Four Years

It amazes me that it's been four years since I, in the thought of Saint John Vianney, laid down on the marble floor in my nothingness and arose a Priest of Jesus Christ.

Four years ago, I and my two classmates found ourselves doing something that was not of our own beginning, and will not be of our own ending. We entered into the greatest fraternity of the world, and have given of ourselves day after day for the glory of God.

We knew it wasn't going to be all sunshine, roses, and lollipops. We knew of the struggles and suffering accepting the call to this vocation would ensue. But we didn't become priests to make us happy . . . we became priests to share the joy of Jesus Christ.

I can't imagine my life being anything more than what the Lord has given me. I don't think that I would want to. Before I entered seminary, as many know, I was Director of Music and Liturgy at Incarnation of the Lord Parish on the North Side of Pittsburgh. The life of a music director was one that I loved, and, sometimes, regret having to give up for the vocation I'm in now. But I wouldn't trade my decision for anything. I can still do the music "stuff" in my own ways, and have actually filled in for our music ministers here at Saint Teresa's on occasion. But even behind that organ, that piano, I still feel the calling to fulfill the vocation that God has given me.

From the parishes that I belonged to and formed me (Saint Mary's German [McKeesport], Saint Martin de Porres [McKeesport], Saint Thomas More [Indiana, PA], and Incarnation), to the parishes I served as a seminarian (Saint Joseph [O'Hara], Sacred Heart [Shadyside], and Saint Mary of the Assumption [Glenshaw]), to the parishes I served thus far as a priest (Saint Alphonsus [Wexford] and Saint Teresa of Avila [Perrysville]), as well as the two high schools that I served as Chaplain (Mount Alvernia [Millvale] and North Catholic [Troy Hill / North Side]), I have met people along the way who have supported me in my vocation, nurtured the call within me, taught me to recognize the many faces of Christ. 

When people ask me what is my favorite thing about being a priest, two answers come to mind: Preaching and Sacraments. I love preaching, reflecting upon the Word, and bringing the message of the Lord to His people. However, I also love celebrating the Sacraments. From the baptisms I've had the opportunity to administer (including my three Godsons), to the marriages I witness (which will soon include my sister's!), to the moments of healing and forgiveness I give in the Lord's Name through anointing and reconciliation, to those rare moments I've had the opportunity to confirm people in the Faith (Don't worry - permissions were granted.), to the Masses I celebrate which allow the presence of Christ to be made manifest in simple gifts of bread and wine, to those sacramental moments with the Rite of Christian Burial (Oh, the many funerals!), to see how God breaks through in these simple, yet important moments of life is astonishing. 

Over these last four years, I have been blessed to have made many new friends, while probably gaining some enemies, as well. But each person who I encounter - whether in life for a brief moment to life-long companions - truly grounds me in why I do what I do. Most of these new friends gained over these last four years simply know me as "Frob", a name given to me by my choir prior to entering seminary, has become a name that has given me such delight in hearing it when people need me to help them along their journey of faith, need a moment of sacramental grace, or simply want to grab a beer. These are some of the people I turn to for prayer requests, a listening ear, and that occasional beer.

But I never forget the support of those people who simply knew me as "Rob" in my pre-seminary days. These are the people who know "the back story", those who have journeyed with me in those days discerning the priesthood. These are the people I turn to in the more difficult days. I am very grateful for my family who has supported me through the good and not-so-good days of my life, as well as those "older" friends who know when to give me that good, swift kick in the pants.

It's hard for me to believe it's been four years. Texting one of my classmates, he asked, "Has it seemed like four years to you?", to which I responded, "A little shorter, a little longer..." I can't believe that it's "only been four years" - it seems longer at times, and at the same time, doesn't feel long enough.

Well, Happy Anniversary to my classmates, Father Tom and Father Brian! And here's to many more!


Continue to pray for vocations to the priesthood!

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[Some of you may wondered how I spent my anniversary. Well, I celebrated the 7:00 AM parish Mass (followed by a delicious breakfast of a caprese salad and iced tea), and since Thursday is my day off, I took a few hours to grab lunch (Chinese from the food court at the mall), see a movie, and drive aimlessly for a little bit. I had to return early to the rectory to prepare for a rehearsal for a wedding that I have tomorrow evening, and made a visit to a funeral home for one of the two funerals I have tomorrow. Now, I'm taking a break from doing the prep work for tomorrow, which also includes a dinner meeting for a marriage group that I work with. (No rest for the wicked or the weary.) But all in all, I enjoyed the day very much.]




