"What Should We Do?"

Below is a reflection to an event in a local school district - the district where my previous assignment is. It's a reflection of items that I've wrestled with ever since a friend and high school classmate of mine committed suicide in March of 1999.  It's not a perfect response (for, honestly, in moments like these, there is never the "perfect response"), just a reflection that has been mine in prayer and contemplation, especially over these last fourteen years. Please do not read the following as a "professional, psychological response", but, rather, as a reflection of a struggling Christian and Catholic priest who has known this type of sorrow and frustration in his own life.

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From reading certain posts on my Facebook account, I'm seeing that a high school senior - set to graduate in a number of days - committed suicide. 

A number of the parents are asking, "What should we do? There have been too many recently." And when the parents are taking note, that is saying something . . . but in the positive sense, albeit a little too late for one, but, hopefully, not for others. The parents commenting on Facebook, holding conversations back and forth with each other, are seeing something that is almost becoming a pandemic in their school district (and others) and in our society. And while some may say, "It's only one a year", that is definitely one more life that should never have been lost prematurely.

"What should we do?" We may never completely know or understand what is going through the mind of an individual when they choose to take their life. What we can do is to stop, say a prayer for the mercy of God to be with them, to pray for their family and friends, and to pray for all those who, at that moment, are contemplating suicide.

In the long run, I think that there are a few things we can do:

1. We - individuals, religious institutions, school districts, families, corporations, etc. - need to re-evaluate how we can learn to recognize any warning signs that an individual may be struggling with something difficult in their lives. I know that this, in-and-of-itself, is a most difficult task, since some people are able to mask very well the internal struggles that they are dealing with.

2.  As adults, assure our young people that there is NOTHING that they can bring to us to make us love them less. We need to encourage them to seek out somebody, ANYBODY, when it comes to working out a problem. Even if we don't have the answers, we may be able to point them to someone who does. And we need to re-emphasize that no one should ever be embarrassed in bringing a struggle to someone's attention (ours or someone else's). It could be that one action that ultimately saves a life.

3. We need to be people of love and compassion. Our society attacks what it doesn't understand or agrees with. This is why people have a hard time being honest with others and themselves, even when they, themselves, are the victim (for lack of a better word). If we can see people for who they truly are, and not what society believes them to be, then we can assure those struggling that, in all honesty, they are loved, and when they are overwhelmed by the struggles of life, then we are there to help lift the burdens.

4. Ultimately, we need to pray. We need to pray that our young men and women know that not only do we care for them, but so does our loving God, and He, too, ultimately wants what's best for them. We need to pray that they know that there is nothing too big we can't handle with the power and assistance of our God. And we need to pray that all those who are contemplating suicide have the courage to seek help from God and others, so that they may come to realize that what is frustrating them now is only passing, and life can be and will be better. We need to pray for peace in their lives - and, as I've said before, not simply the peace that makes us "happy", but the peace the world cannot give, the peace which ultimately comes from God alone --- the peace which helps us to endure and endeavor.

I'm no psychologist - I freely admit that. However, more and more people these days seem to be suffering from "survivor's guilt", including myself. Many of us know of a person who has committed suicide, and it's important for us not to enter into the guilt that comes along with the frustration of the situation and the trying to understand what draws a person to take this sad action. The guilt will trap us in a cycle of not knowing that peace of God; the guilt will always make us second-guess what we could have done to help. 

In moments such as these, there are a lot of "woulda-coulda-shoulda" in conversations and personal reflections. As Christians, as people who believe in the mercy of God, it's important for us to not be stoics in our approach to the situation, but to recognize the difficulty we are all facing, including the difficulties that led our loved one to choose the taking of his / her life. It's important and necessary to enter into an honest conversation with each other, and with God. It's important and necessary to recognize the range of emotions we're going through, making those known to family and friends and, yes, even God.

Though not wanting to sound like a broken record or even cliche as a Catholic priest, but, in all honesty, the best thing we can do is pray: pray for the situation, pray for the individual who took his / her own life, pray for the mercy of God, pray for the gift of God's peace. We pray as Christians (or people of faith, in general) because it is in our prayer that we come to recognize our only hope truly is in God.

"What should we do?" Support our young people, making known to them our encouragement, assistance and confidence.

"What should we do?" Teach our young people to value and believe in the good relationships in their lives. Teach them to develop a good, strong, and true relationship with God.

"What should we do?" Love others. Be compassionate. 

