Check, please!

Day 1: Paying his own hotel bill...

1 Pope, 2 Popes, 3 Popes

My brother brought this photo to my attention...

Not sure about the date or occasion.  Who could have guessed?
 

Oremus pro Pontifice

O God, who in your providential design
willed that your Church be built
upon blessed Peter, whom you set over the other Apostles,
look with favor, we pray, on Francis our Pope
and grant that he, whom you have made Peter's successor,
may be for your people a visible source and foundation
of unity in faith and of communion.
Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.
   

So...who is he?

It seems he grew up in Buenos Aires, the son of a blue collar, immigrant family.
It seems he was a chemist before his ordination as a Jesuit priest.
It seems he lived in a simple apartment with a single bed rather than the usual Archbishop's palace.
It seems he gave up a limo with driver and took the bus or subway instead.  (He also flew coach.)
It seems he prepared his own meals.
It seems he preferred the back rows when at meetings of Bishops in Rome.

It seems his episcopal motto was, Miserando atque eligendo: "Lowly, and yet chosen."

It seems he did not order a new red cassock when he was made a Cardinal,
        but had the robes of his predecessor altered to fit him.
It seems he once said that Gospel simplicity and Gospel certainty
        are the Church's most convincing message for our times.

It seems that FRANCIS is indeed the right name by which we now call him.
 

Habemus Papam!

...and here he is a few years back, meeting the (now) Pope Emeritus.
 

White Smoke!

...and you'll soon know who it was for!

  

Black & Red

Black smoke again this morning...but bright red from yesterday:

  

Ol' Smoky

First vote: black smoke.  Stay pope-ful!
 

Welcome Home

I spent yesterday morning out in the bright sun ice fishing with my sister and her family...so my cheeks this Laetare Sunday are just as rosy as my vestments!

   Fourth Sunday of Lent   C 

Readings

The children in catechism class were being quizzed

on the parable of the prodigal son.

So the teacher asked,

“Who was most sorry when the prodigal son returned home?” 

One boy gave it a lot of deep thought before he answered,

“The fattened calf!”

A few years ago in another North Country parish,

the locals were making their way

through these forty days of Lent just as we are—

including preparations for several members of the community
who would be joining the Catholic Church at Easter.

Within that group of converts to the faith

was one whose previous way of life was rather widely known:

he had been a doctor who for years provided abortions.

If his past was no secret, neither were the concerns of some

who would soon become his fellow parishioners.

As Holy Week drew nearer,

the doctor took part in all the various rites and rituals

which generally occur for such candidates at Sunday Mass

during this sacred season.

And the grumbling continued:

“It’s one thing if he’s turned from his evil ways

and decided to become a Catholic.

But do they really have to parade him around in front of everybody?

I mean, we all know who he is and what he’s done.

Sure, people can change…but it just doesn’t seem right.”

That episode came back to me

as I reflected on the parable of the prodigal son this week.

In particular, the attitude of the older brother came to mind.

He’s terribly resentful—

not so much of his kid brother’s wastefulness and wandering,

but of his father’s warm welcome.

The boy’s come home fully deserving punishment,

but what his father gives him instead is a great big party.

How can that be fair?

Sure, maybe he’s changed…but it just doesn’t seem right.

Our heavenly Father’s mercy is not only kindly and generous,

but often downright scandalous—

at least, from a worldly perspective, anyway.

We manipulate his benefits

and exploit his blessings time and again,

yet all we have to do is turn back to him—

to even just begin to admit the error of our ways—

and he refuses to count our transgressions against us.

Unlike in the parable,

in the Most Blessed Trinity it’s “like Father, like Son.”

Isn’t this the very charge the scribes and Pharisees

also level against Jesus?

The same accusation which causes him

to tell this parable in the first place?

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!”

I think of all this especially during this Year of Faith.

A major focus of this special year is to reach out

to those Catholics who—for one reason or another—

no longer actively practice their faith.

But what sort of welcome do we give them

if and when they decide to return?