Enjoy the journey . . .
 

God Feeds His People!

Homily for the Solemnity of the
Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
22 June 2014

        Brothers and sisters, the magnanimous nature of this great celebration comes down to one thought given to us in both our First Reading and Gospel: God feeds His people! But in His loving and generous nature, the gift of the meal found in the Old Testament nowhere equals the Gift found in the meal of the New Testament.

        In Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the Israelites that the Lord has heard their cries of hunger, and fed them with manna, “a food not known to [their] fathers.” The people had a longing, a desire; and the Lord satisfied it.

        Now enter into the picture Jesus Christ many, many years after the Israelites had wandered in the desert. He reminds those listening that the Father satisfied the longing, the physical hunger that their forefathers had in that desert. Yet to do more than satisfy their physical hunger, Jesus promises them food that will fulfill not just the deepest hungers of their stomachs, but will fulfill the deepest hunger of their souls.

        Jesus was offering something that they couldn’t understand. Or, worse yet, something that they DID NOT WANT to understand. The people of His day didn’t want to see what our Lord was offering. And still, the people of our day are still offered something that will not merely satisfy their longings, but will ultimately fulfill the deepest hungers of their souls – of our souls! – and, of course, that is the very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.

        And people still question.

        And people still doubt.

        And still we, who gather in this sacred space today, WE still question and doubt to varying levels and degrees.

        We do so because we – as a society – either have forgotten or we ignore the promise that Jesus made to us of how He would not leave us orphaned. One of the ways that He remains with us is through the Holy Spirit. Another way is through the Church.

        But He continues to remain with us in a most special and unique way through the Eucharist.

        Our God wants for us to be fed. Our God wants for us to be satisfied. Our God wants for us to be fulfilled. And He gives us Himself to draw us closer to Himself.

        My brothers and sisters, this sublime and magnanimous gift of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is one that we as Catholics take for granted. Through the complacency in our lives of faith, we don’t take the time to appreciate that through this Sacrament, our Lord is calling us to a radical discipleship, to become a Church Evangelizing!, to become a Church Alive!. This gift of God, Himself, is the invitation to be fed, to be satisfied, to be fulfilled. This is the invitation to be in communion with our God; this is the invitation to be transformed into the image of Christ.

        Yet, transformation has a cost. Receiving the Eucharist has consequences. Are we ready, willing and able to pay the price for our transformation? For to become more like Christ means that the world will hate us. To be transformed into the image of Christ means going against the complacency and lax mentality of our society, and to bring them the Good News that God loves them, and to invite them into a transformation which transforms their longings and desires.

        And are we ready to deal with the consequences of receiving the Eucharist? The good consequence comes when we are found as worthy as possible to receive the Blessed Sacrament, and we are drawn closer into communion with our God and His Church. It is then we are transformed more into the image of God. The bad consequence comes when we receive this great Sacrament with the stain of mortal sin on our soul, presuming the mercy of God, presuming we know better than God. My friends, the Church still teaches that to receive Holy Communion with the stain of mortal sin on one’s soul is a sacrilege. Yet there are two ways to make sure we never find ourselves in that situation: First, we avoid all mortal sins like the plague. Second, and more importantly, WE AVAIL OURSELVES TO THE GRACES OF THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! The Lord doesn’t want us to be separated from Him! He wants us to be fed! He wants us to be satisfied! He wants us to be fulfilled! All this through the intimate union with Him in our worthy reception of the Eucharist! And so, please, dear brothers and sisters, if you need to go to confession: GO! Go, so that we can once again sit together at this table, and together be fed, satisfied, and fulfilled by the Bread of Life and the Chalice of Salvation.

        My brothers and sisters, this most magnanimous and sublime feast reminds us that God desires to feed His people. But it has to be OUR CHOICE to be fed, to have our hungers satisfied, to have our longings fulfilled through the best way our God knows how: through His abiding presence with us in the Most Blessed Sacrament. It is our choice to be further transformed into the image of Christ; it is our choice to accept the consequences.

        With love, we consume the Body and Blood of Christ so that God can consume us with His love. And in that mutual consumption, we are satisfied, we are fulfilled – WE ARE FED!

May the Heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored and loved with grateful affection, at every moment in all the tabernacles of the world, even until the end of time! Amen.

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Enjoy the journey . . .

Invitation / Binding / Community

Homily for the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

15 June 2014

My brothers and sisters, this great Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity reminds us of the great Mystery of Faith that we profess each week as we stand together and proclaim the Creed of the Church.

