Author: Christine Jordan

Dear Friends,

Not long ago on PBS there was a show on Masterpiece theatre.  It was about an older woman in London who owned an antique shop.  Her store was filled with many beautiful and expensive items.  This woman longed for retirement.  She’d been selling antiques for decades and she was tired.  In her shop she had this expensive table, kings once dined on it.  It was regal, and perfect, there wasn’t a scratch on it, and it shined so much that you could see your reflection.  It was worth thousands of pounds.  And the woman would think, “If only I could sell that table then I can retire.”  But it never sold.

Now every Sunday afternoon this woman did a bit of charity work.  She would bring a meat pie to a home bound woman.  This woman was very old and confined to her bed.  Now the antique dealer had an ulterior motive because the older woman was all alone in a huge mansion and this mansion was filled with beautiful antiques.  And every time the woman visited with her meat pie she’d spy the different things in the mansion and think, “Oh that mirror is worth 1000 pounds,” or “That chair I could sell in a day!”

And so it went week after week, month after month year after year.  Meat pie after meat pie and all the while that table would not sell. That table where kings once dined would not sell.  “I’ll never be able to retire,” thought the antique dealer.

Eventually the old woman in the mansion dies and she leaves everything to a niece in America, everything to a niece in America, a niece that no one knew about.  Except for one thing, one thing did not go to America.  The antique dealer received a small drawing of a finger, a pencil sketch of a finger, more of a doodle than anything.  It was in a crummy frame with a cracked piece of glass covering it.  The antique dealer didn’t even want to keep it, a crummy picture for all those visits with meat pies, she thought.  She put a price on the finger and put it up for sale in her shop.

A week later a tourist from Canada enters her shop and he’s very interested in the table.  He comes back three times to look at it.  He doesn’t even quibble about how expensive it is.  The Canadian on his last trip to the store spies the finger drawing in its crummy frame and asks, “How much?”  The antique dealer replies, “Oh that’s nothing, 20 pounds,” the Canadian buys the drawing and leaves.  He doesn’t even buy the table.  The woman is disappointed.

Another week passes the woman opens the newspaper and turns to the Arts section and the headline grabs her attention, “Canadian finds long lost sketch of Michelangelo’s Finger of God, and sells it for two million pounds.”  That doodle of a finger was sketched by Michelangelo in preparation for his Sistine Chapel Masterpiece, “God creates Adam” where the finger of God reaches out to the finger of Adam.  The old lady in the mansion had left the antique dealer a fortune, enough to retire many times over.  She was not forgotten.

In that doodle of a finger there was more there than what the eye saw.  The eye saw a crummy frame a pane of cracked glass, and the sketch of a finger that looked like an afterthought.  But in reality it was the work of a master.  There was more there than the eye saw.

Every time we celebrate Mass there is more than meets the eye.  We have been left a spiritual fortune in the Eucharist; we have been left a spiritual fortune in the Mass.  We have not been forgotten.  A little piece of what looks to be bread and a little drop of what looks to be wine is the wealth of God.  There is more here than what meets the eye.

When we think of the Sistine Chapel, the first thing we think of is that famous work of art where the finger of God reaches out to the finger of Adam.  Some writers will say that the Mass occupies the gap between their fingers.  At every Mass Heaven meets Earth, the Mass occupies that space between the finger of God and the finger of Adam.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!”  In other words, “Jesus be my Savior!”  This is a prayer that was prayed often by St. Ralph Sherwin.  He’s one of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales canonized in 1970.

Young Ralph Sherwin was a very intelligent boy.  And his natural talents gained him a spot at Oxford’s Exeter College.  He earned his degree in 1574 with high honors.  He could have done anything he wanted, law, medicine, politics, even priesthood in the Church of England.  Instead, however, he had a major reversion to the Catholic faith.  But this was a problem because this was the time of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, and it was illegal to be a Catholic, no priests were allowed to live out in the open.  They had to hide.

So Ralph went to France to study for the priesthood, and there he was ordained in 1577.  He then went on to Rome to finish his studies.  In 1580 he was part of the first convoy of Missionary priests sent to England.  He came dressed undercover as a French businessman.  Fr. Ralph began to work in various parts of the country and he was very successful.  His work was brief; however, and he was captured after three months and sent to the Tower of London.  There he was kept in iron chains and tortured on the rack.  That’s the device that stretches you until you scream. In the midst of all the tortures he was offered the title of Bishop and a prestigious post in the Church of England, if he would deny the Pope.  He didn’t.

After a year of torture he was put on trial on a trumped-up charge that he had conspired to start a rebellion.  At the trial he shouted out that, “The plain reason of my standing here is religion, not treason.”  He was sentenced to be hung with drawing and quartering to follow.  He prayed to God to forgive his persecutors and, if God so willed, to bring them into the Catholic faith, he even prayed for the queen.  And his last words before dying were these, the prayer of his entire life, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!”  In other words, “Jesus be my Savior!”