Consider—for example—how full the pews get

on Christmas Eve or Easter morning.

Do we “regulars” just get restless and resentful

that someone’s sitting in our usual seat

or there’s no room left out in the parking lot?

Or can we rejoice to see the place packed

and make these folks feel more at home?

Or how about the young family

whose children are a bit squirmy

or a little extra noisy sometimes?

If I consistently got scowled at when I came to Mass,

I might consider coming only once and a while, too!

Saint Paul makes our role abundantly clear:

God has given us—all of us—a ministry of reconciliation.

We are to be ambassadors for Christ!

What appeal is God making though you?

Now, I’m not saying it needs to be all confetti and party hats.

The fattened calf—to be sure—will be quite relieved to know

there are no plans to change the menu at the Lord’s Table!

But a simple smile goes an awfully long way.

As does a handshake.  Or a quiet, “Hello.”

Or sliding down in the pew

to make room for somebody who has just arrived.

Studies have continually shown

that most Catholics who leave to join another religious community

do so not because of the Church’s doctrine or disinclines,

but because they feel a lack of community and connection.

If we have any hope of helping folks

to renew and deepen their Catholic faith,

we must first begin by making them feel

like they really, truly belong.

On this Laetare Sunday,

let us resolve to celebrate and rejoice

together with our Father in heaven

whenever a brother or sister of ours,

who was dead in sin, has come to life again—

whenever one who was lost has been found.

  

Servant of the Servants

I wrote a little article reminiscing and reflecting on my "close encounters of a papal kind" which has now appeared in both the Malone Telegram (3/2/13) and the North Country Catholic (3/6/13).  Check it out!

Full of It

Sorry this homily is so...umm..."crappy."

   Third Sunday of Lent   C 

Readings

President Harry S. Truman was once invited

to give a speech to the Washington Garden Club

during which he praised these high society ladies

for the good “manure” they must have been using

to make their beautiful gardens grow. 

One of the members—a bit offended—

asked the First Lady if she might get her husband

to say “fertilizer” instead of “manure.”

“Heavens,” she replied,

“it’s taken me 25 years to get him to say ‘manure’!”

Well, the Catholic Church sure has been getting

a lot of attention in recent days, hasn’t it?

And the eyes of the world

will be on her for a little while longer yet.

It’s kind of nice, in a way,

to have everybody looking in our direction—

at least fascinated by who we are and how we do things,

even if not always taking us quite as seriously as we’d like.

But with all that attention comes an awful lot of scrutiny, too,

and that’s not always very comfortable.

Following nearly every feel-good story

about the Church or the Pope,

there has also been heavy reporting on a whole string of scandals—

some of them accurate, others merely hearsay—

along with the usual parade of hot-button issues

facing the Church in the modern world.

This sort of close scrutiny tends to stir up a whole lot of…

…well, to quote Mr. Truman: manure.

In a tradition going back to the early Church,

the Sundays of Lent are set aside

as a particular time for careful scrutiny.

During this season,

those preparing for Baptism at Easter

were given their “final exams,” you might say.

Yes, they were examined on how well they’d learned

the essentials of the Christian faith,

such as the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.

But they were also scrutinized

about the progress of their conversion:

whether they’d really turned away from their former way of life;

whether they’d really broken with the sins of their past;

whether they’d really made a meaningful change.

While in their modern form the scrutinies of Lent

are more about self-searching than a public examination,

they nonetheless have the same purpose as in days of old:

to uncover then to heal

all that is weak, defective, or sinful in the heart,

and to bring out then to strengthen

all that is upright, strong, and good.  (cf. R.C.I.A., #141)

Clearly, the self-searching expected of those soon to be baptized

can only be of great benefit, too,

for those of us who were baptized some time ago.

The work of our conversion,

of turning from sin and turning toward God,

is one that is never done—

not this side of the grave, anyway.

But like the close scrutiny

the Church is lately enduring in the press,

this sort of careful examination is rather uncomfortable.