"What should we do?" Pray, hope, and trust in the mercy and love of our God.

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Memorial Day Homily

Homily for Memorial Day
Monday, 27 May 2013

        My brothers and sisters, we gather this morning in a somber and sacred time of remembrance for our men and women who have “given their all” in the service of their country. We thank God for these courageous defenders of freedom, and for the example each one, known or unknown, has left for us to follow. They were, and still are!, our brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, mothers and fathers, neighbors and friends, and we will never forget their sacrifice for the defense of our freedoms.

        Yet as we remember these heroes, we celebrate a Mass for peace and justice, asking the Lord that, in His divine mercy, the sacrifices made by men and women of any age may cease, and that humanity may truly live in the peace and freedom that is given to us by virtue of our human dignity. We pray these prayers for peace and justice because, just as we have heard in the Gospel, Jesus commands us to pray for those who wish us harm, and – even harder still – to pray for those who have committed acts of violence against us, especially when a loved one has perished because of those acts.

        My friends, we do continue to thank God for the sacrifice of those men and women have given their all for our freedom, and we continue to thank God for the men and women who continue to place themselves in harm’s way so that our way of life, our nation may be secure. Still, it is up to us to keep these heroic servants in prayer – both the living and the dead – so their sacrifice, both in the past as in the present, may never be in vain.

        These men and women of courage gave their lives not only to defend our freedoms, but, for the Christian, laid down his or her life for their neighbor, as Jesus reminds us is one of the greatest acts of love a person can do for another. And, yet, this is another reason we pray today for peace and justice, because, as a Christian, it is our duty to love each person as a reflection of how God loves us – including those who harm us and those we love.

Our patron, Saint Teresa of Avila, reminds us in her masterpiece, The Interior Castle, that “we will not reach perfection in the love of neighbor if that love doesn’t rise from love of God as its root.” How are we able to pray for our deceased brothers and sisters, how are we able to pray for our men and women in the armed forces, how are we able to pray for one another when there is something that is hindering us from loving God completely? When hatred, jealousy, discord, and darkness cloud our mind – even just a little bit! – we hinder the prospect of peace, which comes from the very heart of God, and we halt any endeavor of that peace truly being present in our lives.

And so, my brothers and sisters, we place before the eternal memory of God those of our country who have fallen in the line of duty to protect us, and we thank God, once again, for their sacrifice to our nation. We place before God those who continue to serve our country to protect her from all who do us harm. We place before our God our own service of prayer for all Americans, that, through the practice of love and God and love of neighbor, we will seek out that true peace which God alone can give and that we, as His children, earnestly desire.

The first bishop of our country, John Carroll, composed a prayer for our nation, which he wished to have prayed on our national holidays. I now ask you to join with me in that prayer:

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.

We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.

We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.

We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.

We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.

Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

And since the patroness of our country is Our Lady in her title of the Immaculate Conception, we ask for her intercession on all citizens of the United States of America, living and deceased, as we pray:

Hail Mary . . .

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Avoid Becoming a "Spiritual Germophobe"

Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost
Sunday, 19 May 2013

        My friends, have you ever noticed now germophobic we are as a society? We want life to be clean, to be sterilized. Hundreds, even thousands of years has taught us as a society – as a species – that the cleaner something is, the better something is.

        Think about where you live and where you work. How upset do we become when we run out of paper towels in the restroom, when the hand sanitizer in our purse or pocket runs dry, when someone coughs, sneezes or yawns without covering their mouth? We – and I include myself in this – become hesitant in our interpersonal interactions, almost withdrawn from dealing with others. Not being germophobic has become, in some ways, socially unacceptable.

        Now, let’s go back two thousand years to that first Easter Sunday. Jesus appears to Mary and the Apostles, greets them, and then HE BREATHES ON THEM! Their response wasn’t, “What the heck, Jesus? You know I’m getting over a cold!” No! They waited to see what Jesus was doing, always learning from the Master.

        Fast-forward fifty days, and the fullness of the Holy Spirit is given to Mary and the Apostles. Again, the “breath of the Lord” enlivened the hearts, minds and souls of His creation, His people. My brothers and sisters, we need to continue to allow the Spirit of God to breathe in us!

        We, as a society, cannot stand when we are breathed upon by others, especially when someone else is “in my personal space”. We have sanitized and, in some ways, quarantined our lives so much that we no longer allow others, including God, to be a part of our life story. We wash away, both figuratively and literally, everything that allows us to get dirty in life, to walk through the muck of life.