I think this is one of the most beautiful prayers of petition.  Prayers of petition, prayers that ask God for something, these are the most basic and most practical of prayers.  Million upon millions of petitions are storming heaven at every minute of every day.  Everyone prays them, even non-believers pray them in some way and that’s because we are naturally wired for God, and this is a prayer born of profound instinct, prayer of the human heart for God.  Now as we know there are different types of prayers, adoration, mediation, contemplation, lectio divina, but Pope St. John Paul II once said that, “Every prayer is a prayer of petition, so don’t be afraid to ask for the simplest things.”  Our Lord listens.

In our first reading from Exodus we get an example of petitionary prayer in the spiritual life.  We meet the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land.  They’ve left the slavery of Egypt and they are making the difficult journey to the Promised Land.  This journey symbolizes our own spiritual life, where we move from slavery to sin to the fullness of life in Heaven.  We are on this journey, right now, from sin to heaven.

Now on this journey through the desert the Israelites meet Amalek, an ancient tribe and a symbol of evil.  We face Amalek on our spiritual journey too, sin, hate, depression, discouragement, temptation, any resistance to our spiritual life is Amalek.  The Israelites fight against Amalek, and we do too.  We are in a spiritual battle; we don’t stay on the sidelines we fight.  And prayer is our weapon.  We all have a God given mission and Amalek will rise against us all, but don’t surrender.  And the necessary thing in this struggle against Amalek is prayer.  When Moses prays (arms lifted) all goes well, but when he tires and his arms drop, he stops praying, Amalek get the best of the Israelites.  Nothing great in this world is accomplished apart from prayer.  No victory in the spiritual struggle is done or accomplished without prayer.

As we are often reminded prayer is a rising of the mind and heart to God.  It keeps us in relationship, aligning our mind and will to His.  And blessings will follow.  But persistence is important/necessary, keeping us open to Him.  So pray and pray and pray with persistence.  Don’t give up; always ready to receive what our Lord wants to give.  Maybe we can even make St. Ralph Sherwin’s prayer our own.  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!  And we know He will.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

Just outside of Toulouse France in 1579 a young girl was born.  This particular girl was born with a crippled and paralyzed right arm and she was born with a form of tuberculosis that affected her neck, she couldn’t easily move her head.    Her name was Germaine and eventually she would be known as the Saint of the Unwanted.  No one knows for sure who her parents were, as a baby; she was left on the doorstep of a farming family.  They took her in but they treated her terribly.  When she was old enough they moved her out into the barn, away from everyone else.  Food was left out on the porch for her to come and get.  Germaine lived in ragged hand-me-downs and she never had any shoes.  She was regularly beaten, neighbors would often see welts and bruises on her hands and face.  Life was very hard for this little unwanted girl.

There was, however, one bright spot for Germaine.  She was allowed go to Mass every Sunday.  It was the weekly highlight.  It was at Mass where our Lord spoke to her heart.  He showed her how her life could be; he gave her an understanding of the sacraments.  He gave her an understanding of His great love.  With time she developed a hunger for the Mass.  During the week, however, Germaine had to shepherd her sheep up in the hills above town.  She couldn’t go to Mass. She wanted so badly to be there, but she couldn’t.  But she could hear the church bells ring marking the beginning of Mass.  So she would face into the direction of the church and make a spiritual communion.

But a time came when even that was not enough for her.  She had this great hunger for the Eucharist.  One day our Lord gave her an inspiration.  She took her shepherd’s cane and she jammed it into the ground, she then huddled her flock around the cane and told them to, “Stay put.”  And they did; well-trained sheep.  She could now go to Mass every day, she could now meet our Lord in the Eucharist every day.  And her sheep never strayed.  They were always there when she got back.

Germaine’s time at Mass was not only the high point of her day; it became the driving force in her life.  She would gladly suffer all that her family and the weather in the fields and her illness and deformity handed out to her.  But she could not do without Jesus in the Eucharist.

Eventually Germaine’s illnesses caught up with her.  And she died in 1601 at the age of 22.  Today her body is incorrupt and many miracles have been attributed to her intercession.

St. Germaine understood the Mass and she understood the great Communion of Love to which she was called. To which we are called.  God Himself is an eternal exchange of Love, Father, son, and Holy Spirit.  So, for all eternity, the Father pours Himself out in a total gift of self-giving love to the son, and the son returns that gift with the same self-giving love and the love between them is the Holy Spirit.  And amazingly God had destined each one of us to share in that Divine exchange of ecstatic love.  And the way we do it is by becoming a member of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.  Baptism does that for us.

Before the birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus there was a gap between us, fallen humanity, and the love of the Trinity.  And there was nothing we could do on our own to bridge that gap.  But God in his unfathomable mercy, reached out to us with His Trinitarian love, and bridged the gap.  And every time we come to Mass the drama of this bridging of the gap is made present to us.

God the Father gave his son to fallen humanity, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  And who is the Son?  He’s everything that the Father is.  So, God truly reached out to us with the eternal action of his own Trinitarian love.  In the Incarnation of the Word, the conceptions and birth of Jesus, he gave himself to us in an act of total self-giving love.  With the Incarnation the bridging of the gap begins.  Self-giving divine love is extended to sinful, selfish humanity. And not only is this love extended to us, this loves goes on to show us the way of return to the Father.  On the Cross Jesus poured himself out in a total gift of self-giving love to the Father.  That’s our return.

