Living Monstrance

I was driving down route I-93 in Boston a few weeks ago and passed a large billboard for the Boston Rescue Mission. It says, “Transforming lives at risk since 1899.” Then, below that, there is a picture of a real man with the words, “I am living proof.” I thought to myself, that’s what convinces me. Not a bunch of words, but real proof. Living proof. It got me onto the web later on, looking up what Boston Rescue Mission is all about.

The Christmas break from the seminary I spent visiting a lot of people, because right now I don’t have a place to stay. My parents’ home is rented out, so friends invite me to stay at their places. I got the chance to visit with a lot of old friends that I hadn’t had the chance to catch up with for a while. One evening at my friend Jim’s, we were catching up with some other friends, telling some old stories, and laughing. He said, “Jerome, I remember when you got out of grad school, you had everything on a schedule, always getting something done. I was late meeting up with you one time, and you were all upset, ‘You’re wasting my time!’” I know, I used to be like that, I said. Well after admiring my friends for being my friends, later on after the kids went to bed I showed Jim and his wife some of the videos of what was happening in Ecuador, what God had done for me, on his huge-screen TV that gets Youtube. Giant images of green countryside, a loving presence to people in the forgotten places of the world, beautiful Spanish music, he said, this is pretty amazing that you’re doing this. It didn’t hit me until much later, this is the 180 degree opposite of how Jim knew me before.

I was God’s living proof.

One of the last places I visited over the break was a lawyer’s office, a man who I knew from high school, one of my brother’s friends. We talked on the phone and he needed to meet up about some paperwork for my father’s estate settlement. I said, “I will come to you.” So I drove over to his office and we began to talk, about the Church. Well he must have liked what I said, because he said at the end, “When are you going to get ordained?” But after we had talked, he took out the paperwork, gave me a rundown, and then slid a piece of paper over to me, and asked me to sign on the ‘x’ – to claim my share of my father’s inheritance.

Why was St. Paul so convincing? Why did so many people get the hope to turn toward the Lord because of him? Well, he was a type-A, demanding, get-things-done, type of guy with a closed-up heart, who became a man with a huge loving heart and something exciting to share. He went from being a bossy control freak to being a son of God.

He was living proof.

What can make a Christian convincing? What makes people want to find out about God? What can give people hope to have a happier and fuller life? What convinces people that God has a rescue mission to bring us out of the miseries of life, that He really loves us and cares about us? It isn’t philosophy or theology, or right morals, or big programs or inspiring thoughts, or good works toward the disadvantaged.

It is by revealing what God has done for us.

By being living proof.

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

When Pope John Paul II came to Boston in 1980, he gave a homily for the first time in America. The first thing he said was, “Come, and follow me, follow Christ!” Then, he gave some advice to some people, especially married people: share your burdens with one another, respect the dignity of your spouse, be open to life, make the marriage stable. But he didn’t just say those things to help people out or to tell them what to do. He told them those things because that’s what he does in his relationship with the Church. He was doing those things at that very moment by being there and saying what he did. And he wanted to invite everyone to be with him, doing what he was doing, living what he was living.

It was an invitation. Come, follow me. Follow Christ.

When I was in Ecuador, my friend Padre Julian asked me to do marriage preparation with a young couple in the parish. I thought, I know what I am going to tell them. Find another couple to share the journey with, to be a role model. Live a sacramental life. Memorialize and remember your wedding regularly, don’t forget. Renew your love for each other regularly, tell each other you love each other. I was telling them what I do in my relationship with the Church. What Christ does. I was giving them an invitation: “Come, follow me. Follow Christ.” Now my Spanish isn’t all that great, but I tell you, something gets inside of me whenever I extend that invitation, I don’t know, it just comes out.

At one point in the trip to Ecuador, Padre Julian took me and Fr. Bill to a little village in a remote spot. It was literally at the end of the road. The people there didn’t have the complicated lifestyle that we have up here. Some running water, farmland, a little school, a beautiful country. It was the tiniest, remotest village, but it had the biggest and most beautiful hearts. Fr. Bill and I thought we were in heaven. Padre Julian smiled.

In my father’s last days, I was able to come from that time in Ecuador and I couldn’t wait to tell him about it. The leaving everything, the trip to the end of the road, the people, the love. See, I had sold everything and given it to the poor and gone and followed the Lord and come to the end of the road, and I was giving him an eyewitness account of what it is like when you do that. In his last days and moments, I told him, “Go, Dad, go. You can leave us and everything behind and go, go to the end of the road, it is great, I’ve been there. Some day, we’ll be coming too.”

It was an invitation.

“Come, follow me. Follow Christ.”

