Glass Ceiling

Two weeks ago today, during a little break in our Presbyteral Assembly, another priest and I took advantage of the breathtakingly gorgeous day in Alexandia Bay to visit Boldt Castle.  The story of this dream home among the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River is a truly tragic one, but the beauty of the place is absolutely stunning...and I've been wanting to share a few pictures from our little tour ever since.  I first visited the castle about 20 years ago, and the restoration work they've done since then is simply amazing...as you can see...

On This Rock

I was going to title this post A Sinking Feeling or The Big Dig...but plans changed as did the nature of the situation.

One of the things which has kept me from posting lately has been--drumroll, please--a sinkhole that developed out in the middle of the church parking lot.  It started with a hole in the asphalt about the size of a dinner plate (sorry, no pictures of that stage), but when we tore it open, it looked more like this:

You see, before the church owned this property (acquired back in 1966) it belonged to the railroad.  And when the trains stopped running, the old rail bed was filled in.  Seems that this was a spot of bad fill which finally gave way.  Along with the haphazard chunks of concrete, broken bricks, and rotting trees emerged this:

One of the "test" questions I remember from studying philosophy was, "Can God create a stone so large that even he can't move it?"  I was afraid we'd actually found that rock!  We can't quite be sure how it got there (the last ice age?)...but we were also unsure about how to get it out.  After many frustrating failed attempts, they finally managed to do so this morning...

...backing the low flatbed underneath it when they finally got it high enough off the ground.  I guess the thing weighed in at 7 tons.

Around here, you just never know what each new day might bring!
                       

All Wet

So, I've been a little slow on postings lately...but I've got a few things to share tonight which should help to make up for lost time.  I begin with a few shots from Sunday's baptisms mentioned in my most recent homily...

Foundlings

This Sunday, we had our own "holy trinity" of sorts at the 11:00am Mass, as three folks were baptized into the Catholic faith: two adult men (brothers) and a baby girl (daughter of one of the first two). I wish I had some pictures to share with you...but there was just too much water—and grace—flowing for me to stop and grab the camera.

   The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity   B 

Readings

I was reading this past week about a museum in London, England:

the Foundling Hospital Museum. (cf. M. Silf, America, 5/21/12)

The Foundling Hospital, it seems, was established back in 1739

as what we today would call an orphanage—

a place to welcome, care for, and educate abandoned children.

For any number of reasons—

(but particularly because of poverty and illegitimacy)

mothers who felt they could not properly care for their young children

could leave them here—no questions asked.

But more often than not,

these same mothers 

would pin a small token—

some little trinket 

such as an old button or a key,

a scrap of paper or a snippet of cloth—

to the clothing of their children,

in hopes that each child’s natural parent 

might be identified

if she should ever return 

to reclaim her son or daughter.

Many of these bittersweet tokens 

are preserved in the museum,

including a small, heart-shaped metal charm from 1759 which is movingly inscribed:

You have my Heart Tho wee must Part.

The reason these tokens 

were so carefully preserved—

and why they remain 

such poignant artifacts even today—

is because foundlings 

are meant to be found. 

While these children may have been left off at the hospital,

what was never abandoned was the hope

that they might one day be reunited with their families.

We are spiritual foundlings.

It’s sin—

the original sin which has mortally wounded human nature,

the personal sins by which we so often miss the mark,

the sins of injustice and of selfishness

found in the very structures of our society—

it is sin that has driven us from our Father’s house.

But while sin creates an ever-widening gap

between God and humanity,

we have been given a token:

we were made in God’s divine image and likeness,

giving us an intrinsic worth, an inalienable dignity,

which always remains, no matter how hidden or disfigured.

You see, we were given this token—

even in our sinfulness—

because it’s always been his desire,

since God created man upon the earth,

that we foundlings should be found.

And so God has tirelessly pursued us down the ages.

The Lord revealed himself as the one true God

and chose a people to be his own—

liberating them with wondrous signs,

guiding them by his commandments.

And to that chosen people, in the fullness of time,

God came in human flesh and blood,

sending his only begotten Son

who gathered followers that they in turn

might go out to make disciples of all nations.

And it is in receiving the baptism

which those first disciples faithfully preached

that we foundlings have been found:

adopted as God’s sons and daughters,

becoming heirs of God and coheirs with Christ.