1st God the Father gives himself in love to the world by giving his dearly beloved son, and then 2nd the Son gives himself back to the Father on the Cross, completing the two-part, eternal exchange of love with the Holy Spirit himself being the love.  So the eternal action of the Trinity’s exchange of love becomes visible in the Incarnation and the Passion of Jesus.

But what does that have to do with us?  If we are baptized and attend Mass, then it has everything to do with us, because the Mass contains the whole drama of the bridging of the gap and we in the pews and at the altar are right there in the midst of the drama!

It works like this:  The first part of the Trinity’s love is extended to us at the moment of consecration, the moment when the priest takes the bread and says, “This is my Body,” and then takes the wine and says, “This is my Blood.”  At that moment of consecration, God so loves the world that he gives us his only son.  At that moment, God the Father pours himself out in a gift of self-giving love to us by giving us his dearly beloved Son.

So where does Jesus complete the Trinitarian action of love by giving himself back to the Father.  Giving himself as a gift of total self-giving love?  Jesus does it when the priest at altar, who acts “in persona Christi”  takes the Body and Blood of Christ into his hands and offers it back to the Father saying, “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, forever and ever.”

And at that moment, as we say, “Amen,” Jesus returns to the Father, completing the Trinitarian action of love.  But there is something different this time at the celebration of the Mass.  When the Father reaches down to “pick up” and embrace his Son, he notices that his Son is much heavier than before.  When the Father receives the self-giving love of his Son, he receives not only Jesus Christ the Head of the Mystical body but he also receives all the members of his body.  The Father receives the gift of self-giving love of the “Full Christ.”  Which is all of us in Christ who are uniting ourselves with Christ at the moment of his self-offering to the Father at Mass.

The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the source and summit of the Christian life, we not only offer the divine victim to God, but we also offer ourselves along with him.  Truly the Mass is Heaven on Earth.  It is the visible, sacramental enactment of the invisible, eternal exchange of self-giving love of the Father to the Son and the son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.  And we get in on the action.  At least we’re supposed to.  The Second Vatican Council calls us to a fully conscious and active participation in the Mass, and this offering of the Victim (Jesus) and the offering of ourselves along with him gets to the heart of this active participation.

Do we give to the Heavenly Father with Jesus all of our praise, our worries, our joys, our sufferings, our whole selves?  Do we put them right into the chalice to be offered to the Father?  St. Germaine did.  St Germaine is known as the Saint of the unwanted and she was certainly shunned by her family.  But to her Heavenly Father she was certainly wanted and loved.  And she experienced that love at every Mass she attended.  She couldn’t stay away.

We are called to live for all eternity in the great Divine Communion of Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bliss beyond anything we could ever imagine.  And it begins here at Mass.  If we are Catholic, healthy, and able why would we ever stay away from the Mass.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

Today is Respect Life Sunday and on this day we look toward bringing about more and more a culture of life to a country and a world, that seem to be mired in a culture of death.  This culture of death includes many wrongs and sins against the human person.  Unjust war, the human trafficking of young women, the euthanasia of the aged, the separation of families due to immigration policies, the death penalty for prisoners, IVF, artificial contraceptives, embryonic stem cell research, and of course abortion.  This is a long list and a wide range of issues and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something.  But our faith reassures us that, “Every human being, at every stage and condition is willed and loved by God.  For this reason, every human life is sacred.  To deprive someone of life is a grave wrong and a grave dishonor to God.  And because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love.  Pope Benedict has called this the key to our entire existence.”   Love is the key to our entire existence.

As a people called to love I think it can sometimes be frustrating to see a world that’s not more a culture of life.  Instead we see a landscape where there is still suffering where there is still such a culture of death.    The prophet Habakkuk, from our first reading, expresses what we may sometimes feel at some point in our lives; we might say to ourselves, how can God be so indifferent to suffering?  Habakkuk wrote at a time, about 600 B.C., when Babylon was rising in power and at that time Habakkuk was scared and worried for the future.  He says in our first reading, “How long, O Lord?  I cry out to you… but you do not intervene.  Why must I look at misery?”   Have we ever expressed words like these of Habakkuk’s?  Habakkuk seems to be saying, Lord if you are who you say you are why do you allow evil to occur, why do you allow this dark evil to happen?  We’ve probably all experienced these thoughts at some point when the topic of child abuse, war, disease, or the death of the innocent is put before our eyes.  With Habakkuk we say, “Why Lord, How long Lord?”

And the Lord answers, he answers Habakkuk and says in the first reading, “Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.  For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  This vision is God’s vision of the world its God’s providence over his creation.  God knows what he’s doing.  Our universe is not just a series of random arbitrary events.  God knows what the Universe is all about.  And if it seems that progress is slow we remind ourselves that God’s time is not our time.  And we can see this in our own lives.  Think back to when you were a child and think how long a month or a year seemed to be.  That length of time just seemed to drag on forever.  But now as an adult a month or even a year just seems to fly by as if they were nothing.  And in the same way what we consider to be a delay by God is but the blink of an eye for him.   His time is not our time.  He will bring good.