Satan knows a lot of things. He knows the Bible, and can quote it up and down. He knows about suffering, and can do a lot of things for a good cause to relieve people’s suffering. He can be a Church-going Catholic or Christian, put on the mask and be a great and prayerful man or woman and try to save people from their suffering. Peter was like that, remember? He wanted to prevent Jesus from suffering. But there’s one thing the devil will never do. He will never follow the one God has chosen. He will never follow Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus told Peter to get behind Him.

There’s only one thing that a Christian can do for others. Each of us is unique and can do it in our own unique way, but it is the same thing underneath it all. All that the Church has done for others for 2000 years is really only one thing. But it’s everything. We can invite others to join us, to be with us living the life we’re living with God.

It is an invitation.

“Come, follow me. Follow Christ.”

Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. (1 Cor 11:1)

My mother was a great piano player. She wasn’t a professional, but she could read music and play, and she could hear a song for a few minutes and then sit down at the piano and just play it by ear, and usually, some singing accompanied it, too. So, of course I was always fascinated as a kid with her piano playing. At some point, I think when I was about 10 years old, I started to ask and so she taught me about music and the piano. She taught me to read some music and what the notes were on the piano, how to read an “arrangement”, as musicians call it.

Well, not too long afterwards, I remember one day in my school class, the teacher had some problems with the music part. I don’t remember everything, but I do remember that I was after class for a while teaching my teacher. I was showing her how to put the sharps and flats on the music scale that indicate the key that the music is in. It was how to understand the arrangement. Everything I learned from my mother.

When Jesus is twelve years old, he is off in the temple teaching the teachers. He’s talking about God and His salvation, probably teaching them how God arranges everything in history so that life can be lived with Him to its full. He’s teaching them about the Arrangement. And where did He get all that? His mother.

God is arranging everything for us to live life to the full with His Son. And He has given us His mother to teach us all about it. Mary is great at living life with God and she can teach us how to read the arrangement, she can teach us everything we need to know.

Even more than the teachers.

I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. (Psalm 119)

Happy feast of Mary Mother of God,
Jerome

This semester in the seminary, I took an elective class because I already satisfied one of the required courses. It was a class in the anthropology of Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II. Anthropology is when you study what makes us human. So, I thought, this will be great, anything by Pope John Paul II would be great. I hoped I could understand it.

So, the professor started out laying out what he expected would happen in the course. There would be a lot of reading in Karol Wojtyla’s most complicated books, and there were no tests or quizzes or finals. Only one final, 15-page paper.

So, of course what happens? Well, all the other classes that are not nearly as interesting but have papers and tests and quizzes during the semester get right up there on the priority list, and the class that has all the good but really hard stuff ends up dead last on my priority list. So, classes go by, and the professor is covering the material, and I’m following along as best I can because I haven’t read anything.

So the end of the semester starts to get close, and I realize, you know, I don’t think I’ve had time to read much of anything in this class. I started thinking about dropping the class. One day after class, I was talking again with the professor about that one consistent theme I was noticing, and I told him, “You know, I have to confess, I haven’t done much of the reading.” He said, “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think anyone has.” That gave me the confidence to write about this one consistent theme I was catching onto:

Mary.

So, I wrote about Mary and the Pope and his anthropology. It was the best paper I have ever written. I finished it early and it was a few pages longer than what was expected. There will be an A on the report card next to anthropology. Here I was a few weeks earlier standing there with nothing at all, seeing no way to go and thinking, that’s it, this makes no sense to continue. Then, I let Mary in. And everything changed. It went from course drop to A.

I think back on the time when Joseph was engaged to Mary, and he found out she was pregnant. He’s probably thinking, “I am not prepared for this, it is beyond me. Forget this, it’s time to bail on this one. Divorce her and go our separate ways, it’s too much.” Course drop.

That’s when the angel came to him and told him not to be afraid to let Mary in, because the Holy Spirit was working in her. So he did. And everything changed. Now, he’s the model husband, the patron of the whole Church. How many people know who he is and love him, how many miracles of God has he gotten? Now, he is Saint Joseph. His life went from course drop to A. When he let in Mary.

On Christmas Eve, a cold dark cave is all that would let Mary in. I don’t know exactly what was there, I do know it was a cave and there were animals and a manger. I imagine times I’ve been around animals at farms, and I imagine that it was like that, except inside a cave. What is hard to imagine is staying there and delivering a child there. That’s course drop territory. But Mary came in, and that cave turned into God’s home. People have spent a thousand years trying to reproduce that one little cave, because Mary was let into it. It’s not a cold cave anymore: now it’s God’s home. When Mary is let in, everything changes.