And thus we’ve been given another token—this one no trinket:

receiving God’s own Spirit to dwell within us,

that should sin ever separate us again,

we might still be recognized by our Father in heaven

and found once more.

The Church is the foundling hospital

established by God in Jesus Christ.

To the Church come the lost, the forsaken,

seeking a stable home amidst the chaos of this world.

But we are not dropped off here by a parent

unable or unwilling to provide the proper care.

In the Church, we are not abandoned, but found;

here, we are not left as orphans,

but welcomed into the very family of God—

welcomed into the life of the Most Holy Trinity:

the life of God the Father, 

who has loved us from the start;

the life of God the Son, who suffered and rose

that we might share his glory as brothers and sisters;

the life of God the Holy Spirit—

that fire of love, that Spirit of adoption—

who makes of us God’s children, 

not merely in name but in fact.

Justin and Doug: 

today our parishes rejoice abundantly

that—together with your loved ones—

you have found the Church,

and that in the Church you have found God,

and that in the sacraments you are about to receive

God finds you,

making you members of the Body of Christ

and temples of the Holy Spirit,

who can rightly call upon God as Father.

God has chosen you as his own!

May this reality which we now celebrate with you

remain alive forever in your hearts.

London’s Foundling Hospital

lasted more than 200 years—into the 1950’s—

before placing its remaining children in foster care

and closing it’s doors for good.

Now demolished, 

the hospital’s original location

is marked by a park and a playground,

and it’s memory kept alive in the nearby museum.

But foundlings—especially spiritual foundlings—

still abound!

And so it falls to the Church—to each of us—

to help them recognize the tokens of God’s eternal love.

Sent by the risen Jesus in the name of the Holy Trinity,

let us do for others what the Lord has first done for us:

gathering to our merciful Father—one-by-one—

all his children, scattered throughout the world.

Light My Fire

I've been away all week at our annual Presbyteral Assembly.  This year, the priests of the Diocese of Ogdensburg gathered in Alexandria Bay for a time of retreat.  It was a good preparation for what this weekend has brought: the ordination of a deacon (Friday night) and a priest (Saturday morning) for ministry here in the North Country.  What a joyful sign of the Holy Spirit's continued work among us!  Please pray for Deacon Scott Belina and Father Thomas Higman as they begin their ministry among the People of God.

I'll be taking part this afternoon in Father Higman's First Mass at his home parish of St. James in Carthage...so there's no homily to send your way.  But I did, nonetheless, want to share one of my favorite reflections on what this great feast of Pentecost means for us in the Church today--brief words, but powerful...

   Pentecost   B 

Readings

"Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them."

Acts of the Apostles 2:3

We have come to consider high attendance at anything as a sign of success; we have forgotten that, on Pentecost, the standard was a bit higher: people had to be on fire.

Fr. Michael Heher

   

Dig In

This one felt long in the delivery of it...so I suspect it felt long in the hearing, as well...but sometimes it just takes a little while to say what you've got to say.

   Seventh Sunday of Easter   B 

Readings

I thought about becoming a priest from a very early age.

In fact, my mother enjoys telling the story

of how I once promised the priest

who had baptized me a few years before

that I’d take his place when he got “too old.”

But becoming a priest wasn’t the only thing I thought about.

For a time, I thought I might like to become an archeologist.

This may have simply been based

on a little boy’s desire to keep digging in the dirt,

but I’m still rather fascinated

by the way archeologists unearth our human history.

By and large, 

archeologists pick through garbage—

really old garbage:

the bits and pieces human beings 

have unwittingly left behind.

The do so in order to figure these people out:

what truly mattered to them; 

what they thought most important;

what their priorities were; what made them tick.

I wonder if archeologists 

studying our time some day

will struggle because of the rise of recycling:

we’re not—and rightly so—

leaving quite as much garbage behind.

But one thing we do produce a lot of is data.

We’re great record keepers in the modern age—

in particular, financial records.

Once on paper, but now mostly digital,

we keep very careful track of how money flows.

All those records—whether we realize it or not—

paint a picture of what matters to us.

