2020 Mar Reflections

Homily of Friday, March 27, 2020

While we Americans are very proud of our individualism, we like most people, prefer the herd. The herd is a lot safer. And the herd is often right. But there are dangers to that. As we see in today’s first reading (Wisdom 2), it’s dangerous to be different. It’s dangerous to be singular. Yet the great Saint Bernard of Clairvaux once said that to be a saint is to be singular. To be a saint is to be different. We are called to be saints, after all. The herd is safe. The herd, at its best, aims for respectable mediocrity, and certainly in our more recent period a lot less than that. Many things we do call and have always called sinful, evil even, are accepted, and we know this. And to go against the herd is a difficult thing, a dangerous thing. We were called to be something much more. Even respect is a dangerous thing, and what we think people think about us can inhibit us from being the people we were meant to be, to be the saints we were meant to be. I think that kind of a reality is more of a cause of a lack of holiness in the church than even grave sin. Sin we repent of. Mediocrity, timidity, cowardice, even respect – it is hard to change from that. It is part of our nature as human beings, as social animals. We have this season of Lent to reflect upon who we are and how we should live: if we are following the Lord, or following the herd. We should follow the Lord. As a great French writer once said, “There is only one sadness, not to be a saint.”

Homily of Thursday, March 26, 2020

This prayer of Saint Ephrem the Deacon is used extensively in the liturgy of the Eastern churches throughout Lent. It is the “Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephrem.” Ephrem was a deacon from Syria. He wrote many sermons, poems, hymns which are also used in the Eastern church, and some in our own. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XV. Saint Ephrem died in 373 AD. This is the prayer that is used extensively in the Eastern church, and embodies the spirit, the true spirit, of Lent:

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me
the spirit of sloth, faintheartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to your servant.
Yes, O Lord and King, grant that I may see my own errors and not judge my brother,
For blessed are You unto ages of ages. Amen.

Homily on the Feast of the Annunciation (Wednesday, March 25)

Human beings like to plan and plan big. Over 12,000 years ago, before we lived in villages or cities, human beings built a huge temple complex in southern Anatolia, what is now Turkey, and we’ve never stopped, although some of our ambitious plans have had to be put on hold for the moment. And yet the most significant accomplishment of a human being was made possible by a 14 year-old girl who simply said yes, having no real idea what that meant for her life. It was enough for her that it was something God wanted, that God had planned.
God plans differently from human beings. From the horror of Jesus’ human passion and death comes human salvation. God can bring amazing good out of what appears to be the mundane or even evil. A month or so after two of our senior students were killed in an auto accident, the mother of one of them said she was astounded by how much good had come out of that tragedy. We are in the early stages, or perhaps the middle, of a worldwide calamity right now. God certainly did not bring this upon us, and yet somehow some great good can come out of it. It is all about how we respond to it, what we learn from it and put into practice.
            Mary’s response to the angel’s almost unbelievable message was to believe and trust. That was her attitude all through her life, from  fleeing into Egypt, from losing and finding her child in the temple, to his leaving her home as a widow to undertake the life of an itinerant healer and preacher, to his presence at a wedding where they ran out of wine, to seeing her son condemned, executed and raised. How could she understand, other than it was God’s will, God’s plan and she had a place in in it? May we understand our place, and may we trust and believe as she did.
 