        But we have to be careful. There are two ways that this can play out:

1.We enter into the dirtiness of life on our own, soon and too quickly becoming swallowed up by our pride, our ego, our selfishness. To get dirty in life in this way is walking along the path of sin, because we fail to allow God’s Spirit to work in and through us.

2. We enter into the muck of life with the realization and goal that, with the Lord’s help, we will get through it. And in the moments that life seems to throw one clod of dirt after another, we come to recognize how the dirt, through the action of the Holy Spirit, is helping to make us clean.

        In our first option, we believe that our own actions of sanitation will save us, will keep us healthy. What we fail to realize in this option is that, as much as we believe that we can do it on our own, the muck of the world overwhelms us, and we quarantine ourselves from those relationships which will help us – including our relationship with God. Our self-sanitation becomes that which serves as the doom of humanity. We only need to look at the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s to see how we have isolated ourselves from all intimate relationships, again including our relationship with God.

        When we look at our second option, we come to realize that life will throw clod after clod of dirt, mud and muck at us, and it’s something that we can’t always avoid. But we know that we can overcome these things when we rise above our “spiritual germophobia”, and allow the Holy Spirit to be breathed upon us once again. It is giving into a relationship with the Holy Spirit with a sense of reckless abandon that we will come to know fully the life that God intended us to live.

        This doesn’t mean we won’t get dirty in life. It does mean that we know the best way to become clean and to stay as clean as possible is through a life lived in the Holy Spirit – through the Church and her Sacraments. This is the way God continues to breathe on us – His Church – and gives us life.

        My brothers and sisters, we must avoid becoming “spiritual germophobes”. We must allow our God to breathe His life-giving Spirit upon us. We must not be afraid to get dirty by the muck of life, nor must we be afraid to be cleansed by the Spirit and the Sacraments.

        The best way to rally against this “spiritual germophobia” is to pray to the Holy Spirit and submit to His will. When we give ourselves over to the life of the Spirit with reckless abandon, we open ourselves to the reality of joy found in living the Christian life, even when the dirt and the mud are being thrown at us.

        And, so, confident that our God will breathe into us His Spirit, and trusting that the Holy Spirit guides us in all things, we pray:

Come, O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You. Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, and console me. Tell me what I must do. Inspire me with what I must say. Give me Your orders. I promise to submit myself to You in all that You ask of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your will, and do Your will. Amen.

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Enjoy the journey . . .  

Reconstructing Babel

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, 5 May 2013

        My brothers and sisters, what a wonderful image our readings give to us today: the gathering of the nations through the Holy Spirit. While Paul, Barnabas, Silas and Barsabbas are working to bring the Gentiles into the Faith, we have the vision of the Beloved Disciple – Saint John – showing us the descent of the Heavenly Jerusalem, built out of us, the living stones of the Church of Jesus Christ. Both of these readings are summed up in our Responsorial Psalm, “Let all the earth cry out with joy to the Lord!” It’s just not this world that is to cry with joy, but, more importantly, the world that is to come – that vision of John.

        Yet, turning our eyes to the Gospel, we come to see the dynamic promise that is given to us by Jesus: Those who are united to Him, and allow the work of the Spirit to guide them, will be led to the fullness of the Kingdom of God. The key is – and always is! – the Holy Spirit. As we prepare for the great moments of the Ascension and Decent of the Spirit at Pentecost, we come to welcome and to realize the role we play in the workings of God.

        A train of thought came to me in reflecting on our Scripture for this weekend: Reconstructing Babel. If we remember the story of Babel from the Book of Genesis, we know that humanity got full of itself and tried to become equal with God through the creation of a tower that would reach God in the heavens. The Lord knew that, ultimately, this would not end well for us, so He confused the people by dis-unification of their language, and not being able to understand each other, the project was abandoned.

        But now enter in Jesus Christ, God-made-man, many years later, and through the power of the Spirit, gave to His Church, His Body, the ability to reconstruct Babel. The key difference is that when the Lord stopped the building of Babel in the Old Testament, humanity was building the tower for the glory of itself. When Jesus, through the power of the Spirit, begins the reconstruction of Babel, He does so knowing that those who are rebuilding the tower do so not for their own glory, but the ultimate glory of God.

        The Holy Spirit gathers us together when we work together for the glory of God. This is seen in John’s vision of the New Jerusalem. Being gathered together as the City of God, we come to realize that it is not Babel that we are reconstructing, but truly the New Jerusalem that is being constructed through us, by us, and with us when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit.