There may be situations in life where you feel unprepared to handle what life is giving, you may be thinking all you’ve got is a cold cave on the inside and it only makes sense to drop the course. But if you let Mary in, she will bring Someone else with her, and that cold cave will become God’s home.

Because when Mary is let in, everything changes.

A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ez 36:26)

A Blessed Christmas!

The Lord said that no one born of a woman is greater than John the Baptist. Now, let’s get this straight. Here is a guy who has been off everyone’s radar screen for years, who suddenly shows up dressed in oddly ragged and old clothes, fresh off a diet of bugs. He’s probably not doing the daily shower thing, he probably stinks. He’s out publicly inviting people to stop and re-think their lives. He’s an oddball. So what makes him great?

The spot where John the Baptist was baptizing people was a part of the Jordan River with a steep bank and a really hard, fast current. So, I imagine being near the bank, the rush of the water making a loud noise, a crowd of people around. And there is John the Baptist actually able to go in and out of this water, carefully taking people with him. He’s able to hold them sturdily and securely, to dunk them down until they’re completely submerged, and then to raise them out of the rushing waters. I’d be thinking to myself, wow. That’s impossible. How does he do that? That’s what makes him great. John the Baptist can stand in the mainstream and hold his ground and still minister to many others.

How did he do it?

Well, let’s see. He was born just before Jesus. He was in the desert just before Jesus. He was publicly preaching just before Jesus. He was killed just before Jesus. John the Baptist lived his whole life bound to Jesus. He made his home outside the mainstream. That’s how he was able to do it. That’s what made him strong and yet gentle, weak and yet generous.

There’s a push to call Pope John Paul II, “John Paul the Great”. Here is a man who put aside the money and the comfort and luxury and went out to all the countries in the world. He stood strong in the mainstream and invited everyone to re-think life. He was true to himself and extended love to everyone. I think people looked at that, saw him standing in the middle of the rushing current like that, and thought, wow, that’s impossible. How does he do that? He could do it because he made his home outside the mainstream. He lived Christ’s life. That’s what made him great.

In our lives we are in the mainstream, life comes at us fast every day. We need to able to stand in the mainstream and still be true to ourselves, still love. There is a way. Be like John the Baptist, like John Paul the Great, and be bound to Jesus, join in His life. Make our homes outside the mainstream. We won’t be in the popular crowd, we won’t have the best food or the nice clothes or the big house. We won’t have the easy life.

But we will be great.

“Yet least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Lk 7:28)

Last night at the Cathedral in Boston, a large contingent from Boston’s hispanic community celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A photo and a few videos.

Happy Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe! She has done great things for me, thank you Guadalupanita!

My pastoral assignment in the seminary this year is at the Italian Home for Children in Boston. It used to be an orphanage for Italian children many years ago, and now it’s a place for children experiencing a whole array of problems, for short or longer-term stays. It’s a tough time for the kids, as you might imagine. But it also can become one of the greatest times of their lives.

Sr. Margaret is the active Franciscan sister who leads up the spiritual development. There’s a little chapel with the memories of so many of the kids who have come through there in the past 20 years attached to the walls:

Here is the tabernacle:

It’s a blessing for me to be there!

So a few days ago, we had a visitor for the kids. Cristina Powell is only 23 years old but already has her own non-profit company, A Brighter Way. She makes her own artwork especially for lifting others up, she shares it in hospitals and other institutions for the sick and suffering.
Of course, there’s a lot more to know about Cristina. She is a living miracle. Here are her own words from her website:

I’m Cristina Powell. In 1988, when I was four days old, I was adopted from Lima, Peru. At fifteen months, I was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy and a movement disorder… not expected to walk or talk… thankfully, I do both!

Cristina began to go to school at home, to learn in her own way, and to be herself. And her talents took off.


So in the chapel, Cristina got up in front of everyone and shared her story and her gifts with the kids. At the end, Sr. Margaret asked if anyone had any questions. One little boy said, “I think you should keep drawing.” Another 6-year-old boy said, “I think what you do is beautiful.” A twelve-year-old said, “I believe in you.”
Now, these are all kids that are far from home, in an institution where there’s a lot of tough stuff going on. It’s a few weeks before Christmas, so everything they’re going through is intensified. And they’re able to lift others up.
That’s a miracle.
That’s what happens when you get a glimpse of a brighter way.

Please don’t tell yourself, “I can’t!” I just know there has to be a better way for you. All you need to do is trust yourself and believe in yourself. You may not know it, but it’s leading you to…a brighter way.
– Cristina

When I was in Ecuador, my friend took me to the little rodeo. There’s a square ring with a bamboo fence, and a bunch of people sit on the fence. Then, on the side, attached to the ring, is a big bull pen, filled with bulls that have been poked and prodded and made to be very angry. He opens up the door and a bull comes charging out. It runs into the ring and looks for someone or something to take all its anger out on. And the people on the fence don’t make it any better for the bull. They throw sticks and rocks and whatever they can find at him, making him even more angry.