Now, I can stand here today and try to explain to you the vastness of the Mystery of our God. I can also tell you simply, "God is love", and be done with it. But neither of those approaches would be fair in this circumstance.

Rather, I'd like to take a moment to extend that which was presented to us in our readings this day: an invitation. Though Moses extended it to the Lord, and Paul extended it through his instructions, the invitation is for us and our God to be companions on a unique, but ultimately fulfilling journey.

To completely understand this invitation, we must turn to the Gospel. This passage from the Gospel of John is one the best-known, or most recognized, from either the Old or New Testament. But within the passage lies the basis for being on this journey of faith.

God the Father wanted the Chosen People of the Covenant - the People of Israel - to be in a true relationship with Him. He wanted to look them in the eyes so that they could know His tender compassion and engaging charisma. And so, as John reminds us, "God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." Jesus Christ, both Son of God and God, Himself, invites us into that personal relationship with Him so that He can lead us to the Father. But true entrance into that relationship can only come about when we open our minds, our hearts, our lives, and submit to the One who was sent by the Father and the Son: the Holy Spirit.

Each time we make the Sign of the Cross, we not only invoke the Names of the Persons of our Triune Godhead, but we also convict ourselves of actually having a relationship with our God, and in that conviction, we re-accept the invitation to journey with our God - and each other! - along the road of faith.

For, in the end, the invitation to journey with our God (and each other) is the invitation to live in community. And to live in community is to live as our God lives - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our God lives as a perfect Community of Love - and we are invited to join in that very act of living as part of that community.

Each time we enter into communion with our God, be it in prayer or in the liturgies of the Church, we profess to the world that not only do we accept God's invitation to community, but also do we accept the call to support one another on the journey of faith.

And this is the basis of who we are as being made in the image and likeness of our God: Being fashioned in love to express that love - though imperfectly on our end - in the realm of community. If we, as humans, are to emulate God in all things, then living in community is one of the very foundations of our lives along the journey. And to make the Sign of the Cross - invoking Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - is the acceptance of that invitation; a spiritual "RSVP", if you will, of our intent to consistently be in communion with our God and each other.

One of the greatest ways to remain in community and to repeat our "yes" to the acceptance of the invitation is to become bound to God and to one another. Some of the most common ways we bind ourselves to God is through our prayer, our liturgies, and our participation in the Sacraments. This idea of binding should not be too foreign or strange, for most people here in the church today are bound to another through the Sacrament of Marriage. I am bound to this parish and this diocese through the promises I made at my ordination to both the diaconate and the priesthood. Binding is a choice freely made to share in the life of a community, or with another individual, forming a community at the smallest level. Yet being bound is also an acceptance to an invitation to not be only a part of a community, but to enter into a relationship - and, dare I say, a SACRED relationship - in which the love of the community protects from the deformities of love, the privations of good those who choose to accept the invitation to be a part of the community. This is what our Founding Fathers meant when they signed the Declaration of Independence, "mutually [pledging] to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor."

And so, sitting in these pews today, we have freely chosen the invitation to be bound to the community who journeys this road of faith. We freely choose to be bound by Word and Sacrament to the God who loves and formed us, and to our brothers and sisters who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Saint Patrick, as we know through the story of the shamrock, was a great defender of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. In fact, the Prayer of Saint Patrick's Breastplate is one of the most beautiful and widely-prayed prayers to the Trinity throughout the history of the Church. And so, it seems most appropriate that we pray it this day:

I bind to myself today

The strong power of an invocation to the Trinity,

The faith of the Trinity in Unity

The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today

The might of the Incarnation of Christ with that of His Baptism,

The might of His Crucifixion with that of His Burial,

The might of His Resurrection with that of His Ascension,

The might of His Coming on the Judgment Day.

I bind to myself today

The power in the love of the Seraphim,

In obedience of the Angels,

In the ministration of the Archangels,

In the hope of Resurrection unto reward,

In the prayers of the Patriarchs,

In the predictions of the Prophets,

In the preaching of the Apostles,

In the faith of the Confessors,

In the purity of the holy Virgins,

In the deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today

The power of Heaven,

The brightness of the Sun,

The whiteness of the Snow,

The splendor of Fire,

The speed of Lightning,

The swiftness of the Wind,

The depth of the Sea,

The stability of the Earth,

The firmness of Rocks.