Our faith tells us that because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love.  As Pope Benedict said, “To love is the very key to our entire existence.”  Saturday was the feast day of Saint Therese of Lisieux and she wrote about this very thing this vocation to love.   She once said, “I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love.  I knew that one love drove all the members of the Church to action…I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraced every time and every place.  In one word, that love is everlasting.”

There is a story from St. Thérèse’s diary in which she prayed for a notorious murderer.  On July 13, 1887 a notorious murderer by the name of Henri Pranzini was sentenced to death for the murder of three women.  It was a robbery that had gone terribly wrong.  It was in all the newspapers across the whole country of France. It was all they talked about that summer, even the young St. Thérèse still living a sheltered life at home, had heard about it.  Thérèse, a very sensitive soul, feared that Pranzini would be lost for all eternity. To avert that “irreparable calamity” she decided to employ “all the spiritual means” she could. And so she began to offer the “infinite merits of Our Savior and the treasures of the Holy Church” for his salvation.  She prayed for Pranzini’s conversion.

The newspapers reported that at 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 31, 1887, the door to Pranzini’s cell was opened and inside there were two prison guards and a chaplain. At this, it is said the prisoner turned pale. Pranzini’s step became noticeably less firm as he made his way to the prison gates. These gates opened to reveal a public square, and at its center a scaffold.

In her diary St. Thérèse wrote, “My God, I am quite sure that Thou wilt pardon this unhappy Pranzini. I should still think so if he did not confess his sins or give any sign of sorrow, because I have such confidence in Thy unbounded Mercy; but this is my first sinner, and therefore I beg for just one sign of repentance to reassure me.”  She wanted a sign that Pranzini had repented of his sins.

Again the newspapers wrote, Declining assistance, and feigning bravado, Pranzini started to walk forward to the executioner.  At the foot of the scaffold, however, he began to totter. Turning to the chaplain, Pranzini asked for the crucifix, which he took and kissed. He mounted the scaffold but then broke down. After a pathetic struggle, he was strapped down upon the apparatus. At two minutes past five, the blade of the guillotine was loosed, at first descending slowly, its pace soon quickening.

In her diary St. Thérèse wrote, “The day after his execution I hastily opened the paper… and what did I see? Tears betrayed my emotion; I was obliged to run out of the room. Pranzini had mounted the scaffold without confessing or receiving absolution, but … turned round, seized the crucifix which the priest was offering to him, and kissed Our Lord’s Sacred Wounds three times … I had obtained the sign I asked for, and to me it was especially sweet. Was it not when I saw the Precious Blood flowing from the Wounds of Jesus that the thirst for souls first took possession of me?

“My prayer was granted to the letter.”  Pranzini had repented.

St. Thérèse’s motto was a phrase she had borrowed from St. John of the Cross, “Love is repaid by love alone.”

The next time we’re frustrated or despairing over the many evils in our world and like the prophet Habakkuk we’re tempted to think or to ask ourselves, “What’s God waiting for?”  The answer may be that He’s giving us the time, waiting for us to act and to deepen and to broaden our own vocation to love.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

 

From the Catechesis by St. John Chrysostom, bishop

The power of Christ’s blood

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. Sacrifice a lamb without blemish, commanded Moses, and sprinkle its blood on your doors. If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ. If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it. There flowed from his side water and blood. Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit, and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh! As God then took a rib from Adam`s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and water after his own death. Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life

Dear Friends,

“No servant can be the slave of two masters.” (Luke 16:13) Our Lord doesn’t give us a third option.  There are only two paths in life, only two options.  One that leads closer to Christ or one that leads away from him.  A few chapters earlier in Luke’s Gospel, he put it like this:  “He who does not gather with me scatters” Luke 11:23.  In other words we can’t be morally neutral in life.  We can’t just sit on the fence.  We have to choose, to live for Christ or to live for self, to build up the kingdom of Heaven or the kingdom of devilish selfishness.

But our Lord also reminds us that we don’t just make this decision once, we make it every day, in small matters and large matters.  God give us chances to exercise our love for him, over and over and over.  The Christian life is an ongoing series of decisions in which we reinforce or undermine our basic choice to follow Christ.

In this Gospel parable Jesus is warning us; that we have been affected by sin, we’ve squandered the gifts God has given to us and sooner or later the Master will return to render a judgment.  But in the meantime, right now, we have the golden opportunity to put our lives and talents at the service of the Kingdom of God.

When we focus on serving Christ, instead of trying to serve two masters, our lives take on that heroic meaningful dimension that we long for.  As we know we can see this clearly in the lives of the saints.  The example of the 16 Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne is especially moving.  These religious sisters lived during the French Revolution.  At the very start of the war the revolutionaries came to their convent and invited them to abandon their vocation and join the New France.  In the eyes of the revolutionaries prayer and religious life was useless it’s not the way to build up the New France they envisioned.  The women should be out there working, doing something productive, something visible to the eye.  But the sisters refused, they didn’t want to abandon their vocation.  They continued serving Christ in prayer and penance.

