Glorious busyness

We are busy. Everybody invokes that mantra to explain so many things in life today, and there is no contradiction. We are busy; we sigh and recognize that we cannot do everything we would like to do, be with everyone we would like to be with, or even be the way we would like ourselves to be, because we are busy. Often, too often, it keeps us from doing what we would like to do for God, spending the time we would like to spend with God, and even being the way we would like ourselves to be before God.

Saint Paul has a response today for anyone of us who recognizes that discouraging sentiment: do everything for the glory of God. In case we are tempted to think that some special activity is required for that to be possible, he makes it this basic: Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

Heck, everybody does that much – everybody’s gotta eat! And even those strange folks who forget to eat (I have never quite understood how that is possible, but that’s just me) won’t try to go on without something to drink. That’s all it takes, and we are eligible and able to give glory to God.

How do basic human actions like eating and drinking translate into glory to God? Well, as Saint Anselm put it, Gloria Dei homo vivens, or The glory of God is the living man. But to take it one simple step beyond that, even our most basic human actions give glory to God when they are done with gratitude.

The leper Jesus heals today is not able to satisfy himself with just obtaining certification of his status as leprosy-free. No, he has to tell people about it. He must share with everyone he meets what Jesus has done for him. Can you blame him? Listen to Leviticus’ description of what marked the disease he suffered: a scab or pustule or blotch. Yuck! To be freed from that would leave anyone bubbling over with gratitude. So indeed he was: He spread the report abroad so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.

Too easily we can think of some effort or activity or even a person as leading us away from prayer, or worship, or doing what we would like to do for God. But we are forgetting the awesome power that we are given in Christ. Every act we do in union with Him is an act of gratitude, since by His sacrifice on the Holy Cross He united Himself to us in a perfect act of thanksgiving. Thus every act of our human condition, freely chosen and freely offered, can give glory to God, if we so will it. We are able to do everything for the glory of God.

We rejoice to dedicate this weekend to our participation in the Cardinal’s Appeal. By the grace of God we are diverted from our selfishness and made aware of our ability to address the needs of our brothers and sisters. We do not have time to complain or even notice what we lack. We are busy, busy indeed – busy doing everything for the glory of God.

Monsignor Smith

Doing follows from being

In light of the pernicious HHS mandate that I was compelled to bring to your attention last week, as did Fr. DeRosa and Fr. McDonell, it seems problematic that we now devote the homily at Mass to the Cardinal’s Appeal, but I would submit that instead this is truly providential.

It could not come at a more poignant time, really, because as we prepare to give of our resources to support the Appeal, we remind ourselves that the Church is not a group of people who are turned in on some shared interest or activity. Worshiping God together is the indispensible center of our very being, and the goal of our every breath. However, because of the God we encounter in that worship we turn outward as well, and greet everyone we encounter with the Good News.

Now that may sound to you like something Jesus Freaks would do, something that could be dismissed or disapproved as proselytizing. But do not allow that scary word to form you! Realize that in knowing Christ, we encounter God in His knowledge and love for us. Being formed by this awareness, given us by the Scriptures, and fortified by His presence and activity in the Sacraments, we are made able to look upon our neighbors with a share of that divine love.

When we see our neighbors with the eyes of God, we are moved by this love to respond to their needs. Whether that need is a kind word or a hot lunch, we respond according to our ability and resources. This is the work of faith that occurs at the level of the local church, the Church of Washington, through the Cardinal’s Appeal. We also do this work within our parish and community, and even as families and as individuals, with needs that we identify and address. This is the work of the Gospel just as much as is our prayer. We cannot not help our brothers and sisters in need.

In doing so, we reveal to the recipients of our care not only God Himself in his merciful love, but who they themselves truly are – unique and cherished sons and daughters, marvelously defined by the divine dignity bestowed on them by their Creator. This is the Good News of Jesus Christ: You are loved and worth loving; you are worth everything I have to give.

Because the dignity this reveals in every person who accepts this gift, this mercy, and this love, is characterized by freedom, anyone to whom we provide help or sustenance is free to recognize or reject the truth of their great worth in the eyes of God. Our care never carries with it the expectation, much less the requirement, of acceptance of the Faith that directs and animates it.

Thus our acts of charity are motivated by our recognition of and respect for the dignity of those to whom we give our care, and thus not only do not only not infringe upon, but actually enhance, their own freedom and understanding of it.