I bind to myself today

God's Power to pilot me,

God's Might to uphold me,

God's Wisdom to guide me,

God's Eye to look before me,

God's Ear to hear me,

God's Word to speak for me,

God's Hand to guard me,

God's Way to lie before me,

God's Shield to shelter me,

God's Host to secure me.

Against the snares of demons,

Against the seduction of vices,

Against the lusts of nature,

Against everyone who meditates injury to me,

Whether far or near,

Whether few or with many.

I invoke today all these virutes

Against every hostile merciless power

Which may assail my body and my soul.

Against the incantations of false prohpets,

Against the black laws of heathenism,

Against the false laws of heresy,

Against the deceits of idolatry,

Against the spells of witches, and smiths and Druids,

Against every knowledge that blinds the soul of man.

Christ protect me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,

Christ behind me, Christ in me,

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ at my right, Christ at my left,

Christ when lying down, Christ in sitting,

Christ in rising up.

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I bind to myself today

The strong power of an invocation to the Trinity,

The Faith of the Trinity in Unity,

The Creator of the Universe.

Enjoy the journey . . .  

Beginnings

Homily for the Solemnity of Pentecost

8 June 2014

 Today we celebrate the culmination of our temporal celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Today we celebrate the day of new beginnings.

This is the "beginning of beginnings" - the birthday of the Church. Today we celebrate that beginning which brings us to where we are today. If the Spirit, hadn't descended upon Mary and the Apostles in the Upper Room, we could still be waiting for the great work of the Church to begin. This is the day which brings the mercy of God! This beginning we celebrate with joy, for we recognize the same Spirit guiding the Church to this very day.

But this is also the "beginning of the ending" - the beginning of the end times. For two thousand years, since that first Pentecost, the Bride of Christ has been waiting in joyous anticipation for her Spouse's return. If the Spirit hadn't come upon us, then we couldn't wait in joyful hope for the return of Jesus Christ. This beginning we celebrate with joy, for we recognize the same Spirit guiding us to something greater for our lives - as individuals, as a society, as the Church, and as part of God's creation. This is the day before the Day of the Lord.

Now, if we truly believe that this day we celebrate is a day of beginnings, and if we truly believe in the great power of the Holy Spirit, then we will have no problem in allowing that Spirit to guide us, to lead us to the fullness of life. We celebrate this new beginning of our lives so that we can help transform the lives of others by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, this day is the final piece of the puzzle which helps bring together all the foreshadowing of the Old Testament, the Mystery of the Incarnation, and the Paschal Mystery. This day is the fulfillment of the vocation of the Body of Christ, the Church. This is the day that the command of Christ to "GO!" truly makes sense.

The Holy Spirit compels us - as individuals and as a community of faith - to go into the world in the Name of Jesus Christ. This Spirit commands us to begin anew and afresh everyday the task of bringing Christ to others and others to Christ. As we experience this "beginning of beginnings", we bring others to experience that same new beginning in their own lives. And as we experience each day the "beginning of the ending", we help others to recognize the coming of Christ in watching for His glorious return.

The remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit signifies for us the call to enter, once again, the Mysteries of our Faith. We all marvel at Mary, Peter, Paul and the Early Church for doing what they did. What these women and men did for the Faith is still the very same thing we are called to do with the Faith: We are to learn it, love it, and live it. And we do this by trusting in the Holy Spirit.

And so, celebrating this day of new beginnings through the power and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, how do we renew our relationship with Christ and His Church? How do we allow our participation in Word and Sacrament to open us up to the fullness of the Truth? How do we become submissive to the Holy Spirit to "GO!" - serving the world in the Name of Jesus? How do we use the help of the Holy Spirit to use our gifts and talents to bring Christ to others and others to Christ? 

My brothers and sisters, the beginning caused by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit only wets our tongues for the complete joy that is to come for us who follow Christ with all of our mind, heart, and soul. Through the urging of the Holy Spirit, we give of the totality of our lives to spread the Good News that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we profess that "Jesus is Lord!", not only with our mouths, but, ultimately, with our lives.

Through the command of the Holy Spirit, we begin again. We begin our beginnings, recognizing the mercy of God. We also begin our endings, watching and waiting for the Day of the Lord, anticipating the moment when we will take part in the eternal glorification of God.

We begin anew today because we see the fruition of the promises of Jesus Christ in our lives. We begin anew today because we desire to become closer to the Father. We begin anew today because it is the Spirit who gives life, and beckons us to live deeper the Mysteries of our Faith.

And so we pray:

 Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy. Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy. Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I love but what is holy. Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy. Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit, that I always may be holy. Amen.

Enjoy the journey . . .