This was unacceptable to the new regime.  This convent along with many others was forcibly closed and the sisters were dispersed.  They were forbidden to live in community or to even wear a religious habit.  They were not to be a reminder of God by the way they dressed.  And so the sisters wore regular lay clothing and lived in separate houses.  But even living this way they still somehow managed to come together for prayer, during which they offered themselves to God as a sacrifice for peace.  As a result of their resistance they were eventually arrested and imprisoned.  And soon they were all condemned to death.  Every single sister in that community was to be beheaded.

On the day of the execution all 16 sisters were loaded into a cart and brought to the guillotine.  On the night before someone had brought them their habits.  And so they went to their death dressed as they lived.  As the cart made its way slowly through the streets of the town the sisters sang Veni Creator Spiritus (Come Holy Spirit), the same ancient hymn sung whenever a young woman professes her vows in the Carmelite Order.  One by one the sisters mounted the gallows and laid her head on the block without any executioner having to touch her.  As the sixteen martyrs sealed their love for Christ with their blood, the usually frenzied mob of onlookers was utterly silent.  The only sound to be heard was the sisters’ singing the Salve Regina, a hymn to Mary.   Their bodies were thrown into a common grave with 1,300 other victims of the Revolution.  Two days later the Reign of Terror came to an end.  These 16 women were beatified in 1906 by Pope Pius X and many poems, plays and books have been written about these brave sisters.

They faithfully served only one Master, they didn’t even try to serve the world, and the fruits of their sacrifice proved that our Lord was the right one to serve.  Each of us here today is called to serve the one master, maybe not in this spectacular way of martyrdom, but each of us in our own God given vocation can give witness to the way of Heaven.

One way to keep our hearts undivided and focused on Heaven is to plant visual reminders in key places.  A rosary hanging from the review mirror doesn’t have to be just a decoration; it can be a powerful reminder of the road we have chosen.

Those of us who have offices can keep a small crucifix on the desk, reminding ourselves that our work, when we do it responsibly and offer it to Christ, can be a channel for God’s grace to spread in the world.

I know of one man who takes a few minutes every Sunday to come up with a phrase that will remind him of what struck him the most during Mass.  He has a notebook, he brings it to Mass.   Maybe its word from the readings, or the homily, or something that came to him while he was praying after communion.  He writes that phrase down and then he uses that phrase all week.  He puts it in his screen-saver at work. He programs it into text messages that he sends to himself.  He writes it on a note card to use as a bookmark.  It’s a way to make sure that he keeps focused on serving Christ in all his day-to-day activities.  He is reminded of Mass all week long.

In the Old Catholic countries of Europe, you still see what are called “wayside chapels.” These little chapels are built along the country roads.  These are wooden crucifixes or statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary erected under a protective wooden awning. They are placed at intersections or roadsides as a way to remind travelers of their true destination, and to encourage them to pray as they travel.

This week, our Lord wants us to experience afresh the meaning that comes from serving him in everything we do.

Let’s erect some wayside chapels in our life.  I want to end with a prayer written by the famous Carmelite St. Teresa of Avila.  It’s about following the way of our Lord in all circumstances.  His way is the only way that will truly make us happy!

I am yours I was born for you.

What is your will for me?

Let me be rich or poor.

Exulting or repining

Comforted or lonely

O Life! O sunlight shining

In stainless purity!

Since I am yours, only yours

What is your will for me?

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

In our Gospel today we are reminded of two truths of our faith.  First, God created us in love, He created us in an ecstatic love, and in this love He created us to participate in his divine life by being in friendship and union with him.  Second, with our God-given free will we sinned and rejected God’s love choosing instead to trust in ourselves rather than trusting in Him.  However, God constantly reaches out to us, to bring us back, into a right relationship with Him.

A few years ago I read the book, Brideshead revisited.  It was written by Evelyn Waugh a British Catholic convert from the first half of the twentieth century. This book is about a wealthy British Catholic family, the Marchmains.  And a few members of this family, if they had been living at the time of Jesus, they’d be eating at the table with him in today’s Gospel.  They were sinners spending their lives trying to get as far away from God as possible. Eventually, however, these wandering Marchmains responded to God’s ever pursuing grace because as we read in the second truth; God constantly reaches out to us.  And a priest character in the book describes this grace of God reaching out to us, in a way that I’ve never forgotten.  This is God talking about someone who finally responded to his grace, “I caught him with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

God lets us live in freedom and sometimes in that freedom we wander away maybe even far away, but He always pursues, tugging on that line and hopefully we eventually respond to that tug of grace.  In today’s Gospel we heard three examples of God’s grace at work.  And this grace has a logic that is so very different from the logic of this world.

The logic of the world is about control and division. It’s about who’s in and who’s out.   This logic of the world tells us, if you hurt me I’ll hurt you back and if you do something for me I owe you.  But the logic of God’s grace is totally different because grace is a free gift.  And if we were to think with the logic of grace we’d have to say instead, “Even though I don’t owe you anything I’m going to give you something,” and “Even though you’ve hurt me I’m not going to seek revenge,” and “Even though you won’t forgive me, I’ll forgive you and give you a gift.”  It’s this logic of grace that we see in today’s Gospel, a logic that looks to the other instead of looking inward at self.  The shepherd leaves ninety-nine valuable sheep in search of one whom he may not even find.  This goes against the logic of the world.  Why risk so much for one sheep worth so little compared to the rest?  And then there’s the woman who diligently tears apart her house in search of a coin that’s only worth about a penny.  Would we do the same?  Do we think with the logic of grace, seeking the lost and the estranged, giving and forgiving without expecting anything in return?