It tends to bring to light

things we’d previously swept deep under the rug.

With all the stink and mess implied,

it’s likely to shovel up a whole heap of manure.

In this Sunday’s gospel,

the urgency of our repentance, the urgency of our conversion,

is clearly on the mind of Jesus.

Contemporary stories from his time—

much like those from our own—

about people dying completely unexpectedly

in tragic accidents or because of human cruelty

make it rather plain:

saints and sinners alike, we are all going to die,

and we know not when.

Thus, when it comes to making necessary changes in our lives,

why take any chance in waiting,

in case we happen to wait until it’s too late?

So Jesus tells us the parable of the fig tree.

You, me: we’re fig trees.

God owns the orchard, 

and Jesus is the gardener.

God comes looking for fruit:

God has expectations of us—

expectations we often fail to meet;

expectations which, if we’re honest,

are not only pretty reasonable 

but also for our own good.

God is patient with us—very, very patient—

but we won’t have forever.

Not even his Son—

who’s come to know 

our weak human nature from the inside—

can gain us unlimited opportunities to produce.

The Lord is kind and merciful, 

but he isn’t wishy-washy!

So, knowing that the clock is ticking, what can be done?

Our gardener, Jesus, first proposes that he cultivate the ground.

We have to let Jesus scrutinize us.

We must allow him to dig around in our hearts—

not just in the pretty and presentable places,

but down deep, where things get dark and scary.

We can keep no secrets hidden away from these eyes,

and neither must we shield our own—in fear or shame—

from whatever he brings to the surface.

After all, it would have been downright impossible

for the God of our fathers to lead his people out of slavery

if they didn’t first recognize the heavy chains which held them bound.

Jesus then proposes that he fertilize us—

or, as it literally says in the Greek, to throw manure at us.

(Those high society ladies wouldn’t have liked him, either!)

All that stinky, messy stuff which Jesus digs out of our hearts

mustn’t be wasted.

You don’t have to grow up on a farm to know

that manure is a valuable commodity.

As one of our spiritual directors in the seminary used to say,

“God is the great recycler;

he never wastes any of our experiences.”  (cf. Fr. T. Radloff, SJ)

If God could take the horror of the Cross

and turn it into the source of the world’s salvation,

then God can certainly convert

whatever is weak, defective, or sinful in our hearts

into good fertilizer for our growth…

…but only if we first let Jesus dig it up—and dig it all up.

As catechumens preparing for Baptism,

as individual Catholics, as the Church as a whole,

are we ready to be examined, to be carefully scrutinized,

about whether we’ve really turned away from our former way of life;

whether we’ve really broken with the sins of our past;

whether we’ve really made a meaningful change?

Admittedly, this conversion—this repentance—

isn’t exactly a comfortable process.

But Jesus has made the dead-end alternative perfectly clear.

Manure is a renewable resource that surely will never be lacking.

And Jesus is always standing by ready, with shovel in hand.

We know not when God will come looking for fruit.

So just what are we waiting for?

  

How to Choose?

“It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”

G. K. Chesterton

I'm not exactly sure what stake the Lutherans have in this...but they've sure made a pretty funny video!  Listen carefully (she speaks REALLY fast) and enjoy!

And just in case you want to know a little more about how it's actually done, in a cute (don't miss all the great captions!) and fairly accurate way...



So, sorry FideliCat--umm, I mean--Felix VI...but you can't keep the Chair.
 

Pope-ular

A staff member here led me to this very thoughtful reflection on all the many commentators who are making statements about what we should be looking for in the next Pope.  His conclusions make me think of our Pope-Emeritus' remarks to the College of Cardinals yesterday morning, which movingly ended:

"Before greeting you personally I would like to tell you all that I will continue to be near to you in prayer, especially in the coming days, so that you may be fully docile to the Holy Spirit's action in electing the new Pope. May the Lord show you what He wills. Among you, among the College of Cardinals, is also the future Pope, to whom I already today promise my unconditioned reverence and obedience."

Sede Vacante?