Homily of Tuesday, March 24, 2020
 
            Today, both the Old Testament reading and the Gospel relate to water and the Temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel sees a vision of water that originates from the Temple, going East, getting deeper and deeper, allowing for fruit trees in the middle of the desert, and eventually even changing the Dead Sea into fresh water capable of supporting life. In the Gospel, Jesus sees a sick man at a healing pool near the sheep gate, immediately north-east of the Temple mount. Jesus asks him if he wants to be cured, and he explains that nobody is there to put him in the water. Jesus then cures him. Like the water in Ezekiel’s vision, Jesus restores a goodness the natural world was lacking. A chapter earlier in John’s Gospel, he had offered living water to a Samaritan woman he met at a well. Here, He shows that He is Himself the source of life and health, and the water he gives is living water because it comes from Him. In short, he can Himself be identified with the living water. When we are baptized, we are baptized in water and the Holy Spirit, but also in Christ, the living water.
            Interestingly, the archaeological remains of the pool mentioned in the Gospel were found just outside the Church of St. Anne, built at the traditional childhood home of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and dedicated to Saints Joachim and Anne, her parents. Mary has a special role in Salvation History as the Mother of God. In the words of the Nicene Creed, Jesus Christ came down from heaven and “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became Man.” This is so important that we bow our heads when we say it. Like the Temple in the vision of Ezekiel, Mary is the person from which the living water, Jesus Christ, enters the world and fills it, ultimately transforming the world and healing it through his death and resurrection, which we will commemorate in a particular way in two and a half weeks, but also re-present at every Mass, even if our participation is imperfect due to social distancing. It is particularly fitting to reflect on Mary’s motherhood today because tomorrow is the feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel visits Mary and she truly becomes Theotokos, the Mother of God.
            In these times of fear and pandemic, it is particularly important to turn in prayer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, and ask her intercession that the living water of Christ may restore the world to health, as he healed the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for 37 years. Salus Infirmorum, ora pro nobis. Our Lady, health of the sick, pray for us.

Homily of March 22 (4th Sunday of Lent)
Readings: Samuel  16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Eph. 5: 8-14; Jn. 9: 1-41
 
In today’s gospel, Jesus meets a blind man and cures him. He does this by spitting on the ground, kneading it with dust, and spreading it over the blind man’s eyes. He then tells the fellow to go and wash in the pool of Siloe. (Ancient therapeutics attributed healing powers to spittle, so this isn’t as odd as it may sound to modern ears.) The blind man obeys, returns able to see and there’s a terrific commotion. First the healed man is brought before the Pharisees who challenge him rudely. Then he’s taken to the high council where both he and his parents are questioned in a confused and tiresome series of hostile exchanges. Through all this he courageously defends the authenticity of his cure. (I like this guy.) A miracle appears clearly before the interrogators’ eyes, but they refuse to see it. What’s worse, they wrap it in obscurity so that no one else can either. Finally the cured man is thrown out of the temple with the brutal reprimand: You were born totally in sin and are you trying to teach us?
 
When Jesus hears that they have thrown him out, he finds the man again. After a brief exchange it is as if the man’s eyes are opened a second time. He recognizes Jesus as the Son of Man, and falls to his knees worshiping him as his Lord. Jesus turns to those present and says: For judgement have I come into this world, that they who do not see may see, and they who see may become blind. With these words Jesus powerfully unites this incident and its meaning with the whole of his message and works.
 
Seeing is far more than a passive event. To see, to perceive, involves receiving a person or an event into one self. To see things as they really are is to lay ourselves open to their influence. If fear or aversion moves us to avoid or to obliterate them, our powers of distortion are released to do their worst. Finally we become incapable of perception. In effect we have blinded ourselves. This process lies behind every enmity, such as we saw in today’s gospel. Especially in the face of the clarity of God such bias lurks within us. The more it is a question of our eternal destiny, the more decisive our will becomes. Seeing is a vital. Our will is profoundly involved. And our will harbors countless preconceived judgements. So our Lord reveals himself not by simply teaching truth, but by coming to us personally, as he did twice to the man born blind. To him whom he gives the grace of sight, he gives himself. For this reason, to really see the Lord is to accept him, to worship him, as did the man he cured. And the more pliant we are in our willingness to receive sight, the more our capacity for perception grows. The truth and beauty of the Lord draw us ever more deeply. This is the prize of God’s upward calling in Christ Jesus, described by St. Paul (Phil 4:14).  Our perception is nourished by what it sees. We find ourselves aspiring to see more with each increase in the divine riches revealed to us.
 