Our Gospel today ends with the famous parable of the prodigal son but it could also be called the prodigal sons because both sons have turned away from their father.  They think with the logic of the world.  The younger son says in effect, “I’m unwilling to wait for you to die, so give me what is due to me.”  And the older son says to the Father, “I’ve been like your slave all these years and you owe me.”  These two sons think only of themselves and the father responds to this greed not with the logic of the world he instead responds with the logic of grace telling them, “Everything I have is yours.”

The younger son eventually comes to repentance and there’s a line that always moves me.  “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.  He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”  An elderly wealthy man, at the time of Jesus, would never run out to meet his son, especially one who had left him and squandered all his money.  It wouldn’t be dignified he would lose all respect and social standing in the community.  But the father loves his son and as we heard in the second truth, God always reaches out to us to bring us back into a right relationship with Him.

Father Hoppough one of my professors at the seminary used to tell us that we are like the prodigal son whenever we stand at the door of the confessional.   At the sight of us God the Father is filled with compassion, He sees our heart, and He is ready to forgive, He runs to us, He embraces us, and He kisses us.  This is a consoling thought that comes to me whenever I go to confession because going to confession is not fun even for a priest.  It’s a humbling experience, but also a very good experience.

Two truths, God created us in love to participate in his life, and if in sin we stray from that love he pursues us and when we turn back to him in repentance there is much rejoicing among the angels of God in Heaven.   

“I caught him with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread.”

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

At this point in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 14: 25-33), Jesus is steadily making his way to Jerusalem, where he knows that he can expect nothing but betrayal, condemnation, humiliation, torture, and death, but then; on the third day he will rise.

He also knows that everyone who wants to be his follower, everyone who wants that incomparable meaning and deep joy of his Kingdom, will have to follow the same path, he tells us, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.“  Every Christian has to die with Christ in order to rise with him.

Death in this sense will not necessarily take the form of physical crucifixion, although for many of his closest followers (the martyrs) it has.  But whatever form the cross does take in a particular Christian’s life, it will always require a painful renunciation of something dear to us.  Christ’s exhortation to hate father and mother and brothers and sisters simply points out that a true Christian can prefer nothing to Christ.  These demands may sound harsh, but they flow from Christ’s love. He doesn’t want us to have any illusions.  Christ reminds us from the very start that following him will be demanding, because he knows that real friendship is always built on the truth.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was the first United States citizen to become a canonized saint.  Her deep trust in God gave her the strength to carry her cross and to do great good for our country.    She was born in 1850 in Lombardy Italy.  She was the youngest of 13 children.  Mother Cabrini was born 2 months premature, and for the rest of her life she lived in a fragile and delicate state of health.  Mother Cabrini received her education from the Daughters of the Sacred Heart.  And after graduation she applied to join the order, but they wouldn’t take her because of her poor health.  So she got a job teaching at an orphanage and there she formed her own community.  When the orphanage closed a few years later her bishop asked her and her order to care for poor children in schools and hospitals.  In her first five years she founded 7 homes and a school.  At this point she asked the pope to let her order go to China.  He said, “No, not to the East but to the West.”  And so she ended up going to New York City to serve the growing Italian immigrant community.  When she got there the house that was promised to her was gone, the Bishop told her to go away, go back to Italy.  She didn’t, she found other housing and began her work.  Frances was known for being as resourceful as she was prayerful.  She was always able to find people to donate their money, time, and support for her institutions.

She encountered many disappointments and hardships and crosses but they never kept her down.  Filled with a deep trust in God and gifted with an administrative ability, over 35 years, Frances Cabrini founded 67 institutions, including orphanages, schools, and hospitals, always dedicated to caring for the poor, uneducated, sick, and abandoned, and especially the Italian immigrant.

Mother Cabrini died on December 22, 1917 at the age of 67.  She was canonized in in 1946.  In her papers we have this letter she wrote to one of her nuns, it’s a letter to encourage the sister in bearing the cross.

“Why, dearest daughter, do you waste time in sadness when time is so precious for the salvation of poor sinners?  Get rid of your melancholy immediately.  Don’t think any more about yourself.  Do not indulge in so many useless and dangerous reflections.  Look ahead always without ever looking back.  Keep your gaze fixed on the summit of perfection where Christ awaits you. He wants you despoiled of all things, intent only on procuring his greater glory during this brief time of your existence.  For the short time that remains, is it worthwhile to lose yourself in melancholy like those who think only of themselves, as if all were to end with this life?  Ah no.  We must not even desire that our pilgrimage on this earth be a short one because we do not yet know the infinite value of every minute employed for the glory of God.  Carry your cross then but carry it joyfully, my daughter.   Jesus loves you very much.  And in return for such love, don’t lose yourself in so many desires, but accept daily with serenity whatever comes your way.  May the heart of Jesus bless you and make you holy, not as you want but as he desires.”