If—for example—archeologists five-hundred years from now

were to look at pay stubs from our era,

they would probably conclude

that movies stars and professional athletes

were the most important people in our society,

based on the enormous salaries we were willing to give them.

Accurate?  Yes and no…

…but it is, no doubt, what the evidence would suggest.

Now, what if you were to die today

and the only artifacts left behind to help archeologists figure you out

were your check book, or your credit card statements,

or however else you manage your finances?

What conclusions would they reach about you?

Based upon the available evidence,

what values of yours would they suppose?

What would they determine your priorities to be?

And even more to my point:

Would your religion make the top ten?  Or even the top twenty?

And why?  Or why not?

As Jesus once very perceptively noted,

Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.  (Matt 6:21)

I come before you this morning

needing to address two very pressing financial issues in our parishes.

The first is the downward trend in regular Sunday giving.

You, no doubt, can see it each week in the bulletin:

our collections are quite consistently down

when compared to the last couple of years,

even though headcounts during the same timeframe

show Mass attendance to be holding fairly steady.

I wish I could say that our expenses

were, likewise, consistently going down…

…but you and I both know that the opposite is the case.

The result is that all four of our parishes

are in deficit spending right now,

for a combined deficit of more than $40,000 already—

an amount that will only go up as we approach the end of the fiscal year.

For St. Helen’s, St. John Bosco, and St. Joseph’s,

this means that we’ve been withdrawing from savings—

a very bad habit to fall into, and one which cannot go on forever.

For Notre Dame, this has meant borrowing money from the diocese

for the second year in a row,

leaving us nearly $30,000 in debt.

Given the situation, I have worked very hard

with our staff, trustees, and Finance Councils to keep costs down…

…but I’m running out of things to cut.

And so I’m now asking all of you

to increase your regular giving to our parishes.

What’s needed—just to keep up, not even to get ahead—

is about a 10% increase across the board.

If you’re giving $10 a week, that would mean $11; 

if $20, then $22.

I myself have been giving $32 a week for the past year;

as of today, I’ve increased my offering to $35.

On a priest’s salary, even that modest increase pinches a bit…

…but what is called for here is sacrifice.

And, bit-by-bit, these sacrifices add up.

About 400 households out of the 2,200

that make up the Malone Catholic Parishes

regularly use offering envelopes;

if every current envelope user 

increased their weekly gift by $5,

that would be more than $100,000 in only a year’s time.

(And—of course—I highly encourage all of you who currently don’t

to consider requesting and to begin using envelopes.)

No gift is too small…and every gift is absolutely essential.

While the general situation of regular giving

is the first financial need I must address today,

the second is specific to Notre Dame Parish.

(And since our four parishes

have become more and more intertwined over these last nine years,

I share this with everyone.)

It is a day of great rejoicing

as we reopen Notre Dame Church

after the boiler failed more than a month-and-a-half ago.

I hope you agree: the place looks great,

especially considering all it’s been through—

and it sure feels good to be back “home!”

But—as the slight chill in the air makes apparent—

we still do not have a functioning boiler.

And since we’re already $30,000 in debt,

buying a new one just isn’t in the budget.

And so we are beginning a Capital Fund for Notre Dame Parish.

Over the course of the next year,

we hope—we need—to raise at least $100,000

for the threefold purpose of

(1) purchasing a new boiler, (2) paying off our debt,

and (3) providing the parish a modest financial cushion

so we’re better prepared to weather the next storm,

whenever it may come.

Several parishioners have already stepped forward

to get this fund off the ground;

their generosity is most encouraging.

But we still have a long way to go.

In addition to my increase in weekly giving,

I am pledging $1,000 to the Capital Fund.

I ask all Notre Dame parishioners

to consider what you might be able to give

over the next twelve months

to help get our parish back on solid ground.

And to those of you who are not parishioners of Notre Dame:

while this request is in no way directed toward you,

I’m sure your brothers and sisters at Our Lady’s church

would be most grateful should you decide to lend them a hand.

I can’t, of course, from the pulpit

lay out everything I wish to share with you on these two matters.

All of our registered parishioners

will be receiving a letter from me in the mail

over the next few days.

(If you’re not yet on our mailing list, but would like a copy of the letter,

please just call or stop by our offices.)