When Christ appears, his word separates people into two camps: those who know themselves “blind” yet are eager to see and those who think they “see” but turn their backs on the truth. Our afflicted inner eye is in need of healing. We “see” in a way that remains worldly and stricken. Particularly now in a time of contagion, we pray for healing and that the Lord will enable us to see and recognize him in the many ways he comes to us, and calls upon us, each day. Without his grace our sinful “blindness” can become fixed within us, finally prohibiting us from ever seeing the road back to the soundness of true contrition.
 
This this Lent especially, Christ comes to us.
His healing is pure grace.
It is not founded on our worthiness, but creates it.

Homily of March 21 , Feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict

Today we celebrate St Benedict, who died on this date in 547, it is believed of a fever. But he died at a time when the plague of Justinian was ravaging Italy. We might pray to him for protection during this time.
 
In preparing for today, I discovered an ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XII ON ST. BENEDICT,
FULGENS RADIATUR, dated March 21, 1947, 1400^th anniversary of St Benedict’s death.
He wrote:
 
“Like a star in the darkness of night, Benedict of Nursia brilliantly shines, a glory not only to Italy but of the whole Church. Whoever considers his celebrated life and studies in the light of the truth of history, the gloomy and stormy times in which he lived, will without doubt realize the truth of the divine promise which Christ made to the Apostles and to the society He founded "I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world."
 
“All the classes of society, if they studiously and seriously examine the life, teaching and glorious achievements of St. Benedict, cannot but fall under the influence of his gentle but powerful inspiration; … even our age troubled and anxious for the vast material and moral ruins, perils and losses that have been heaped up, can borrow from him the needed remedies. But before all, let them remember and consider that the sacred principles of religion and its norms of conduct are the safest and soundest foundations of human society; if they are disregarded and compromised, everything that promotes order, peace and prosperity among men and nations, … gradually collapses.”
 
“There is another lesson and admonition given us by the holy Patriarch of which our age stands so much in need - namely, that God is not only to be honored and adored but must be loved as a Father …. Charity has indeed grown cold and lies dormant so that very many seek things of the earth rather than things of heaven; whence conflicting strifes give rise to frequent quarrels and foment distrust and bitter enmities. Since (God) is the author of our life and from Him we have received numerous gifts it is our strict duty to love Him ardently and to direct and give ourselves and all we have to Him. From this divine love fraternal charity towards our neighbor should arise, which will lead us to consider all as brothers in Christ of whatever stock or nation or culture. Thus from all nations and from all the classes of a country there will arise a single Christian family whose members will not be divided by exaggerated personal interests but will cooperate with each other harmoniously and in friendly wise.”
 
Saint Benedict, Pray for us.
 

Brief homily given to the monastic community on the Feast of Saint Joseph, spouse of Mary (March 19)
 
Joseph, according to the gospel, was a just man, a man who lived by God‘s law. He was obedient. He did what he was told to do. He was completely at the service of Jesus and Mary. He is silent. His work is to do, not to preach. He was chaste. May he pray for us, monks, to be obedient, to serve Jesus, to be silent, and to be chaste.

March 18, 2020

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, whose memorial we celebrate today, was a bishop of Jerusalem in the 300’s, way back in the time of (when the church was) only just beginning to plumb the depths of the mysteries of our faith that Jesus left us. Twenty four of his homilies were collected after his death…, including a catechesis, one of the earliest collections of what was understood at that time about the mysteries of the faith. One of his homilies contains the following words about transubstantiation, which were very beautiful: “Jesus once in Cana of Galilee turned the water into wine, akin to blood, and is it incredible that He should have turned wine into blood? When called to a bodily marriage, He miraculously wrought that wonderful work; and on the children of the bride-chamber (Matthew 9:15), shall He not much rather be acknowledged to have bestowed the fruition of His Body and Blood?  Wherefore with full assurance let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ…” (quoted here from newadvent.org, Catechetical Lecture 22).

March 13, 2020

When you came in today, you probably noticed the holy water fonts were empty. This is one of several changes that we are making to the liturgy to avoid the potential dangers of spreading diseases to each other. In addition to not having holy water in the fonts, we will not be distributing communion under both kinds, would ask that you avoid any greeting that involves contact during the sign of peace, in other words don’t shake hands, and ask that you receive communion on the hand.
 
