Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

I was thinking about the prayer we are praying every day (p. 6) for the Fortnight for Freedom and there is one part of a line that catches my attention, that part in which we ask for courage to make our voices heard “on behalf of the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.”

I marvel at the way in which this statement is at once simple and profound. It isn’t a demand for special treatment, or seeking an affirmation for a judgment that “we” are right and “they” are wrong. It has nothing to do with what is considered by divisive spirits to be “liberal” or “conservative” according to today’s tyranny of opinion and self-interest.

It is a plea for the basic right to live in the most simple of ways as human beings who seek to be persons of faith and morals. It has long been the perennial teaching of the Church that persons have a right to know (freedom of education) and free to apply that knowledge to our human acts according to our own properly formed consciences: to do good and avoid evil is a personal choice.

But the key point is the formation of conscience. To be a person of integrity, the Church teaches, you must make choices according to your own conscience. You form it, you follow it. The same option may yield different results between different persons with equivalent integrity. Looking around today, how many people do you recognize as being properly formed in the moral life?

Further, there is no such thing as self-formation for relational persons (you can’t make it up on your own); we rely on truth, goodness and beauty as the transendent ideals to which we seek ascent, and this formation comes from outside of us. We are shaped by our life experiences and the persons with whom we share our earthly spaces, above all, by the revelation of a loving God. As always, this right to freely choose comes with a corresponding duty: to be able to follow your conscience, you must do all in your power to make sure that you are properly formed in truth and virtue.

It is at this point that the argument usually stalls out. How dare you presume to tell me whether or not I have properly formed as a moral person and judge my choices? But you see, guidance isn’t what the prayer is about. That is the next step. We’re still at the starting point of being able to make the choice at all.

The whole issue about religious liberty isn’t about freedom to be right or wrong. It is about whether or not we actually are provided the freedom to choose. Can a person be forced by law to act against their conscience?

Isn’t it remarkable and bizarre that the whole pro-choice argument suddenly becomes ours? Freedom to worship also means freedom to not worship. Freedom to do the wrong thing also means freedom to do the right thing. Otherwise it isn’t freedom.

But that freedom must not be taken away.

It is a complex meditation about the love of God, actually, and the age-old question: Why does God permit sin? Because if he didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to freely choose not to sin, and we would be slaves. But God loves us so much that he wants us to freely choose to love him, not be forced to do so.

Early on in the religious liberty debates over the HHR Mandate the press derailed the Church’s message by short-circuiting the Church’s position, convincing the world that the Church’s position was trying to enforce right over wrong. Sadly, it seems that the world bought it. But if we are praying for the courage to make our voices heard on behalf of “freedom of conscience for people of all faiths” it is clear that we are merely asking for the basic right to at least choose what we believe to be right, and not be left with only the slavery of choosing that which is wrong. Keep praying!

May God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Have you ever noticed how many times during the Mass we literally turn to God and ask him for his gifts of unity and peace?

Peace is the first thing that Jesus offers to his disciples on every one of his appearances after the resurrection. “Peace be with you.” Peace and unity is the last thing that Jesus prayed for to the Father (Jn. 17) after the Last Supper and before his arrest, trial, torture and execution. This text from John, often called the “high priestly prayer” of Jesus, asks for the kind of unity between us that Jesus has with his Father – not for the sake of peace and unity itself, but “that the world might believe” that God sent him. Our defiant divisions and protesting spirit are things that aren’t limited to the major divisions among churches. They exist too commonly in families and within communions, as churches fall in upon themselves over issues of faith and life.

Two dramatic reflections follow from John 17. First, Jesus must have considered this an awfully important goal, to be praying for it at this time.

Second, he would not have been foolish enough to pray the prayer if he knew the Father wouldn’t deliver it.

Would the Father deny the prayer of the Son? Impossible. So we must proceed with the same kind of confident faith that this is God’s will, and somehow he will accomplish it in us if we only open our hearts to his grace and inspiration.

This confident faith is apparent in Pope Francis, who has been talking with literally everyone about unity and peace. He has made visible strides to provide the context for reconciliation to take place, between religions and nations. Here is a prayer he prayed recently in the presence of leaders Abu Mazen (Abbas) and Benjamin Netanyahu when they visited Rome at his invitation:

“To him, the Father, in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, I now turn, begging the intercession of the Virgin Mary, a daughter of the Holy Land and our Mother.

Lord God of peace, hear our prayer!

“We have tried so many times and over so many years to resolve our conflicts by our own powers and by the force of our arms. How many moments of hostility and darkness have we experienced; how much blood has been shed; how many lives have been shattered; how many hopes have been buried… But our efforts have been in vain.

“Now, Lord, come to our aid! Grant us peace, teach us peace; guide our steps in the way of peace. Open our eyes and our hearts, and give us the courage to say: “Never again war!”; “With war everything is lost”. Instil in our hearts the courage to take concrete steps to achieve peace.

“Lord, God of Abraham, God of the Prophets, God of Love, you created us and you call us to live as brothers and sisters. Give us the strength daily to be instruments of peace; enable us to see everyone who crosses our path as our brother or sister. Make us sensitive to the plea of our citizens who entreat us to turn our weapons of war into implements of peace, our trepidation into confident trust, and our quarreling into forgiveness.

“Keep alive within us the flame of hope, so that with patience and perseverance we may opt for dialogue and reconciliation. In this way may peace triumph at last, and may the words “division”, “hatred” and “war” be banished from the heart of every man and woman. Lord, defuse the violence of our tongues and our hands. Renew our hearts and minds, so that the word which always brings us together will be “brother”, and our way of life will always be that of: Shalom, Peace, Salaam! Amen.”