"So, I found this big, comfy chair 

just sitting here empty...

- Felix VI -

...now if I can only figure out 

what these keys go to."

  

The Shoes of the Fisherman

Red shoes.

During the last two and a half weeks, there have been many curious reports about the protocols and procedures surrounding today’s papal abdication.  But none of these has been more curious, in my opinion, than the report a couple of days ago that, as Pope-Emeritus, Benedict XVI would no longer be wearing his distinctively rosy footwear.

Shortly after his 2005 election, there was quite a stir in the secular press over Pope Benedict XVI’s red shoes.  Rumors swirled (later disproven but never totally squelched) that they were made by one of Italy’s most expensive houses of fashion and exorbitantly expensive.  Commentators lamented the extravagance as a sign of the new Pope’s love of luxury; he’d be a man who would take full advantage of every perk and privilege of his high office.

And then Benedict XVI announced his resignation.  One of the most powerful people in the world did what the world finds so unimaginable: he freely and humbly renounced his power in submission to a far higher one.  And in so doing, he gave up his red shoes.

An article on those shoes the other day made a remarkable admission: it appears that we got this man all wrong.  Those shoes weren’t about any wanton extravagance at all; they were, rather, one of many signs of how he would give himself completely to his ministry as the Successor of St. Peter.*

In the gospel reading at Mass today, we hear the story of “a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen” (Luke 16:19).  But it’s not his luxurious wardrobe which determines his eternal destiny.  The clothes do not, in fact, make or break the man.  It’s that he puts his fine attire and other worldly possessions, his sumptuous food and other earthly pleasures, his marks of honor and the other privileges of his high station in life, above any care and concern for the poor beggar lying just outside his door.  In the course of history, there have been plenty of impoverished sinners, and more than a few well-dressed saints.  But you won’t find a single person in that saintly communion—rich or poor—who was not humble.

In just a few hours, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI will remove his famous red shoes one last time.  Today, at the conclusion of his pontificate, let us before sure to pray for this man who has been such a faithful shepherd for the Church.  And as we continue to make our way through these 40 days of Lent, let us also learn from his humble example: detaching ourselves from the things of this passing world, that we might instead be attached only to those things which lead to the joy that endures forever.

* How quickly we forget!  Blessed Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) chose to wear brown shoes, but his pontificate lasted so long that most of us forgot that Popes before him for centuries—going back to late Roman times, in fact—have nearly always worn red shoes.

  

Early Ending

So Fr. Tom and I got up a little after 4:00am this morning to watch this live...

...and to hear our Papa speak and bless us one last time.
It was worth losing a little sleep.
 

A ♥ Story

It'll take you 15 minutes to watch this...but it'll give you hope for the world.
(Maybe even for Facebook.)


 

The Edge

I got a stern talking to after Mass last evening for riding a snowmobile across a frozen lake.
Fear not: we kept things very safe!

   Second Sunday of Lent   C 

Readings

Twice this past week,

I found myself out on the edge of the world—

or so it seemed, anyway.

On Thursday,

I went snowmobiling with friends from Old Forge,

taking us through snow-covered forests

and over solidly-frozen lakes—

seeing sights you just wouldn’t see otherwise.

And then, on Friday, a good bit closer to home,

I went cross-country skiing with another friend

just this side of Paul Smiths,

arriving after a couple of miles at a lean-to

overlooking an icy pond.

Both were experiences of getting away—

withdrawing from the usual hustle and bustle of life,

and instead heading out into the wilderness.

But these experiences were also quite different.

On the snowmobile, life maintains its rather frantic pace.

You’re straddling a loud and powerful machine,

moving at high rates of speed.

You stop to take in the sights, but never for too long—

and not just because it’s cold out there:

there are other places to go and things to see.

Out on the skis, however, time passes quite differently.

The stops are more frequent:

to catch your breath, or to chat with your companion,

or just to take in the beauty of how the afternoon sun

is filtering through the pines and glinting off the snow.