So watch for this, read it carefully,

and then think and pray about the support you provide to your parish.

In the gospel this Sunday

we have the unique privilege

to overhear Jesus praying to his Father

in the course of the Last Supper—

a passage known as his High Priestly Prayer.

And as he seeks their continued protection,

Jesus asks the Father to “consecrate” both his followers and himself.

To “consecrate” something

is to permanently set something or someone aside

for God and God’s purposes.

It’s a sacrifice: a gift that cannot be taken back.

We’re accustomed to hearing this word

used to speak about the Holy Eucharist…

…yet even though he’s still at table with his apostles,

Jesus isn’t speaking here of consecrating bread and wine.

He’s praying that you and I be set apart for God and God’s purposes.

The Christian way of life is different—

it’s distinct—from the world’s way on many fronts.

Christians consecrate their time—

setting aside Sunday (for example)

as a day for worship, rest, and reflection…

…while the rest of the world tells us

just to sleep in or play sports, to go shopping or go to work.

Christians also consecrate their sexuality—

setting aside physical intimacy

as part of God’s design for committed married love

and bringing new life into being…

…while the rest of the world says, “If it feels good, do it!”

And Christians are even called to consecrate their material resources—

to exercise wise stewardship of this world’s goods

as a sign that they don’t even belong to this world…

while the rest of the world urges us to simply keep accumulating more.

In these—and countless other ways—

we are to be consecrated: called to sacrifice,

called to love one another because God has so loved us.

And—as Pope St. Leo the Great once put it—

“If God is love, charity should know no limit,

for God cannot be confined.”

To be perfectly honest with you:

I don’t like having to talk about money.

But I will not apologize for doing so.

For one thing, a quick look at the gospels reveals

that it was one of the most common subjects of Jesus’ own preaching.

Money is such a big and important part of our lives

that we cannot expect to keep its use

somehow segregated from the practice of our faith.

I’d really prefer, however, to spend my time

visiting our sick, teaching our young people,

and encouraging new ways to help us all grow in holiness—

the sort of ministry, I’d guess, that you expect

from your parish and from your priests.

But lately I’ve had to spend much too much of my time

figuring out how we’re going to pay our bills…

…and worrying about what to do if we can’t.

You can change that!

Although the Church is, indeed, ancient,

her life is not a matter of archeology.

She remains—like her risen Lord—very much alive!

While we build on strong foundations

so generously laid by generations past,

let us keep looking forward and pushing ahead.

We mustn’t let the current challenges hold us back!

Make sure your treasure follows the values of your heart.

Then we will leave enough evidence

that others, one day, might be able to see

what truly mattered most to us.

Born this way?

Nessuno nasce sacerdote.

Preghiamo per le vocazioni.

No one is born a priest.
Pray for vocations.
 
Such is the campaign message (with the accompanying photo) that they've been running out of the San Carlo di Lugano Seminary in the Ticino canton of Switzerland.  So cute...and so true. Of course, we're getting ready to ordain a "baby priest" for the Diocese of Ogdensburg on May 26.  I just hope his vestments fit him a bit better than these.

Friends

I may not be preaching this weekend (I'm at the altar here in the parishes, just not in the pulpit)...but I still wanted to put a little something out there for you to chew on, if you like...

   Sixth Sunday of Easter   B 

Readings

"I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father."

John 15:15

"Christ and Abba Menas," also known as, "Christ and His Friend"

6th century Coptic icon

  
It is probably no fun being a servant, but in a way it is easier than being a friend.  Servants do their jobs without expecting more than the agreed compensation.  If they quit, they may feel a little regret over breaking such an impersonal contract.  Friends have higher expectations of each other, giving us to understand why it is more demanding to be Christ's disciple.  God's servants will likely follow the law, but perhaps have little incentive to embrace the Beatitudes.  This may be why the rich young man "goes away sad" after Jesus invites him to do more than "the minimum daily requirements" of faith.  Such is the difference between obligation and communion, between serving God and loving God.

Jerry Welte

  

Put Together

   Fifth Sunday of Easter   B 

Readings

Today, more than 40 children of our four parishes received Holy Communion for the very first time.  I preached to them without a text (and “tested” my homily during two Masses before that), so what follows isn’t word-for-word, but some reflections based upon what I had to say.