May God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Well, I guess you are stuck with us priests for another year! This past weekend all the clergy assignments were published for 2014-15 and St. Mary, by God’s grace and the good will of Bishop Loverde, will remain unchanged for this year. For a complete list of the clergy changes in the diocese, you can look at the diocesan webpage, www.arlingtondiocese.org.

But the rumors were sure flying. They do every year, I guess, but each year it does become more possible that I would be moved. I have to admit I was anxious. But I was also troubled by the level of anxiety in peoples’ voices when we spoke of the possibility. You see, this is how the Church works. We go where we are sent and are lucky when we have a bishop whose collaborative spirit looks at the parish and discerns what is best for the parish at a particular time. The fact is, there are other parishes with needs, too, and there is nothing unhealthier than a community who forms around a personality: that would be the definition of a cult, I think. I haven’t done my job if you haven’t been formed and affirmed in your Spirit as a community, and you aren’t confident in your call to serve.

This is your greatest strength: you have discovered that you belong to God, and his Church, and God has given us this place in time to live fully in relationship with him, and with one another in charity and service. I can recall the parish when there was no awareness on the part of the assembly that their role was to participate in Mass. There was no awareness on the part of the members that their contribution as volunteers in service mattered. Having awakened, you now live that life in community, reverently and respectfully, and respond to however God is calling you to fulfill the mission of this local church. You do it so beautifully. You have nothing to fear. I’m so grateful that I have been able to work among you as your ‘father’ to help nurture this profound development. You are a community beautiful in your varied expressions and you must never forget it. I was thinking all these things as we waited for news about assignments. I feel very blessed to still be here with you.

We have so much to do. Watch this summer as many new ministries unfold which have been in their infancy for a couple of years. Our Parish Health Ministry is new and waiting for you to let us help you. Called and Gifted is on the horizon, a process by which all of us will be invited to discern how God has gifted us as unique individuals with special ways to serve him and his family–and to use them! We have grown so much in our opportunities for education, both in the religious education of our young but also in the ways in which we  can engage adults who hunger for continued formation. We will focus this year on the question, “How do parents get what they need to be good parents?” None of us can give what we don’t have, and we renew our commitment to partner with our parents in growing in the faith. And we continue to deepen our social commitment to the community in new and exciting ways. (And, I promise, I will go back to work and finally get those paintings in the church done!)

This weekend we honor all of our dads, whose involvement in our lives has brought us to this day. Their commitment requires ours; today we pray in thanksgiving for their lives, their dedication and guidance. For their many sacrifices, most of which we probably never even saw, we thank them and remember them in prayer.

We also ask God to raise up in our culture a strong understanding and commitment to Fatherhood. Families are still the backbone of culture and Fathers and Mothers are all needed to give good example and teach values to us as we go forward. Let this be our prayer today, to God our Father in heaven.

May God bless you.

Dear Good People of Saint Mary,

Saint Ignatius, it is said, as well as a number of other saints, said, “Pray like it all depends on God, and work like it all depends on you.” Apparently, that is what saints do.

Saints may not be as rare an event as you may think. There are seemingly countless saints already canonized. If you look it up, you always see the round figure 10,000. “Over 10,000 saints, but no definitive ‘head count’ is known.” There are so many – even those who are canonized, not to mention the countless saints who have not received the formal recognition of the church. Did you know that 805 saints were canonized in May of 2013, the month that Pope Benedict resigned? Pope John Paul II canonized during his papacy more saints than had been canonized in all the years before him.

If you look at salvation history, there are three principle eras. The first, the time of the “Old Testament” or the story from creation up to Jesus, we call the time of the covenants (Noah, Abraham, Moses, etc.) or the time of the patriarchs and prophets. This correlates to the time of the Father, when God was active in revelation and the preparation of the world for the event of his fullness revealed in Christ.

The second era, then, is the era of the Son, the 33 short years of intense interaction and witness of Jesus Christ himself. It seems like such a short time compared to the time of the Father! But the richness of what we have seen and heard “with our own eyes and ears” is infinite in its depth of meaning.

The third era, the “Apostolic Age,” or the era of the Holy Spirit, is often called the era of the saints. It is the time that God’s creation, redeemed and returned to its created perfection in the love of God, is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and all is made new. In the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are given at Pentecost (and at our Confirmation, sacramentally), we are made new creations and given the tools we need to put our life of faith, hope and love (the gifts of baptism) into action.

God is act. And his movement, his divine sharing, loving and saving is what the Holy Spirit is all about. To know God is to know the Holy Spirit. To have an experience of faith that is detached, disinterested, irrelevant — this is to say that you haven’t yet discovered who God is.

It would seem that saints get this. They understand how to put the joy and power of God’s life into action as witnesses of Christ’s unconditional love, willing to sacrifice their own comfort, possessions, even putting their own lives in the balance, if necessary, in seeking the greatest good.

That same Holy Spirit flows through you — can you feel it? We have been praying for nine days that the Holy Spirit might reclaim our troubled and confused hearts, that he might bring light to darkness, clarity to confusion, solace to distress, innocence to injury. Only the Holy Spirit can do these things. But often we get the messenger confused with the message. Saints aren’t saints because they accomplished all these things themselves — but they were somehow able to become transparent enough with themselves that they became beacons of light and allowed the Holy Spirit to work these wonders through them.

So let his gifts shine in you. They often aren’t gifts that draw a crowd or perform miracles. Sometimes they are as simple as being able  to serve humbly, or encourage others to be better, or help others to achieve their greatness. Surely, the gifts of healing and wisdom and discernment are just as real. Look into your heart. What are your gifts? Everyone has them. And set them free to create, and you will show the glory of God in your life.

First, be a saint, and simply trust.

May God bless you.