It is precisely this outreach of love and respect that the HHS mandate seeks to curtail, and even eliminate, by sentencing us to choose between our faith and our works. It will deny our freedom, and our dignity. We have been endowed with this dignity and this freedom by our Creator. But it is not “merely” a precept of “our religion,” as some would dismiss it; it is a founding precept of our civil covenant, the Constitution.

For this reason our course of action is clear. As citizens, we will resist the abuse of civil power. As Christians, we will continue to do the work of love. But doing the truth in charity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ. (Eph 4:15)

Monsignor Smith

Three's Company

I know that in January everything can seem a little grimmer. With the Christmas holidays behind us, it’s a long haul to the next fun. The weather is unremittingly grim, and we cannot even console ourselves much with thoughts of next month, since that is February, and there’s an extra day of it this year, to boot! It is all exacerbated by being in an election year. Even Lent is beginning to look good from here.

So I have some good news to share with you. Father Clint McDonell, whom many of you have met or at least seen and heard since he began helping out in our parish a few months ago, has received permission from his Archbishop to move into our rectory here. He will help out with Masses and confessions, and help keep morale high in the rectory, all very important functions for which he is well suited.

Fr. McDonell is a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, ordained three and a half years, who has been assigned to pursue his doctorate in philosophy at Catholic University. That will take a lot of time and work, at minimum five years, so if we are all nice to him, this could be a long and happy relationship.

I am not saying he will take Father Nick’s place – I doubt anyone could do that – but he will take Father Nick’s room. No one can aspire to carry the title of Father Food with quite the style that Fr. Nick brings, but Fr. McDonell does indicate both an interest in eating and an inclination toward cooking at fairly high levels of zeal and skill. Heaven knows he has tested my own skills as I have tried to prepare meals that would convince him to want to live here.

I believe most of his sports loyalties are predictably local to Detroit, but you can ask him about that yourselves. But his undeniable Midwestern-ness does liberate this Alabama boy from the oppressive preponderance of New Yorkers that Frs. Nick and DeRosa formed. Now we have a three-way tie – or maybe a Triple Alliance.

His most important qualifications are that he loves being a priest, and really likes Saint Bernadette. He started hanging around here last fall, and helped out when I was away in October, and covered all the Masses when Fr. DeRosa and I both had to go on the Archdiocesan priest’s retreat in November. But I know for a fact that he has only begun to get to know you personally, and since that is the very best part, I encourage and invite you to help him with that when next you see him.

Now, he says he will be moving here gradually over coming months, and not be full-time in residence here until next fall semester. We have already asked him to be here when either Fr. DeRosa or I hope to be away. But once he gets to know you, I don’t know how he would possibly prefer to cram himself back into his little dorm room near campus rather than stay in the Holy House of Soubirous.

Such reluctance to leave would not be without precedent. Heck, Father Nick can’t stay away, and he is supposed to live in another state! And certain other priests are known to have gone away only to come back, and stay…and stay...and stay. Such is the power of this parish and her gracious and good-natured people. You just keep it up!

God bless you with ever-abundant charm and enthusiasm. It’s one thing that I can enjoy even in January, and in every other month of the year too.

Monsignor Smith

Not passing when the hat is passed

First, some business: My congratulations and thanks to all of you who participated in the Cardinal’s Appeal this year. As you can see in the accompanying insert from the Archdiocese, the Appeal raised a record amount last year, mainly to assist all those in Washington who look to the Church when they have true needs that cannot, or will not, be met by anyone else.

As for our part in that, Saint Bernadette was assigned a goal of just over $139,000. We pledged over $160,000, but actually contributed only 137,070 by the time the Appeal closed accounts this month. What happened to that $27,000? I don’t know – things come up, folks get distracted, our eyes are bigger than our stomachs even when it comes to giving. But remember this in coming Appeals when it seems that already enough has been pledged to meet our goal. Not everyone can or will follow through on those pledges, so we still need you!

The other fun fact is that our participation this year up again: 455 households donated (or pledged, I don’t know which), which seems respectable at 42.55 percent of the 1,082 households currently registered in our parish. Interestingly, this is very near the percentage and count of households who participate in our parish offertory. Now that number may not strike you as being quite so respectable, especially if you give steadily and know from experience how important that is to your relationship with Christ! I don’t want to alarm folks, but will mention further that the percentage of parishioners who give steadily is lower still.