What I really wanted to share with the kids was a message about “putting together”—in particular, how Jesus wanted to be put together with them in their receiving of the Eucharist.  So I tried to come up with a few examples…

The first was blocks.  (For the record, these are not from the rectory; I borrowed them from some local toddlers…but they’re fun and I might be slow to give them back.)  Blocks can be put together very easily, and in countless different ways.  You can make almost as many things out of blocks as your imagination will allow.  But there’s one problem: blocks also come apart rather easily.  When Jesus wants to be put together with us, I’m quite sure he wants us to stay together.

So I put away the blocks, and next considered bread.  You see, the First Communion candidates and I spent some time in the kitchen at their retreat yesterday and baked 40 loaves of bread.  The children’s faces were beaming with pride as we pulled all that fresh bread from the ovens.  Their parents’ faces all said, “Has this guy lost his mind?” when they realized just what we were doing: mixing up all that sticky dough with our bare hands. That’s where bread is better than blocks: when the flour, water, and yeast are put together, there’s no way to take them apart again.  They become something even better when put together then when they’re separate.  But there’s still a problem.  Most of the children had already tried their bread, and many had shared it with their families.  (One grandmother told me before Mass that it was, in fact, pretty terrible.)  When you’ve eaten bread, it’s gone.  It grew a bit as the yeast helped it to rise in the pan, but it wouldn’t grow any more.  When Jesus wants to be put together with us, I’m quite sure he doesn’t only want us to stay together, but that he also wants us to keep growing; the gift he’s giving isn’t going to run out.

So I put the bread away, and brought out two branches—one with dry, brown leaves and one with fresh, bright green ones.  I asked the children the difference, to which they promptly responded that one was dead while the other was alive.  (Of course, the truth is that they were both dead since I’d yanked that second one off the tree…but it simply wasn’t possible to bring the whole thing into church.)  One branch I’d found on the ground; it would never grow again.  But the other one, while firmly attached to the tree, would keep on growing.  If it were a branch on a grapevine or an apple tree, it would soon enough not only have leaves but flowers, and in time those flowers would become fruit.  We could eat all the grapes and apples we wanted, and that branch would keep right on growing, producing more the next season.  Now we had a good example!  When Jesus wants to be put together with us, I’m quite sure he doesn’t only want us to stay together and to keep growing, but to bear good fruit that can be shared with many others—and which won’t run out.

It was during the Last Supper that Jesus said to his friends, “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  It wasn’t long after he broke bread and said, “This is my body,” and passed a cup of wine saying, “This is my blood.”  In the great gift of the Eucharist, Jesus found a most wonderful way to be put together with us.  He desires to not only live near or among us, but to dwell deep within us—to make a home in our hearts.  “Remain in me,” he says, “as I remain in you.”  We keep returning to this sacrament again and again, because Christ wants us to stay together always and to keep on growing.  “Without me,” he warns, “you can do nothing.”

And then I had a brief (and pointed, I guess,) reminder for the kids’ parents.  Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower.”  Mothers and fathers share in God’s own work as the vine grower, protecting and nurturing these tender branches.  Parents already had a responsibility for the their children’s’ growth in body and mind; at Baptism, when these little ones were grafted onto Christ, they accepted the additional responsibility to grow their children’s’ souls.  We priests, when we talk among ourselves about First Communion in our parishes, speak of the joy at seeing these young parishioners at their finest.  But we also tend to find this a sad day, when we look around realizing how many families we haven’t seen much of before, and how many we don’t expect to see too much of again.  Our community was rocked during the past week as two teens took their own lives.  We all felt the hurt of when young people feel disconnected, unable to see how truly precious, how deeply loved they really are.   Shouldn’t we, then, seek out those times and places when our young people can be put together with that Someone who makes the rest of life make some sense?  Jesus wants to be as stuck to our children as the sticky bread dough that had to be scrubbed from their small hands yesterday morning.  I urged their parents to come to Mass with their children, and to come every Sunday, helping them to stay connected to the things that really matter.

Jesus is the true vine, and we are the branches.  By the Eucharist, he helps us to stay put together with him.  Let us return often to this great Sacrament, where we’re given what we most need to keep on growing and bear much fruit.