Eventually, someone gets the courage to get in the ring and do a few olays with the red cape thing. The crowd gets a little excitement, the guy has some fame, the bull gets out its aggression. And the bull gets his licks in. Some guys I saw had a hard time walking afterwards. I heard that some of the big pains don’t really show up until a week later. It’s risky getting in the ring with the bull. You can really get hurt.

Well, at one point, a bull with huge horns came running into the ring. These things were probably over a foot long each. The bull came running out to the center, full speed, and started looking around, turning in circles, looking for someone to charge. I tell you, no one got in that ring. No one threw a stick, no one taunted it, no one got near it. It just stood in the center for about 15 minutes. It was one of the most boring things I’ve seen in my life. I thought, that’s wise. Never get in the ring with the bull. And then, the bull went back in his pen. It was over. No more raging bull. Everything went back to normal.

At one point, a little later, when some young guy was in the ring with another bull, I leaned over to my friend and said, “What do you think: hero or fool?” I didn’t have to wait a second: “Fool.” Yeah, I thought. Fool.

After Jesus is born, Joseph has a dream. The local king is a bully. He’s going to look for Jesus for a fight. God wants Joseph to take Mary and Jesus and run away to a foreign country. Now, Joseph is no fool. He’s not going to get in the ring with bull. It’s off to Egypt to … to wait. Well, sure enough, after a time, Herod’s gone. Then it was safe to come back and settle down. And that’s how Jesus ended up in Nazareth.

What did it accomplish? Is God a big chicken? Is He at the mercy of the bully?

Well, it just so happens that the prophets said that the Messiah would come out of Egypt. They also said He would be from Nazareth. Huh? How can that be true? How can the Messiah come from two completely different places?

With the help of the bully.

Even the bully is a part of God’s plan.

I drive by a sign on the ramp to get on route 93. It says something about how to stop bullying. There are bullying laws in the state right now. Bullying is a big thing. In schools, there’s the kid who has to be the center of attention and is always looking for a fight. You turn on the radio and TV, and there’s a person looking for a debate. There’s FoxNews and MSNBC, right vs. left, conservative vs. liberal, Red Sox vs. Yankees. It’s like the rodeo.

But if we don’t get in the ring, if we keep out of it and wait, we’ll realize that the bully eventually goes away. Something special will happen. It’s all part of God’s plan.

What happens when you come across a bully, someone who’s been really hurt and looking to take it out on someone, someone who puts themselves at the center and wants a fight? Don’t get into the drama. Don’t get in the ring with the bull. Don’t fight his fight. Yeah, it may be the boring way. You’re not going to get people excited. It may take a lot of effort. You may look like a big chicken.

But here’s the thing to remember: the bull only sticks around for a short time. Pretty soon, he’ll be gone. And something special will happen.

It’s all part of God’s plan.

Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over him who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the wicked shall be cut off;
but those who wait for the LORD shall possess the land.
Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look well at his place, he will not be there.
But the meek shall possess the land,
and delight themselves in abundant prosperity. (Ps 37:7-11)

The most interesting man in the world.

You know him. People hang on his every word, even the prepositions. His legend precedes him, like lightning precedes thunder. When in Rome, they do as he does. His friends don’t throw him going away parties, they just follow him. Even his enemies list him as their emergency contact. He’s been in all the most interesting circumstances in human history.

OK, it’s the guy from the beer commercials. But you know, you could say all that about Jesus too. There is one big difference. The guy in the beer commercial does it all himself. Jesus? He only does them with us.

On our own, we’re probably not all that interesting, I mean not like the guy in the beer commercial. But together in Jesus?

We are the Church. We are called to be … the most interesting people in the world.

“You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 5:14,16)

Jerome

The other day in the Greek class here in the seminary, we came across a new word: staurow. It means crucifixion. The teacher used a pneumonic to help us understand it: Storrow Drive. You get crucified when you drive Storrow Drive. I know a lot of people with the road rage wounds to prove it.

Well, on Storrow there is a sign that stands out. It describes the road. It says, “Reverse Curve.” But some forlorn Red Sox fans changed it a long time ago. Now it says, “Reverse Curse.”

On Jesus’ Staurow, there is also a sign. We know what it says: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. That’s what makes Him the king. It’s not that He told other people what to do, or had great ideas. It’s that He became the lowest, out of love. That’s the road.

To reverse the curse.

Happy Solemnity of Christ the King!

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree”– that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal 3:13-14)