It is a tough sell in this demanding world to point out that we need to give – we need to give in order to live. There is so much insistence that the opposite is true; this call to give can seem a small voice indeed. It is the still, small voice of God Himself; the voice crying in the wilderness; and in fact the very Word, who took flesh and dwelt among us. This is my beloved Son; listen to Him!

Now for a story. In July of 1978, the Smith family was returning to Alabama from a three-week, 6,000 mile journey through the American and Canadian West, from Pike’s Peak to Columbia Icefields, including Banff, Lake Louise, Glacier, and Yellowstone parks. Having stopped in St. Joseph, Missouri, for their second-to-last night in a hotel, they awoke to find a message at the desk informing them that their Oldsmobile station wagon had been robbed overnight. There was little in the car to steal, but among the items taken was the tote containing undeveloped rolls of vacation pictures from several of the family’s cameras, and one cherished souvenir: a black cowboy hat from Calgary.

While in Tucson last week with my parents, sister Suzy, and her family, we hiked the mountains and the desert, visited missions and galleries, and had many delightful meals, including New Mexican, Poblano, barbecue (in a train car no less!) and home-cooked. On my last afternoon in town, having seen and done everything we could think of, my folks asked if there was anything else I wanted to do before we headed back to the casita. I suggested that I would like to try to find a hat. The iPhone indicated a nearby place called Arizona Hatters.

Half an hour later, as we happily drove away from the store wondering how I could safely lug my purchase on the long plane trip, I noticed a deeper satisfaction than I could explain by the hat’s fit, shape, or color. Then I remembered that sad day in Missouri in 1978.

The ancient wrong has been righted. You’ll see the evidence about campus. God bless!

Monsignor Smith

Places to go

I mentioned last week that more than two thousand people came here for Christmas. That was a pretty big number for our parish, though our church is large enough that we can handle it easily. The marvel is the number of lives that converged here in celebration of the Birth of Christ.

However, our numbers pale in comparison to an interesting attendance statistic from another quarter I read today:

MORE THAN 2.5 MILLION FAITHFUL MEET THE POPE IN 2011

VATICAN CITY, 3 JAN 2012 (VIS) - The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household has published a communiqué announcing that, during the course of 2011, 2,553,800 faithful participated in various meetings with Benedict XVI including general audiences (400,000), private audiences (101,800), liturgical celebrations (846,000), Angelus and Regina Coeli (1,206,000). These statistics, which show an increase with respect to the last three years, refer only to meetings that took place in the Vatican or Castelgandolfo, and do not include the many thousands of faithful who came to see the Holy Father on his journeys in Italy or abroad.

The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household explains that the numbers are approximate, calculated on the basis of requests to participate in meetings with the Pope and on the tickets distributed, as well as on estimations of people present at events such as the Angelus or large celebrations in St. Peter's Square. The single event which brought together the largest number of faithful was the beatification of John Paul II on 1 May.

Please note that of that, 2,553,800 faithful, thirty-five are us – pilgrims from our parish pilgrimage to Rome in October, when we joined about forty thousand others at a Wednesday General Audience with the Holy Father. And that is not counting the hundreds of thousands, probably several million, who saw the Pope on his journeys last year! I am not jealous; I know I am not in his league (though I am in league with him, ideally). How could I be jealous, when I am a fan?

I think it is great that so many people went to the effort to spend time with the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ on earth, the Servant of the Servants of God. It reveals that they know that there is something about him that is different, special, and sacred. He is the Successor of Peter, and carries the responsibility of governing Christ’s Church. As such, he enjoys the graces that our Lord promised to Peter and all who hold that office: divine help and guidance, that the powers of death shall not prevail against it. (Mt 16:18)

The great gift that we have as Catholics is that we have places to go, things to do, and people to see. We are not locked in our minds and its abstract possibilities of drawing closer to God, or moving further away. It all started on the day that Christ was born, when the shepherd were told where to go, and whom to see. That day was holy; that place was holy; and those people – not just Jesus, but Mary, and Joseph, too – were holy. They could be seen, touched, heard, and talked to by all who had eyes to see and ears to hear.

And we few – or few thousand – are not deprived of that because we are separated from Bethlehem that night by several thousands of miles, and years. Praise be to God who came to dwell among us in human flesh, and still does, and still waits, looking to see not how many, but who shows up.

Monsignor Smith