Some of us may already know what our cross is.  Maybe it is weighing heavily on our shoulders even right now.  If that’s the case, then we can be sure that God is speaking directly to us today.  He is reminding us that we aren’t carrying that cross alone.  Every one of our crosses is a small piece of his cross, a small part for each one of us to play in the great drama of redeeming the world.

He can remind us of that, as he does today, but that reminder in itself doesn’t lessen our load.  For that to happen, we pay attention to the reminder.  We have to consciously, deep in our hearts, unite our crosses to Christ’s, to exercise that essential virtue of hope.  Hope is the assurance of things unseen.  Hope is the assurance, the deep conviction, that Jesus Christ shares our cross and that blessings and graces will surely follow.

This week, when we feel the weight of the cross digging into our shoulders, let’s lift our gaze to heaven, confident that whatever we suffer here on earth in union with our Lord is a storing up of treasure in Heaven, that will gain eternal reward for us and for those we love.  And if even that thought is not enough to give us strength,  if even today’s reminder doesn’t keep our hope alive,  we can always come and kneel before the Tabernacle, where Jesus is truly with us in the sacrament of the Eucharist.  He has stayed here precisely because he knew that there would be times when the troubles of life put our faith and hope to the test.  When they do, he will be right here, ready to strengthen us, if only we will come to be strengthened.

In the words of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, “Jesus loves you very much.  And in return for such love, don’t lose yourself in so many desires, but accept daily with serenity whatever comes your way.  May the heart of Jesus bless you and make you holy not as you want but as he desires.”

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

Dear Friends,

In today’s readings we seem to be hearing quite a bit about humility.  And to live the virtue of humility means to see ourselves through God’s eyes. To see ourselves the way God sees us, both the good and the bad.  Humility is not a false self-deprecation, where you beat yourself up verbally only so others can say otherwise.  Humility never denies the truth.    If you’ve been gifted in some way say so, acknowledging at the same time the gift comes from God.

To belittle the gifts God has given us would actually be a subtle form of pride.  St Benedict used to say that if a monk had a wonderful singing voice and downplayed his own ability; by saying he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.  That would be displeasing to God. So we recognize the good, and thank God for it.  Saying instead, yes God has blessed me with a good voice.  Give God the credit.

Now, as humble people in the making, we also recognize what is evil in us, the pride, the vanity, the laziness, the lust, and the selfishness that we give in to.  All these things should bring us to our knees before God asking for his mercy.   When St Theresa of Avila asked Jesus what true humility meant, He said to her: “To know what you can do, and what I can do.”

In our first reading from the Book of Sirach, we are told:  “Conduct your affairs with humility… Humble yourself the more, the greater you are and you will find favor with God.”  And Jesus adds to it in the gospel saying “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  Our Lord is calling us to see ourselves as God sees us: sinners infinitely loved by God, and in desperate need of his mercy. To know this is true humility.

Scott Hahn, a famous Catholic convert, speaker, author, and professor once wrote about humility and he used the example of a down and out priest.  One of Dr. Hahn’s priest friends visited Rome, and on the steps of one of the churches he saw a beggar with a familiar face. With a thrill of horror, he realized that it was one of his classmates from seminary, and he rushed over to him.  “Didn’t we go to the seminary together,” he asked. “Yes,” the beggar affirmed. “You’re a priest?” “Not anymore,” the beggar replied, “I fell off the deep end.”

A short time later Scott Hahn’s friend had an audience with Pope St. John Paul II. He told him the entire story, and asked him to pray for his friend. John Paul II assured him that he would, and then whispered something to an aide.  Later that day the priest received a phone call inviting him to come with the ex-priest to have dinner with the Pope. He rushed off to the church where he had seen him, and by God’s grace, he was still there on the steps. Upon hearing about the invitation, he said, “I’m a mess. I haven’t showered in a long time, and my clothes are filthy.” But his friend took him back to his hotel room and helped him get cleaned up, and then they went to dinner with the Holy Father.

At the end of a very enjoyable dinner, the Holy Father asked to be alone with the ex-priest. After a long while, the down and out priest emerged with tears in his eyes. “What happened in there?” his friend asked?  “The Pope asked me to hear his confession,” choked the beggar. After regaining composure, the man continued, “I told him, ‘Your Holiness, look at me. I am a beggar. I am not a priest.’”  “The Pope looked at me and said, ‘My son, once a priest always a priest, and who among us is not a beggar. I too come before the Lord as a beggar asking for forgiveness of my sins.’ I told him I was not in good standing with the Church, and he assured me that as the Bishop of Rome he could reinstate me right then and there.”

After he heard the Holy Father’s confession, the beggar-priest asked the Pope to hear his, and then he received an assignment to minister to the beggars on the steps of the very church from which he just came.

Through the humility of Pope St. John Paul II, who humbly saw himself as God saw him; this man received a new lease on life.