On the snowmobile,

I headed out to the edge of the world

and it seemed like I’d taken

a lot of my usual world along for the ride.

When I reached the world’s edge on my skis, however,

it seemed like I might have already crossed over—

even if only briefly—to the other side…

…and I really wanted to stay.

Jesus leads 

Peter, John, and James 

out into the wilderness—

up to the mountain top—to pray,

and there he is 

transfigured before them.

In Greek and Roman mythology,

transfigurations were 

common enough

as the gods 

manifested themselves 

by taking on earthly forms—

sometimes as animals, 

or even as men.

Jesus’ transfiguration works 

in the opposite direction,

as his humanity 

begins to radiate a glory 

which can only be divine.  

(cf. S. Mueller)

Awestruck, 

Peter dares to speak up:

It is so good that we are here!

Let us build three tents!

We don’t want 

this wonder to ever end!

Peter has taken 

a whole lot of flack 

over the centuries

for wanting to capture 

and somehow preserve

this mystic experience—

an apparently 

impossible endeavor.

But maybe Peter’s error

is not that he was aiming too high…but too low.  (cf. J. Martens)

You see, we generally work on the assumption

that life’s “peak moments” are necessarily short lived.

Whether we’re out alone in nature,

like Abram counting the stars,

or surrounded by the loving company of family and good friends,

those occasions when all seems right with the world

and the Lord feels oh-so-close to us

are real treasures.

But the wonder and awe they inspire within us

don’t have to be—in fact, shouldn’t be—such rare occurrences.

Do you remember the story of Jacob’s ladder?

Jacob dreamt of a stairway running between heaven and earth,

and upon awaking exclaimed,

“Truly the Lord is here and I did not know it!

How awesome is this place!

It is none other than the house of God

and the gateway to heaven.”  (Gen 28:16-17)

Those words have been carved in stone

over the doors of many churches through the years—

and for good reason:

they should we the words our hearts utter

every time we cross the threshold.

You see, in the mystery of the Incarnation,

God sent his only begotten Son in human flesh

that the Lord of heaven might dwell among us on earth—

not merely in temporary quarters,

but in an enduring, quite permanent way.

And we don’t have to go on extravagant expeditions—

not even as far as skis or snowmobiles can carry us—

in order to find ourselves in God’s glorious presence.

God is here!

In the great Sacrament of the Eucharist,

the Lord lives among us still.

That is truly God’s table, and this is truly God’s house!

In a very real way, the golden door of that tabernacle

is the gate to heaven.

So, why aren’t we awestruck and filled with wonder

every time we gather here?

For one thing, we’re a bit like the fish

who went in search of some water to drink.

We’ve become so accustomed 
to God’s constant dwelling-among-us

that we can pretty much take it for granted.

But the other thing is that we often arrive here

like fast-moving snowmobilers.

When coming to church,

we bring our frantic lives along for the ride.

We can stop in for Mass, but not for too long:

arriving at the last minute,

then leaving for our next event in a rush—

maybe even cutting out a few minutes early.

What a different experience awaits us

if we can only slow down a bit!

Jesus was the Son of God all along

through those years his disciples 
had been following him.

Nothing about Jesus changed 
on that day he was transfigured;

what changed is that his followers eyes were opened

to recognize God right there in their midst.

They needed to climb the mountain—
to step away with him—in order to see.

Mass is meant to be for us a chance to step away—

not just another stop among many along our weekly rounds,

but our ultimate destination.

So, this Lent, resolve to try something different:

Don’t fit Mass in between all the other things you’re doing;

organize everything else around Mass.

Get here a little early, taking time to quiet your mind and heart.

Stay a few minutes afterward,

making the time to offer a prayer of thanksgiving.

Let Mass really be a chance to catch your breath,

and soon enough you’ll find it becomes something

that regularly takes your breath away.

How awesome is this place! 

And how good it is that we are here!

To come here is, indeed, to reach the edge of the world,

for here the Lord is really present.

Let’s make sure, then, that we are really present, too.