satan not try to stop it?”

First of all, one thing we have to understand about Satan is that his malice is greater than his intelligence. That is, his desire to do evil overwhelms his rational powers, as considerable as they may be. In the case of Jesus’ death, the devil took so much delight in seeing the Son of God rejected, tortured and killed that it made him forget the meaning of Jesus’ sacrifice.

It is the same experience we have, for instance, if we decide to drink too much even though we know we’ll be sick the next day. Satan fed off the bloodthirsty crowd and became inebriated by the orgy of hate he incited. It made him powerless to give any thought to how all this would ultimately result in his undoing.

Secondly, Satan saw in Jesus’ suffering and death an opportunity to destroy the apostles. What would Jesus’ death mean if there were no one left to announce it? Always on the prowl to poach souls, he had already corrupted Judas and came close to leading Peter along the same path of despair. He hoped to sow enough discouragement in the apostles that they would abandon Jesus altogether. And, along the way, he could cement hate into the hearts of the religious leaders, Roman authorities and all those who got in line to insult, spit at and strike the Son of God.

Finally, Satan was ultimately powerless to prevent the crucifixion even if he had wanted to. Jesus clearly tells His disciples that He is laying down His live freely. He is no victim in this barbarous spectacle. It was all preordained before the creation of the world for our salvation. No power in heaven or on earth, besides God Himself, could have put an end to it.

We should never forget that Satan is furiously plotting our ruin. He is extremely dangerous because, like a cornered animal, he knows he is beaten and has nothing to lose. However, his efforts are futile. Christ will reign forever, and we with Him, if we take up our cross and follow Him. That is the true meaning of these days of torture and triumph.