How do we grow in humility, how do we grow in this ability to see ourselves as God sees us? St Catherine of Sienna, a doctor of the Church, gives us advice on how to do that and it’s this: persevere in prayer, keep praying, even if it’s hard, distracting, and dry; keep praying.

Anyone who has prayed knows that distractions and dryness are common obstacles.  We try to pray, and we start thinking about the bills or the soccer game or the person who cut us off in traffic earlier in the day. St Catherine tells us that these distractions and dryness are allowed by God to help us to grow in humility and trust.  We persist through them continually drawing ourselves back to God.  God revealed to St. Catherine that he permits them “out of love, to preserve the soul and make it grow in the virtue of humility… receiving with humility the consoling prayer and the dry prayer, accepting with love the love with which He gives His graces…God went on to reveal to her that the person “should be humble therefore…and receive joy or the lack thereof according to my will, not according to its own will.”

Given our human woundedness, distractions are to be expected.  St. Theresa of Avila said to her sisters, “When one of you finds yourself in a sublime state of prayer but then wanders off after the most ridiculous things in the world you should laugh at it and treat it as the silly thing it is and remain in your state of quiet.”

A priest received a visit from a very good friend who had two small children.  She brought the children along for the visit.  The children demanded a lot of her attention during their time together, there was a diaper change, one asked for a glass of water, and the other wanted a toy out in the car.  After leaving, the young woman thought the visit had gone terribly. The priest on the other hand only remembered the good time he had visiting with his friend.  Prayer with God is like that.  He’s not bothered by our distractions, as long as we keep bringing ourselves back to Him, those distractions are nothing.  He only wants to spend time with us.

When we persevere in prayer even when we’re distracted, we come to a greater humility. We know our weakness, and we will know how much God loves us, and wants us to be with him in prayer.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

 

“Go out to all the World and tell the Good News!”

I have a story about a man I visited in the hospital a few years ago.  I was there to anoint him.  He was an elderly man who on that day was in a very talkative mood.  The man’s name was Al and we had a very nice visit.  And he told me about his life when he was just five years old, a story from over 80 years ago.  I hope my memory is that good, when I reach that age.

When Al was 5 he lived in Cambridge MA, right next to Harvard University.  His other next door neighbor was an elderly woman by the name of Mrs. Healy.  And on nice days Mrs. Healy would come out onto the front porch and sit in her rocking chair.  And then she would take out a string of shiny beads. And begin to run them through her fingers.  Her lips would be moving too.  But Al couldn’t hear what she was saying.  This fascinated the 5 year old Al.

So every time that Mrs. Healy came out to her porch with that string of beads Al was there too, just sitting on the corner of her porch staring.  I’m sure it was very cute.  There she was, rocking back and forth, lips moving, beads running through her fingers, with little Al looking on.  Not really knowing what it all meant.

Mrs. Healy didn’t say much to Al but one day after getting up from the chair she walked over to where Al was sitting and she gave him the string of shiny beads.  She died not long after that day.  Al later found out that the beads were a Rosary, but he still didn’t know how to use them.

Not long after that Al and his parents moved to New York City and close to their new home there happened to be a Catholic Church.  So one afternoon the whole family went into the church to speak with a priest: to ask him about the Rosary, how do you use it?  Very soon after that encounter with the priest the whole family was baptized and received into the Church.

That man I anointed who gave me this story was Deacon Al Patrick, he died on May 21st in 2019.  He died after living a rich Catholic life.  He was a Deacon for 50 years and a Catholic husband, father, and grandfather.  He was an evangelizer of the faith.  He baptized, he preached, he taught the faith.  He touched countless lives, bringing the light, and the peace, and the love of our Lord into many people’s lives.  And it all began when an elderly woman, by the name of Mrs. Healy, without embarrassment prayed the Rosary in front a curious little boy.

In today’s Mass we pray, “Go out to all the World and tell the Good News.”  And Mrs. Healy did just that, and she did it with her simple prayer, out in the open, for all the world to see.  She was a missionary of the Catholic Faith.  And it made a difference, what a difference it made.

This past Friday (19th of August) was the Feast Day of St. John Eudes.  He was a French priest who lived in the 17th century.  He was the founder of the Eudists, and did a lot of work in reforming priesthood and he was a great promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The missions he ran in parishes would go for months at a time.  Nobody tired of hearing him talk.  He said something that has become my new favorite quote,  “Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make His spirit, His devotion, His affections, His desires, and His disposition live and reign there.  All our religious exercises should be directed to this end.  It is the work which God has given us to do unceasingly.”

To do this is to have the very life of Jesus Himself in me and in you.  This is the supernatural life of faith, hope, and love.  By this life, Jesus imparts His Spirit to me and to you.  So that everything we do, we do with Him, in Him, through Him, and like Him.

As lay people you have a lot of opportunity and power to bring Jesus out into the World, to show the world Jesus, our Gate and Narrow Way, to show the world the reason for your joy.  Be bold about it, don’t hide your faith, it’s a beautiful thing, it’s rich and inexhaustible.  After this hour of Mass we still have 167 hours this week to fill with prayer.

Your homework for this week is to be caught praying.  Like Mrs. Healy be caught praying.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley