Dasein

Even Jesus had to get away. More to the point, he took his disciples off to a remote location – “up the mountain” or “into the desert” -- when he wanted to get everyone onto the same page. So there is a precedent.

A few years back, Cardinal McCarrick started holding a Convocation for the priests of the Archdiocese of Washington. I missed the first one because I was living in Rome working for Cardinal Baum. Now it may surprise you to learn that when the Archbishop say, Hey Guys we’re all going to get away and be together and talk about things that are important to priests and the Archdiocese, that not all the priests respond immediately with Hey, great; I can hardly wait! There was some skepticism. Cardinal McCarrick, ever an astute observer of human – and priestly — nature, planned for that, and said it was mandatory and required a direct, personal exemption from him to miss it.

In the defense of us diocesan priest-types, I have to point out that the center of our job description is being here – here to celebrate the sacraments for you, here to respond to your questions and needs, here to take care of the church, and the parish, and the school; here to answer the door, whether it is the mailman, someone lost on University Boulevard, a parishioner in need of confession, the HVAC repair guy, or trick-or-treaters. An awful lot happens here, but that’s another story. So, truly one of the hardest things for us to do is be away. Harder still is to propose that we ALL be away. That is somehow….not what we are for.

So, on this Convocation, all the priests of the Archdiocese get to be together at a hotel and meeting center over in Cambridge, Maryland. We have Mass together and pray together – we even set up a Blessed Sacrament Chapel, right there in what most people think is a ballroom. We have talks by Cardinal Wuerl and some invited speakers, break into working groups, and have a chance for private meetings with the Boss for whatever we want to talk about. We eat and hang out together, some guys play golf together – but November is “off season” for a reason, and the weather does not always permit that.

After that first Convocation, and maybe the second, guys didn’t need to be told it was mandatory anymore. We all discovered that it is something worth doing, worth even leaving the parish without its priests for two whole days. So without threat or penalty, a large percentage of us show up, because it is a good thing to do.

So this week, Fr. DeRosa and I will be away for a couple of days. Father Nick used to tend the store when these things happened, and you all know how good he was at that. This year, Father Clint McDonell, whom many of you have encountered as he celebrates a Sunday Mass here most weeks, will be doing us this great favor. So thank him if you see him for making it possible for us to be away, because once we have done that we will be better at being here, with you and for you as your priests.

Speaking of the doorbell, we were completely overrun here at the Holy House of Soubirous on Halloween. I gave out everything I could lay hands on, and still they kept coming – well over 120 of them! So, if you are one of the masked monsters who left my doorstep with an IOU – come and get it! We are restocked and ready. Just bring that IOU; odds are, one of us will be here.

Monsignor Smith

Understanding our Mother

Would you believe a scandalous story about your mother that was told by someone who loved neither her, nor you?

Most of us are not famous. We do not face the morning papers with delight or dread at the prospect of an article or an op-ed piece that paints us in a good or bad light. Our relationships are more direct, less mediated by third parties.

Still, some of us get our moment in the news. This is Washington, and sometimes our employers or organizations get the spotlight for at least a moment. Friends or family members enjoy or hate their fifteen minutes of fame.

We have some taste of how unfair and inaccurate even the simplest and most straightforward news coverage can be. If we are honest with ourselves, that little insight makes us highly skeptical of everything we read, watch, or hear about other folks. We know it is not the whole story, not enough to claim we know a person or an event accurately and fairly. The simple process of preparing a news story is itself enough to distort a person’s character simply by emphasizing the immediately interesting and omitting the everyday experience.

We would not allow CNN or the Washington Post to change our minds about someone we know well. We would discredit Fox News or Drudge before we took their word over the story we heard from our close friend or family member. This would be the most common of common sense.

Oddly, though, many American Catholics allow an assortment of strangers and enemies to shape their knowledge and understanding of the Church. Journalists and academics, even when being faithful to the standards of their profession, do not seek to understand or explain the faith and life of the Catholic Church according to criteria or characteristics valued by her faithful ministers or members, much less her divine Founder.

In seeking the story or sensation, journalists have no time for the mundane reality of daily prayer and penance. In explaining her actions and history, academics resort too often to measures of power and politics. We wouldn’t believe this stuff if they were saying it about our moms, so why should we credit it when they are talking about Holy Mother, the Church?

That’s what Father Jim Barron, a gifted Chicago priest, theologian, and teacher, and a number of his friends decided. They have compiled a ten-episode video series entitled Catholicism that explains the Church in terms Jesus would have used, and ways people who know her best can recognize her. They traveled the globe to speak of every aspect of her life in front of the most vivid, and often most beautiful, examples of those elements.

Some of the episodes are being run on public television – MPT carried two. The ten-DVD series is easily available on the internet. Episodes will be shown and discussed by several groups in the parish in coming months. You should give your attention to this lesson. It is an opportunity, rare enough these days, to learn about the Church from someone who loves both her, and you.

Monsignor Smith

Not Exaggerated

You’re dead.  Not the I-had-a-really-hard-day kind of dead; not the if-they-catch-me-doing-this kind, either; no, classic, old-fashioned, the-life-is-gone-out-of-you dead.  Not alive anymore.  Now what?

Well, first of all, there’s nothing you can do about it. Really – you’re dead, so the time for doing, or deciding, is over.  You are passive, but aware.

You are annoyed to find out that you are not in heaven, which you expected because you’ve seen too many movies.  You ask, whatever happened to For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16)?

Yes, that salvation is achieved once and for all in Christ Jesus by His perfect sacrifice on the cross.   But it is not achieved in you – not totally anyway, not yet.  All those little things are stuck to you, weighing you down.  At least they seemed little to you at the time you grabbed them. Oh, God wouldn’t send me to hell for this.

You were right about one thing – God wouldn’t send you to hell;  He would have you with Him in glory!  But that seemed so eventual then, back when you got to choose how you spent your time, what you had around you.  You wanted to hold on to those other things, things that seemed important, delightful, or just fun.  Now they are holding on to you, holding you back from heaven.  Now you can’t let go!  You can’t do anything!   You’re dead.

By the mercy of Christ you’re in Purgatory, which may not sound like good news, but it is, because you’re not in hell. That would have required a conscious rejection of Christ’s offer of salvation, renunciation of your Baptism into His death and resurrection, or a conscious choosing of grave sin without repenting.  There’s only one place to go from Purgatory, and that’s heaven.  But you can’t get yourself there.  You need help!  So you ask yourself, who will help me?

Whom did you ask to help you, back when you could do things?  Did you teach your children to pray for you?  Did you tell them to have the Holy Mass offered for you, not only a funeral Mass, but others as well, on the month’s mind, on the anniversary?  Do they know how to pray the rosary?  Who will offer up their pains and sufferings for you, even do penance for you?  Who will help detach those “little” sins from you so that you can move toward the glory?  Who will help you with that spiritual maintenance and upkeep that you never quite got around to, when you were still able to do for yourself?

Next month is the month of All Souls, set aside every year to remember the ones who have gone before us, everyone whose goodness we knew, everyone who loved us and whom we loved. We remember some that we just know are going to need some help. And we help them!

Compile your list, and use the All Souls envelopes to place their names on our Holy Altar to be prayed for at Mass every day in November. Put your sacrifice for them right inside. Say a prayer daily for the Souls in Purgatory. Offer it up. Light a candle. Come to Mass on November 2 – that’s right, the second day in a row – and bring the intentions of your beloved dead with you. While you can still decide and do, bring your children, teach them, and show them. They’ll learn how much you count on their prayers. Because without them, you’re dead.

Monsignor Smith

What we do for one another

Our Holy Father Pope Benedict wants us to focus with him on prayer. That is one of the many things our pilgrims learned during our time with him last week. In his catecheses during his weekly general audiences, he is addressing prayer, and last week he focused particularly on Psalm 23 – the Lord is my shepherd. This is particularly appropriate to us Americans because the popularity of this psalm with our Protestant brothers and sisters has probably made it the equivalent of a chart-topper. But how often do we Catholics remember that it is in fact a prayer?

Said the Pope: Turning to Lord in prayer involves a radical act of trust, in the awareness that one is entrusting oneself to God who is good, "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6-7; Psalm 86:15; cf. Joel 2:13; Genesis 4:2; Psalm 103:8; 145:8; Nehemiah 9:17). For this reason, today I would like to reflect with you on a Psalm that is wholly imbued with trust, in which the psalmist expresses the serene certainty that he is guided and protected, and kept safe from every danger, because the Lord is his shepherd.

Of course, he said that in Italian – but gave a synopsis in English, and spoke some seven or eight other languages too, to teach and greet the thirty to forty thousand pilgrims who were with us in the square that day. He gave us his blessing, which he assured us we could bring home to you. It was good for us to be with our shepherd – Christ’s vicar, who shepherds His flock upon earth.

I am thrilled to learn how well you all thrived without your (local) shepherd for the days I was away. Father DeRosa did a fine job of keeping an eye on things. The Fall Festival and associated events were a great success, despite some disappointing weather. I thank chairmen Lauren Draley and Stanley and Jessica Barsch for doing such a great job of pulling it together, and the Knights of Columbus, Boy Scouts, Holy Name guys, and all the volunteers and sponsors who made it work so well.

We parish priests count on your prayers for us and for the parish, in extraordinary times and day to day. Your prayer is a vital support for the work not only of the priests but also of the whole community. We priests just get the chance more than you to see the need, direct the grace, and often, see the results of all your prayer.

Our pilgrimage was characterized by prayer as well. Everywhere we went – Saint Catherine’s Siena, Saint Francis’ Assisi, the catacombs and the basilicas of Rome, we offered Mass, and we always, always prayed for the parish and all the intentions that had been entrusted to us. In our rosaries and in our visits to the sacred places, we brought your needs with us to the Lord.

Deacon Patrick Lewis and thirty-four others were ordained in splendor, and now have a license to preach and assist at the Holy Altar. Deacon Lewis was radiant with grace and looks forward to being ordained a priest here, in Washington’s basilica, next June 16. Do not neglect him in your prayers!

As this week in our most powerful prayer, the Holy Mass, we begin using the musical settings of the new English translation, let me share with you a Latin phrase that sums up the fabric of our relationship: Oremus pro invicem. It means, let us pray for one another. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict wants us to focus with him on prayer. Together here, or on separate continents, Oremus pro invicem.

Monsignor Smith