In addition, the diocese issued a statement yesterday, and I would like to invite all of you to look it up, but will read out the first point. The bishop writes, “Masses throughout the Diocese of Providence will continue to be offered at this time. However, in light of the serious health crisis caused by the coronavirus, the Diocesan Bishop hereby dispenses Catholics in the Diocese of Providence from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass beginning immediately and continuing through Sunday, March 29, 2020. Members of the faithful who are sixty-years of age or older, particularly those with underlying health conditions, are especially encouraged to take advantage of this dispensation.”
 
Again, everybody is dispensed from attending Sunday Mass, and those who are 60 years of age or older, especially those not in perfect health, are encouraged to take the dispensation. I would also point to the various recommendations from the CDC and state of Rhode Island that encourage avoiding large gatherings, washing hands, and isolating yourself if you are sick, especially from those who are most at risk, which, again, is anybody above 60 or with an underlying condition. It is important that we consider this carefully even if we do not know anybody who is sick. Viruses spread exponentially. If one person is sick, and at the end of one day, he gets one other person sick, then after two days, each of the two people who are sick get one more person sick, so there are 4 sick, then 8 after three days, by the end of 33 days, the entire world would be sick even though no individual person had infected more than 33 people, and only the population of a small town would have been infected by the end of 15 days. In other words, this can spread very quickly, and social distancing is an indispensable part of preventing that spread.
 
So what do you do if you take the dispensation, or what can you do while isolated from people? You can make a spiritual communion. After watching a Mass that you can find on the internet or television, instead of receiving communion, while desiring it, say the prayer of spiritual communion by St. Alphonso Liguori: “My Jesus, I believe that you are in the Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I long for you in my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though you have already come, I embrace you and unite myself entirely to you; never permit me to be separated from you. Amen.”
 
In addition, pray and do penance, as we are always called to, especially during lent. We do not directly cause things like viruses and pandemics, but through our sins, through our eviction of God from the garden of our hearts, we separate the world from the perfection God calls it to. The only way to heal this is through prayer and penance.

Homily of Sunday, March 1, 2020 (Lent I)
  
Since the time I was a little boy I have been aware that the Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Lent is the story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan. While I would like to say that I have this awareness because of my deep spiritual instincts which I have nourished since childhood, during which time I meditated upon the gospel and the sermons preached by my pastor. While I would very much like to say that, the truth is that I remember this Gospel because back then my Sunday missal had a particularly vivid picture  for this Sunday, a picture of Jesus and Satan having an animated conversation on top of the temple; at least Satan was pretty animated. And Jesus was quite composed and reverent as you’d expect him to be, being in His father’s house and all, and he looked surprisingly clean and refreshed for having just spent 40 days in the desert. In the picture, anyway, Jesus made resisting temptation look easy. But Jesus was indeed tempted to sin, to say ‘no’ to God and His ways. Now from the Gospel of Matthew, as well Mark and Luke, we learn that just before Jesus was tempted by Satan in the desert, He himself was baptized, and the Holy Spirit visibly descended upon Jesus to “inspire” him, to begin his public mission and ministry. Then right away that same Holy Spirit impels him to go into the desert…the desolate and silent world around him  the world which Jesus must transform and redeem, and which will fight him and try to distract him every step of the way.
 
There is a great truth there. It has certainly been true of my spiritual life that at every growth stage there is a tempting choice put in front of me, a choice to quit or to turn in another direction, a real opportunity presented to obtain a big self-centered something, like the woman I was always attracted to who paid me no mind, as I told you, until I was accepted in the monastery, when suddenly she became very interested in me. God will never tempt us to sin; God can only test us. When God allows us to be tested …and he will… it is intended to make us better. When Satan tempts us, it is intended to drive us away from God and our ultimate good. When God tests us, He actually invites us to get closer and rely on Him during that period or trial. Not only does God test what he loves and creates, but Satan tries to destroy whatever God loves and wills. In Jesus’ case in the desert that we hear about today, Satan does not know just who and what he is dealing with. The first temptation was to turn stone into bread. In other words, the temptation to satisfy one’s appetites, to accumulate more of the stuff of the world,  like money, wealth and property. Satan tempts Jesus human appetites, just where he got Adam and Eve and gets so many others even today. But he fails. This was also the temptation to the Children of Israel wandering  in the desert. They wanted that God provide them bread. Only then would they would believe and follow. Bread didn’t work, so Satan then tempts Jesus’ will to do Gods work by worshipping Satan, who can prevent his suffering… because Satan does have power in this world. This is a temptation to use power and influence for one’s own glory. He tempts Jesus with power, because Satan has been able to accumulate great power through accumulating human cooperation. But Satan fails again.
 
The third temptation was for Jesus to perform spectacular act that will motivate people to follow him because of his special effects and not because of his message of truth and mercy. This is a temptation for prestige and honor to take a splashy short cut because Satan knows that short cuts cut short what God wills. He fails again. So Jesus banishes Satan for the moment, but as the Gospel of Luke puts it: “he departed from him for a time,”  meaning that Satan did not give up; and he will return. This Gospel reading today is not illustrating  just one moment of temptation Jesus faced. From this point on, right up to his crucifixion,  Jesus could have given into those temptations. The devil never sleeps.
 
It is not fashionable to say so today, but Satan, the personal power of evil, is real. It is not some creature with horns, a tail, hooves and a red suit. Satan is a powerful spirit of negativity. That day when sin and evil entered the world, the story of the first reading today, whenever it was and however it happened in fact, was a good day for Satan and a bad one for us, whoever since then have known the evil of death. From ancient times human beings have recognized that. Evil always attempts to destroy, to break what is good and whole and holy. For example, in the sacred myths of the Hindus, evil spirits always try to disrupt the sacred rituals and sacrifices. I know many people who believe in God and who are quite comfortable believing in subatomic particles that we only know from the tracks of their motions. Yet many such people cannot believe in the power of evil personified as Satan, despite all the tracks he leaves of his motion and effects in the world. Disbelief in Satan and the failure to recognize him helps him accomplish his destructive work.
 
Jesus clearly recognized him. And Jesus passed all the tests in the desert, inspired with his own confidence and knowledge and love of his Father, he breaks into the world to pick up where John the Baptist left off. John the Baptist had preached a Baptism of repentance, of turning away from sin and evil and doing good. Jesus preaches not only this, but something new: the good news. The kingdom of God, God’s active control and government, is at hand, meaning it is happening right here and now, the present and future, forever and ever; in Palestine 2000 years ago and in Portsmouth, RI in 2020. 
 
This is the time of fulfillment. Our time, this time – of Jesus’ human life given up for all of us – and the time of own short individual human lives lived for God through the way each of us are called to love through Baptism. This is the time of our fulfillment. Through the justification earned for us by Jesus Christ, through God’s grace and mercy, we begin to participate in the body and the work and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We each become a new creation, elevated above the chaos of our craving natural selves and are reformed into inspired quasi-divine selves, destined to become like the God who became one of us. That is a pretty awesome destiny. Lent is the time when those preparing to be baptized at Easter receive their final instructions and formation to become new creations. But it is also the time for us who have already been baptized to follow the Spirit and retreat back into our silent deserts and be reformed in our faith, love and hope.
 
By practicing self-denial, prayer, and performing works of charity we can in fact separate, that is distinguish, the work of our body from the work of our spirit to bring to our consciousness what the Spirit is doing and can do in our lives. Satan and Sin is an obstacle, but it only has the power we give it. Jesus Christ reconciled the sometimes sinful, more often obtuse disciples to one another and to the Father, and that is what he can do for all of us this Lent. He can make us all new creations…again and again.  It is God’s plan, and it is no longer a secret. But the Lord never promised us an easy life, only a meaningful life. God does not give us an easy journey but only a safe arrival.
 
Send forth your spirit, Lord,
the same spirit that drove Jesus into the desert,
and we shall be created again…
and you shall… you will renew …
the face of the earth,
the face of our Abbey and School
the face of our nation and world,
and the face of my own life.