Discerning Gods Call: Pray, Listen, Act, Repeat!

Great discernment video. Good advice even if you're not discerning...

New Priests for NY Archdiocese 2010

Father George La Grutta (far right) was ordained last Saturday, May 15, 2010, for the archdiocese of New York by Archbishop Dolan at St. Patrick's cathedral. He is 61.

Mr. La Grutta started studying for the priesthood at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, NY in 1981 after some time as a pharmacist. He left in his fourth year to work for Medco Health Solutions. Some years later, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament around the feast of Corpus Christi, Mr. La Grutta realized that he had to go back to seminary. He returned in 2008 at the age of 59. And now Mr. La Grutta is Fr. La Grutta!

You can read the full story on Fr. La Grutta (and the rest of the class of 2010) on the second page here (.pdf). Some pictures of the new priests giving first blessings at St. Joseph's seminary here.

"...to save souls..."

“I wanted to be a priest to save souls and to help people know of God’s love and to lead them to a Christian way of life.”

These words are one of the finest descriptions of what the life a priest should be. They come from Fr. Antonio G. Leon, 77, pastor of Jacksonville’s Immaculate Conception church who died Saturday of had kidney failure. You can read more at the Curt Jester's blog here.

St. Peter Gets the Chair

Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Chair of St. Peter. It is a recognition of the authority to rule the Church that Jesus gave to Peter in Mt 16:17-19.

What I realized today is that everything good and bad about the Papacy can be found in Peter. Is the Pope authoritarian? Peter let the Gentiles into what had them been a Jewish sect (Acts 11:15-18). Is the Pope too liberal or wishy-washy, a hypocrite? Peter later backed off and didn't treat the Gentiles properly, fellowshipping only with the Jews (Gal 2:11-14). Is the Pope too much of a Christian? Peter said he would never deny Christ even if he had to die (Mt 26:35). Is the Pope not enough of a Christian? Peter denied Jesus three times (Mt 26:69-75)! Is the Pope an instrument of Satan? Jesus said to Peter "Get behind me Satan..." (Mt 16:23).

It should not be surprising that we can see all of the Papacy in Peter. What is surprising is that we can all see ourselves in him, too. We like some people and not others, we are strong and weak, we are loyal to our friends and deny them too.

Peter is human; we are human. The Popes are human too. Shall we deny them their humanity by insisting that they are either more or less human than ourselves? We are all sinners before God. The Church did not achieve holiness when I joined it! It does achieve holiness when it is united to Christ, the Head, as his Body--even the Popes!

A Prophet's Motives--A Reflection on the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the first reading today Moses exclaims "Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!" The Lord had taken some of the spirit that was on Moses and put it on 70 elders to help Moses lead God's people. Two of the candidates, Eldad and Medad, were still in the camp with the people, but God still gave them the same spirit of prophecy that he gave the others. There were some that thought this was improper and complained. Moses realized that these people spoke out of fear of this change in the way things had been done. So he makes it clear that he wished that all of God's people were prophets, that the Lord would bestow his spirit on them all.

Moses request was fulfilled on Pentecost. When the Spirit gave birth to the Church, the Father gave him to us all. Peter in his sermon that day said, "this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'It will come to pass in the last days,' God says, 'that I will pour out a portion of my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. Indeed, upon my servants and my handmaids I will pour out a portion of my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy." So, we are all prophets! God has given us his Spirit so that, among other things, we can prophesy. Great! What do we do now?

First, don't panic! If the Father has given us this gift, he will teach us how to use it. If you think about it, we've all felt the desire, the need, to prophesy. When you yell at a TV pundit's take on the news, that's the desire to prophesy. When you want to correct your children so they will grow up to be faithful men and women, that's the desire to prophesy. When you want to tell your football team's coach how to coach, that's the desire to prophesy.

Now, often this desire is James is scolding the rich who have failed in their obligations to the poor, to those who work for them. They have not paid their wages, while the continue to live in luxury. Sound familiar to anyone? James warns them that not only is this wrong, but that the "cries of the harvesters" have "reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts." God knows all about it and guess who's side he's on!
(By the way, you business owners and managers, you might want to check check your payroll when you get into the office on Monday.)

In the Gospel Jesus gives two prophetic statements on sin. First, he warns against assuming that the actions of others are wrong simply because they are not "one of us." Some were driving out demons in Jesus' name who did not follow along with the disciples, so the disciples tried to prevent them from doing these exorcisms. But Jesus reminds his followers that "whoever is not against us is for us." These outsiders were casting out demons in Jesus' name. They were on his side.

Christ's second warning is about personal sin. If you are aware of any sin or cause of sin in your life, get rid of it! Jesus used the analogy of cutting off a hand or foot or plucking out an eye if it causes you to sin. You would be crippled, but you would be alive. The alternative to not dealing with sin is Hell. Jesus uses the image of Gehenna for Hell. Gehenna was Jerusalem's city dump. All the garbage was brought there and thrown into the fire of the garbage already burning. (Gehenna had been known as the Valley of Hinnom. It was here that some of the people of Jerusalem would go to sacrifice their children to the pagan god Molech by burning them alive. Later, the fire was kept but the shrine to Molech became a burning garbage dump.)

This powerful image of cutting off your limbs or be thrown out with the trash to be burned is a prophetic hyperbole. Jesus is not advocating self-dismemberment. He is telling us that we need to deal with our sins in a way to "cut-off" our opportunity to continue in them. Do we take our sins seriously enough to eliminate them from our lives? It's not easy. It takes time. We have the great gift of the sacrament of Confession. Go tell your sins to a priest. The grace you will receive from Confession will strengthen to be able to avoid sin.