        What Paul, Silas, Barnabas, Barsabbas, and John all remind us of today is rooted in the Gospel: When we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, when we fulfill our mission in the Body of Christ, we are gathered into right-worship of God. And when we are gathered for that right-worship, we enter into the peace which Christ promises us. Our worship of God and our living out the covenant with Him and with our neighbor should be the entryway by which we receive the peace of the Lord, and thereby bring others to know Christ and to know His peace.

        But if we want to reconstruct Babel, if we want to build the New Jerusalem, then we will work for this peace. Of course, this peace is not the hippy peace of the 1960s and 1970s, but rather is the recognized internal dwelling of the Triune God within the temples of our bodies, of our lives. An unknown author fittingly puts it this way:

Peace: It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.

        THIS is the peace of Christ: To see the insanity of humanity in the world, and to know that it’s still all alright. The peace of Christ is that which truly gathers us together as one; it is the glue, the mortar which holds together those living stones in the New Jerusalem. It is that gift from God which allows us to give back to Him the praise through the living out of our lives to the honor and glory of His Name.

        When we allow ourselves to come together to build the New Jerusalem, to reconstruct Babel, then we have the opportunity to enter into the place in which we will come to dwell; we will enter into the Divine Mystery of life – not just here, but the here-after. When we come together in the peace of Christ, we recognize what it says at the entrance of our church, that “this is none other than the house of God and the gate of Heaven.” And we come to live out a unity founded upon the peace of Christ that was lost when Babel was abandoned – a unity not based in our humanity alone, but based in the knowledge that we are, first and foremost, the children of God, and He wishes for us to be gathered together.

        This is why the Church celebrates the Mass! We come to gather with all the people of our Faith – present or not, alive or dead, we all gather around the table unified in our belief in the promises of Christ, given to us in the Sacraments, and lived out through the actions of the Holy Spirit. And, again, the Holy Spirit is the key to it all. If we’re not open to the Spirit, if we’re not open to receiving the ultimate gift of peace that He gives, then we are not ready to be builders of the Kingdom of God.

        Monday evening / Tomorrow evening, our eighth-grade students will be receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. While becoming fully initiated into the life of the Church, they will also have the opportunity, for the first time, to live out the fullness of Christ’s peace in their lives while making the conscious decision to keep Christ as the center of their lives; discovering in their own way, through the power of the Holy Spirit, how they are to help in the reconstruction of Babel, the building of the New Jerusalem. And as we pray for these students and celebrate this milestone in their life of faith, we should pause and ask ourselves: How is the Lord continuing to call me as a builder in and for His Kingdom? How do I live out His gift of peace?

        Last month, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of Pacem in Terris, “Peace on Earth”, given to us by our late Holy Father, Blessed Pope John XXIII. In this encyclical, he spells out what the Gospel vision of peace is, and what in our modern world – yes!, even the modern world of 2013 – is endangering that peace. Blessed John reminds us that when humanity takes the issue of peace into its own hands, that peace will never be secure, because it is fleeting, not based on something or someone who is greater than us. Yet he reminds us that peace rooted in Christ is the one thing that will unite humanity, because we see peace not only as something that is worth striving for, but, ultimately, as something that is freely given to us by God, a gift that is ours for the taking when we just ask for it. He concludes the encyclical with these words:

Let us, then, pray with all fervor for this peace which our divine Redeemer came to bring us. May He banish from the souls of men whatever might endanger peace. May He transform all men into witnesses of truth, justice and brotherly love. May He illumine with His light the minds of rulers, so that, besides caring for the proper material welfare of their peoples, they may also guarantee them the fairest gift of peace.

Finally, may Christ inflame the desires of all men to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another, and to pardon those who have done them wrong. Through His power and inspiration may all peoples welcome each other to their hearts as brothers, and may the peace they long for ever flower and ever reign among them. 

         If we want to reconstruct Babel, if we want to enjoy the promises found in the New Jerusalem, then we must urge one another to gather in the peace which only Christ can give. It is then and there, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we will give God the glory and honor that is rightly His. It is there that the work accomplished by Paul, Silas, Barnabas, Barsabbas, John, you, me, and all the saints of heaven will be recognized. It is there that we proudly acclaim, “Let all the earth cry out with joy to the Lord! Alleluia!”

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Enjoy the journey . . .