5/2/2014 – Friday of 2nd week of Easter - Memorial of St Athanasius – Bishop of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church – Psalm 27

      When I was looking over the readings for today, the first verse of today’s psalm was what spoke to me: “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?  The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?  We can speak those words and believe in them, but as human beings, we are sometimes afraid, we sometimes don’t put all our trust in God the way we should.

       The saint we celebrate today is perhaps one that is not well known to us.  He certainly isn't a household name.  St Athanasius was Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt in the fourth century for 45 years – that is a very long time.  Alexandria was one of the great centers of Christianity and of learning in the ancient world.  It was a great center of both Judaism and Christianity.  Yet, during that long time he was bishop, different emperors sent Athanasius into exile 5 different times.  More than six years of that time of exile was spent in the desert.  He also had to flee Alexandria 6 additional times when he feared for his life – interesting in the context of today’s psalm.  Athanasius is one of that select group of 35 men and women who have been named as a Doctor of the Church for their contributions to spirituality, theology, and Church doctrine.  Athanasius was active in the fight against Arianism, a belief in the Church that saw Jesus, the Son of God, as subordinate to the Father.   The writings of Athanasius were important to the way our understanding of the Trinity developed in the early Church.  One of his quotes about Jesus as God is this: “Jesus that I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God.”

       There may be times in life when we also be faced with various challenges in living out our faith and in proclaiming God’s world, when we may truly be afraid of what is threatening us.  In our quest to live out our faith and to put our trust in God, may St Athanasius and the other saints serve as inspirations and as examples for us in our lives of discipleship in the modern world. 

4/30/2014 – Wednesday of 2nd week in Easter – Act 5:17-26

      We hear a very vivid account from the Acts of the Apostles today, about how the Angel of the Lord help the Apostles escape from prison in order the them to proclaim the Good News of Jesus in the Temple area.  Indeed, the Lord can call us to proclaim his message in the very different circumstances, especially as they are based upon the realities we face in our lives. 

       Today, we celebrate the feast day of Pope Pius V, who was pope in the late 16^th century for 6 six years. He was born to a very poor family and worked as a shepherd until the age of 14, at which time he entered the Dominicans.  As pope, Pius saw his main objective as the continuation of the massive program of reform for the Church, in particular the full implementation of the decrees of the Council of Trent that occurred after the Protestant Reformation.  While pope, he published the Roman Catechism, the revised Roman Breviary, and the Roman Missal.  He declared Thomas Aquinas a Doctor of the Church, commanded a new edition of the works of Thomas Aquinas, and created a commission to revise the Vulgate.  The decrees of the Council of Trent were published throughout all Catholic lands, with Pope Pius insisting on their strict adherence.

      We practice our Catholic faith in the realities we face as followers of Christ. The realities of the Early Church and the realities that Pope Pius V faced posed there own challenges and particularities.  Today, we are faced with the challenges of globalization and secularism.   Pope Francis and Pope Benedict challenge us the faithful to evangelize and announce the Gospel with great enthusiasm and joy.  May we face the challenge of facing of proclaiming the Good News of Christ in the context of the reality we face. 

5/1/2014 – St Joseph the Worker – Matthew 15:34-38

         In Communist countries throughout Europe, May 1 was traditionally celebrated as the Day of the Worker.  To put the worker in the context of our Christian values, Pope Pius XII established the feast of St Joseph the Worker in 1955, which we celebrate on May 1 in our liturgical calendar.  We also celebrate St Joseph on March 19 in our liturgical calendar as the spouse of Mary.  We know that Joseph was a carpenter, that he probably taught Jesus this trade as well.  The Church teaches that no matter what work we undertake in life, we are to do so with dignity and in a manner that allows us to contribute to both God’s kingdom and to human society as well.  We can find dignity in all human work – no matter what kind of work it is – and we can lift that work up for the glory of the Lord.

         It is easy for us to see our work and our lives as our own, to see what we do in life as our own efforts.  But Pope John Paul II, who was just canonized over the weekend and is now a saint, used the poignant expressions “the Gospel of Work.”  He explained in his encyclical “On Human Work,” that in the industrial age, men and women were often reduced to instruments in a society that emphasized "productivity" over the dignity of the worker. The technological age of our modern world promised something different but failed to deliver. Human beings are still reduced to human doings rather than human beings.

         In the Gospel today, we hear how Jesus is dismissed in his hometown because he is known as the boy who grew up in their community.  There vision of him became distorted.  John Paul II declared that our vision of work "has been profaned by sin and contaminated by egoism,"  that it is an activity that "needs to be redeemed" in our world today.  He reminds us that "Jesus was a man of work and that work enabled him to develop his humanity".  Jesus’ work in Nazareth allowed him to dedicate himself to the affairs of his Father.  Through God’s providential plan, man, by working, can realize his own humanity and that of others.

         As we think about St Joseph the Worker today, may we lift up our work and our efforts here on earth to the glory of God. 

4/29/2014 – Catherine of Siena – Doctor of the Church – Tuesday of 2nd week of Easter – Acts 4:32-37

      Father Albeen and I attended a workshop on parish administration for priests in our diocese this past week.  Monsignor Sunds, the Vicar General for our Diocese, gave the introduction to the workshop on Wednesday morning, reading from same passage we have from the Acts of the Apostles this morning.  He stated that this passage from Acts describes how the group of disciples in the Early Church addressed stewardship and the administration of the funds that they had.   All of us were there to talk about our roles as pastors in terms in administration and stewardship in our parishes.  They actually ended the workshop on Thursday afternoon with a quote from an anonymous priest, who said that early on in his priesthood he saw his administrative role as a pastor as a perhaps a necessary evil or something that he dreaded, but that he later saw it as a necessary part of his spirituality as a pastor of a parish.

      As we look at the Early Church in our readings from the Acts of the Apostles in these first weeks of the Easter season, today we celebrate one of the four female Doctors of the Church that we have in our Catholic faith – St Catherine of Siena.  (By the way, the other three female Doctors of the Church are Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, and Hildegard of Bingen.)  Catherine is quite a remarkable woman who lived in Italy way back in the 14^th century, so remarkable that she is the patron saint of Italy and the co-patron saint of all of Europe.  What is even more remarkable is that she was the youngest of 25 children, that she had a vision of Christ when she was only 7 years old, and that she became the respected counselor of princes and popes while she spent most of her time caring for the poor and the sick.  Quite a unique resume she has.  This remarkable saint who is renowned for being a church reformer and a world peace maker, once said this wise statement: "If you are what you are meant to be, you will set the world on fire!”  May we give thanks today during this joyful Easter season for the men & women like Catherine of Sienna and the disciples of the Early Church who devoted their lives to the faith and who worked tirelessly in living out the Gospel message & spreading it to others. May they be an example and inspiration to all of us on our own journeys. 

4/28/2014 – Monday of 2nd Week of Easter – John 3:1-8

       What struck me about today’s Gospel is how a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, comes to Jesus in the darkness of the night to ask him questions. It seems like he does not want it known that he is associating himself with Jesus or to have his reputation ruined in that way.  It may be hard for us to witness to the faith, but we are called to do so with courage and conviction.  I think back to when I was living on an island off the coast of West Africa that was mostly Muslim.  In fact,  I was the only practicing Christian living on that entire island.  However, when some of the Muslim elders saw me praying the rosary or reading the Bible, when they saw me trying to live out my faith in the midst of such a strong presence of another religion, they commented as to the great faith they saw in me and the extent of my devotion and conviction.  They publicly commented to those living on the island the respect they had for me for boldly living out my faith.  We don’t have to hide by the cover of night.  We are baptized by water and the Holy Spirit to proclaim God’s kingdom..  Pope Francis calls us to “Go forth” to spread the Good News throughout the land.  Hopefully we have the courage and conviction to do so.

4/27/2014 – Second Sunday of Easter – John 20:19-31

      After our 40 days in the desert with Jesus, after our wondrous celebration of Holy Week with all the rituals and traditions of our Catholic faith, we now find ourselves on the Second Sunday of the Easter season.  The readings we have during the Easter season help us to make sense of the Risen Lord and to understand the reality of the resurrection in Jesus’ life and our own lives.  The disciples were huddled together behind a locked door that evening that Jesus miraculously appeared to them, wishing them peace.  We may be locked up behind doors ourselves, separating ourselves from God and keeping us from growing in our own life of faith.   With this in mind, as we continue our journey through the Easter season we find ourselves this morning face-to-face with Thomas, one of Jesus’ twelve apostles.

      In a lot of ways Thomas has gotten a bad rap in the way most Christians view him.  We label him “Doubting Thomas,” although that name is never officially given to him in Scripture.  And he is labeled “Doubting Thomas” in a pejorative and negative way.  When I thought about Thomas this week while working on my homily and reflecting upon the Gospel, I thought about the different styles we can have in learning, of our different personalities, or the different ways we human beings can interact with the world. I remember when I taught Spanish at Greenville Weston High School for 4 years in the Mississippi Delta, our motto one year as teachers was this:  If my students don’t learn the way I teach, then I have to change the way I teach.  A good motto to have, especially when most of my students in the Delta probably did not learn in the same way that I did as a child and youth in school.   In fact, I remember one of the first things I did with my students the first week of the school year was to take a learning styles inventory with them, and then the way I taught throughout the school year had to conform to those particular learning styles.  It was interesting and not too surprising to me that rather than learning best by listening to a lecture or reading a book, most of them were kinetic or tactile learners, where the students learned best by doing or touching or performing an activity.  I see Thomas as a tactile and kinetic learner as well.  He has to have that physical touch, that activity that shows him that he can indeed believe.

       In the Gospel, Thomas is said to be also known as Didymus – the Twin.  It doesn’t use the specific name “Doubter” at all.  In fact, I think a lot of Christians feel shame when the reality of their lives in a given moment is characterized by a lot of questions in their faith, when they aren’t sure any more about some of those things they had previously accepted by faith, when they are have trouble understanding or accepting some of the things that the Church teaches.  Rather than saying that Thomas is a doubter and labeling him in a negative way, we could say that Thomas is a realist.  In fact, doubt is not the opposite of faith as it is sometimes labeled.  To doubt sometimes, to ask questions, to search and to wonder and to seek – those are all ingredients of a vibrant, alive faith, a faith that is in motion.  I think that to be a realist like Thomas – to bring the reality of our lives to our faith – to be honest with God with the ways we not only try to put our trust in God and have confidence in him, but also to bring the skepticism and uncertainty and unbelief that we hold onto – that is an asset in approaching our faith.  Thomas the Apostle was honest with Jesus – he wanted to believe - and Jesus invited Thomas to reach out and touch him.

       There is another Thomas we had been talking about during Lent: the Trappist monk Thomas Merton.  We used his quote “seeking God in all things” as our theme during Lent.  I heard a lot of comments from many parishioners who enjoyed hearing the reflections after the homily of how different members of our parish experienced the reality of God in their lives and how they were seeking God.  Merton has a prayer that perhaps expresses some thoughts about how we might sometimes feel on our journey of faith in light of this Gospel about Jesus appearance to Thomas and the other disciples:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me. Nor do I really know myself.
And the fact that I think I am following your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you
Does in fact please you.

And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
You will lead me by the right road
Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always
Though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death
I will not fear for you are ever with me.

And you will never leave me to face my struggles alone.  Amen.

4/27/2014 – el Segundo domingo de Pascua – Juan 20,19-31

      Pascua es una ocasión de gozo & alegría para nosotros, los discípulos de Cristo.  Pero, tal vez preguntamos: ¿Por qué el tiempo litúrgico de Pascua tiene un sentido más alegre que cualquier otro tiempo? ¿Qué celebramos en Pascua? ¿Y por qué Pascua tiene felicidad & significado para nosotros?  Es sencillo: Pascua significa victoria.  Cada vez que conseguimos una victoria y y resolvemos un problema, nos sentimos muy felices y muy gozosos.  Pascua es la gran victoria del amor sobre la muerte en nuestra vida humana.  En el Evangelio de hoy, el Jesús que murió el Viernes Santo, se presentó a los discípulos en esta casa detrás de la puerta cerrada y les expresó un deseo de paz.  Los discípulos tenían miedo: ¿Era un fantasma?  ¿Era un espiritu? ¿Era una visión? Los discípulos no podían creer lo que veían. Era el mismo Jesús, el que estaba delante. Ellos vieron y creyeron.

       Tenemos este tiempo de Pascua como un don de la fe y por gracia de Dios. Tomás se perdió el primer encuentro con Jesús el primer día de la semana cuando el no estaba con los otros discípulos. No dice donde Tomas estaba escondido.  Pero Tomas volvió con sus compañeros y ellos le gritaron: "Hemos visto al Señor".  Tomás no les creyó y el estableció sus condiciones para creer: No creeré si no meto mis dedos en su cuerpo.  Llegó en el día en que Jesús le invitó a hacer precisamente eso, Tomás exclamó: "Señor mío y Dios mío". Esta exclamación de Tomás es un don, un don que sólo Dios mismo puede dar.

      Cuando celebramos la presencia de Jesús con nosotros en la misa, podemos decir con toda sinceridad las palabras de Tomás: "Señor mío y Dios mío.”  Ojala, podemos declarar estas palabras como Tomás, desde la profudidad de nuestros corazones, desde la profundidad de nuestra fe.  Cada domingo, podemos mirar una hostia, un trozo de pan, sobre el altar y en la palma de nuestra mano. ¿Qué podemos ver?  El Viernes Santo ustedes vieron un cuerpo ensangrentado en la cruz en el Viacrucis. ¿En verdad - que vieron?Pueden ver muchas cosas en su vida de fe.  Pero, en verdad, han visto y oído lo suficiente para creer?  No. Nunca verán ni oirán lo suficiente para llegar a creer sin dudas.  Sin embargo la invitación siempre será la misma: conviértete en creyente.  Sabemos que podemos tener dudas.  Podemos tener preguntas.  Podemos tener seguridad en los valores de nuestro mundo secular.   Muchas veces, no estamos preparados para gritar: Jesús es el Señor. Jesús es mi todo.  No podemos olvidar: Creer es también dudar. Creer es un don de Dios y tenemos que confiar en él. Fe y confianza y  van juntas.  La resurrección de Cristo es el don que Dios nos da.  Pero, en la realidad de nuestra fe, podemos decir con sinceridad: Cristo ha resucitado. Entonces, podemos celebrar hoy en nuestro camino de fe la Pascua muy feliz de la Resurrección.

Prayer for the poor, the oppressed, and the persecuted -

From the National Catholic Register, I saw this prayer that the Vatican is proposing to pray for the poor, the oppressed, and the persecuted throughout the world.  Very nice prayer indeed:

Almighty, ever-living God,

Your incarnate Son taught us that those who suffer for your name are blessed.

Give love for their neighbor to all people of goodwill.

Inspire rulers and governments to work tirelessly for peace, justice and freedom for all.

Give us a spirit of solidarity and of service for those who suffer and who are poor, that we may bring to them that love your Son made manifest by his suffering and death on the cross.

Help us to recognize the face of the Evil One in our day and give us the strength and means to confront his many works.

Amen.

Prayer to begin the day

While doing research for this upcoming Sunday’s homily, the Gospel of “Doubting Thomas” when the risen Christ visits the disciples after his death and resurrection, I found this short prayer on the Catholic.net website.  I thought it was definitely worth sharing:

Christ, I thank you for the gift of faith. You know that I believe, but I want my faith to grow. In knowing you I find meaning, rest and strength. I need you, Lord. I trust in your loving mercy. You know what I need the most today. All I ask is that you remain at my side throughout this day. That is enough for me. I want to spend this day making you happy, pleasing you with my every thought, word and action.

Blooming trees at entrance of our parish center

St James Catholic Church, Tupelo, Mississippi