You have received God's Spirit in Baptism and especially in Confirmation. You are a prophet! Tell God's truth to the world, your part of it. Drive sin from you life. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to speak and the grace to live in holiness.

No Honor for Hometown Prophets

"He was amazed at their lack of faith."

That is what Saint Mark tells us about Jesus at the end of today's gospel. "He was amazed at their lack of faith."

You will often here Christians say that they wish they had lived in Biblical times, especially in Jesus' day. They'll get all misty eyed and say in a wishful tone some some thing like, "Wouldn't it have been great to been alive when Jesus was, to hear him speak and see him perform miracles?" Often underlying that nostalgia is a certainty that they would have been the ones who really listened and followed Jesus with all their heart. Let's hope so.

The reality, however, may have been very different. In the gospel reading, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth. At first the people are impressed. They are impressed by Jesus wisdom and by his miracles. He comes from a good family...As they think about it, St. Mark tells us "they took offense at him." Why?

They took offense at him after they began to think about is family. His teaching and his miracles were fine until they remembered he's one of us! Who does he think he is? Is he trying to impress us by coming back here? Trying to show off is more like it! But we know his family; and they're--so ordinary.(Which only shows they didn't really know his family at all!) He's just a carpenter. "He's the son of Mary"; no proper pedigree for him! That's what Jesus' hometown folks thought of him. Do you think you'd really be any different?

Ezekiel call such people "hard of face and obstinate of heart; a rebellious house." Saint Paul knew such people. He knew weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints for the sake of Christ. Because of things God had revealed to him in prayer, God gave Paul "a thorn in the flesh" to keep him from getting to proud. All this taught Paul to trust God in his weakness so he could show the power of Christ.

"He was amazed at their lack of faith." Jesus knew that he, even as a prophet, was not welcome. Because of their unbelief, Jesus could only cure a few sick people. They were probably the only ones willing to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt--an that was enough faith for them to be healed.

At this Mass, in this Eucharist, Jesus will be among us. He will be as real as he was that day in Nazareth. In fact, even more real because in the Eucharist we partake of the risen and glorified Christ! How is your faith? Do you think that you know Jesus in his Church? Does his family put you off? Will Jesus be unable to do any mighty works here because of our unbelief? Will he be "amazed at our lack of faith?" Or, like Paul, will we know that it in our weakness that we will find the power of Christ?

A Tale of Two Healings

Have you been to a doctor lately? I went in March for what turned out to be a upper respiratory infection (fancy name for a head cold!). Since then I have gone to my primary several times for other things needing treatment, I've been referred to 3 other doctors, and had a endless series of tests! To paraphrase St. Mark, I have suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and have spent all that I had!

Sunday's gospel tell the story of Jesus' healing two women: one old, one young. He is one his way to heal the daughter of Jairus, the synogogue official, when he is interrrupted by someone touching his cloak. Imagine being in the think of the crowds in mid-town Manhatten at Christmas time, being bumped and jostled by your fellow shoppers and asking your friends, "Who touched my coat?" They'd look at you as if to say "Everybody!"

That is the disiples reaction to Jesus when he asks "Who touched my clothes?" But it wasn't just that his clothes had been touched. St. Mark tells us that Jesus was "aware at once that power had gone out from him." He knew the touch had been a healing one. The woman's hemorrhage had stopped. She had hoped to touch his cloak, be healed and slip away.

Jesus had other plans. He knew that power had gone out from him, that someone had been healed physically. He also knew the healing wasn't complete, so he asks "Who touched my clothes?" to draw her out. She comes to him in fear and trembling and tells Jesus what she did. He says to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you.
Go in peace and be cured of your affliction." Her hemorrhage had made her an outsider, ritually impure. Jesus restores he by calling her "daughter" and promising her peace. Healed of her disease and restored to fellowship, her healing is complete.

But now Jairus has received the tragic news that his daughter has died; might as well let Jesus get back to what he was doing. Did Jairus blame Jesus for the delay, for his daughters death? Sensing his fear, Jesus reassures him, "Do not be afraid; just have faith."

Arriving at what is now a house in full mourning, with people weeping and wailing, Jesus says, "Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep." Asleep? Why the country bumpkin preacher from Galilee thinks she's asleep? Would we be in mourning if she was just taking a nap?

Of course Jesus knows she's dead. It's just that to him death is so temporary that she might as well be asleep. He puts the mourners out of her room and he took along the child's father and mother and those who were with him, Peter James and John, and entered her room. This is for family; hers and his.You can hear the tenderness in his voice mingled with a rebuke of death as he says "Talitha koum," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" And she does. Then there were two more things to say to the family. First,he gave strict orders that no one should know this
and second, that she should be given something to eat. She's been dead, she must be hungry!

The woman with the hemorrhage Jesus calls "Daughter". The dead girl, he calls "little girl." If Jesus was to come to heal you, what would he call you? Maybe you're not dead--yet. Maybe you're sick in body, mind or soul. What ever your need. Jesus will call you softly and tenderly. He will call you daughter or son or little girl or mom or dad. He will call you out of your sickness, your need and into his family. That is why we are hear at this Mass: to worship our Father, to receive his Son and to be filled with his Holy Spirit. We are here to be the family of God.