Author: Christine Jordan

Dear Friends,

Today is Laetare Sunday. And Laetare means rejoice.  It’s a Latin command to rejoice.  Half way through the season of Lent, as we make our way towards the Passion/Resurrection, the Church invites us and reminds us to rejoice.

Now, Christian joy is different than normal earthly happiness.  Normal happiness goes away, it goes away because the things that cause it, like basketball championships, new possessions, and snow days, go away.  But Christian joy is based on something that never goes away, God’s love for us.  Loving God and being loved by him is friendship with God. And it doesn’t change with the seasons.  He is always faithful.  This explains why Christians can sing hymns inside concentration camps, because prisons can’t take away God’s love.  There can be joy even in the midst of sorrow.

This consistent joy of friendship with God is what the Church invites us to renew and deepen today.  Because if we are honest, we have to admit that we don’t always know the joy that comes from a Divine friendship. Both sons in our Gospel today have missed out on that joy that comes from a relationship with the Father.

At first the younger son wants nothing to do with the father.  He’s searching for happiness, but he’s searching in all the wrong places.  He looks to pleasure, money and power.  He has no idea of the joy that’s derived from a relationship with the Father.  He’s looking for his happiness in sin, a happiness that never lasts.  But then he comes to his senses and comes back to the source of true joy.  And the Father greets him with open arms, clothing him, putting a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, restoring him, and finally telling him to dance with joy.

The eldest son too misses out on the joy of relationship with the Father.  He does everything the Father asks but he does it without relationship and there was no joy.  The oldest does everything perfectly; maybe he’s searching for happiness by trying to be perfect.  He obeys the rules; he does everything the Father asks of him.  But he’s let the routine of life embitter his heart.  He’s forgotten that his father wants only to give him everything; he’s lost sight of his fathers’ goodness.  Even though they live together and see each other every day there is no deep and abiding relationship, the older son is not receiving from the Father.  He’s not receiving the love offered by the father.  There is no joy only bitterness.

I have a story of St. Drithelm and it’s a story of how one man became a saint when God broke through his routine.  Drithelm went through the motions of being a good Catholic, he did everything that he was supposed to, but there was no deep relationship with God and no real joy.  Drithelm was a normal guy living in England in the middle ages.  And one day he got very sick, so sick that to everyone around him it appeared that he had died.  It didn’t look like he was breathing and his heart beat was so faint that it just couldn’t be heard or felt.  The next morning while his family was gathered around his body praying, he woke up, freed from all signs of the illness that had made him appear dead.  And he woke up a changed man.   That day he immediately liquidated his property, dividing it equally among his family and the poor.  He then presented himself to the local monastery and asked to join their community.  From that day forward he lived only for God and neighbor, giving such good example and such good spiritual advice that conversions multiplied all around him.  Real Christian joy is attractive.

Many times Drithelm was asked about his sudden conversion.  What happened to you on the night of your supposed death? They would ask.  And he would answer, “God broke me out of my mediocre hum drum routine by having my angel give me a tour of the afterlife.”  This is how he described it.

First he was taken to a valley burning on one side and frozen on the other, with souls being tossed back and forth between the sides.  The angel explained that this was where souls who had repented on their deathbed were being purified for heaven.

Then he was given a glimpse of a burning pit, filled with countless people and gross demons.  It emitted a disgusting stench and bloodcurdling screams.  That was hell.

Next he was brought to a lush, green valley where thousands upon thousands of people danced and laughed in little groups.  Plentiful flowers wafted a delightful aroma.  He thought it was heaven, but his guide informed him that it was where souls who were living a decent, but not excellent Christian life went after they died.  There in that valley they learned the perfect love of the saints so that they could eventually enjoy heaven.

His last stop was on the outskirts of a place full of light and even more beautiful music and laughter, it made the other valley seem dark and boring.  The angel wouldn’t let him in there; it was heaven, and he had to be satisfied with only a whiff.

When he returned to consciousness, he resolved to take on a life of prayer and penance, for the sake of winning as many souls as possible for the eternal Kingdom.

The routine of life had stifled Drithelm’s potential.  God had created him to be a great saint, to do great things for the world, but until that special graced vision he was just mediocre just going through the motions with little thought or focus.

God has created each one of us to be a saint, to do great things for his kingdom and for those around us.  He wants us to experience and spread true Christian joy, but our potential can be stifled if we fall into a hum drum routine in our friendship with God, just taking Him for granted, just going through the motions.

So what can we do?  How do we receive  all that the Father wants to give us?  How do we receive all the love and joy the Father wants to give us?  There are many ways but let me offer a few suggestions that can help to make these final weeks of Lent meaningful, a few things that can help to open up our eyes to the Father’s love and joy.

First this is the time of year when the Church begins to zoom in on the Passion of Jesus, on His final days before His glorious Resurrection and Ascension.  So let us resolve to make a little time each night to read through the stories of the Passion in Gospels, starting with Matthew.  Don’t worry about finishing them all.  Just start.  To say that Scripture is inspired not only means that the Holy Spirit breathed into the Word of God; it also means that when we read the Scriptures the Holy Spirit breaths out onto us.  So, read the Passion and allow the Lord to confront you with His wondrous love, and to help you know that all of this happened for you.

Second, let’s go out of our way to help someone, spouse, sibling, parent, or stranger.  It could be something little as helping to set the table without being asked.  Or taking time to help someone at the grocery store.  Or giving up a good parking space for someone else.  It could be something big like visiting a nursing home or a hospital.  Resolve to help someone every day, doing something out of the ordinary.

Third, lets resolve to spend some time each week until Easter, and hopefully, forever after, praying in the presence of the Eucharist, either in the tabernacle or within the Monstrance. Look upon Him, consider Him, contemplate Him, and imitate Him.   I am convinced that nothing can so open our eyes to God’s love and joy as praying in His presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

And finally, if you haven’t already make use of the sacrament of reconciliation.  Let yourself be restored and renewed.  It gives our Heavenly Father great pleasure when we meet him in the sacrament of reconciliation.   Let the Father embrace you, let Him clothe your soul with a new robe, let him put a ring on your finger, let him put sandals on your feet, and let him tell you to dance for joy.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

I recently read this article about a priest who recounts his visit to a sick man in the hospital.  He went to the hospital many times and would sit and talk for an hour or so with the man just to keep him company.  In the same room with this sick man was another man, a burn victim, who was severely disfigured from head to foot.  Most of his face had been burnt and disfigured.  The priest recounted how he tried to avoid looking at this severely burned man.  One day, the sick man who the priest was visiting asked the priest if the burned man made him uncomfortable.  “You know,” said the priest, “I’m ashamed to say it, but yes.  I don’t like looking at the man and his wounds, the wounds are very sickening.” “Would you like to know what happened to him?”  Asked the sick man.  “Sure” replied the priest.

This man and his wife lived in a house nearby with their four children.  One night the house caught fire and the whole family quickly ran outside to escape.  The father of the house gathered his family together in the front lawn, but noticed that their youngest daughter, only about two years old, was missing.  Frantically, the father ran back into the burning house.  No one knew that the youngest daughter was in the house next door.  When the fire started and everyone ran out the front door, the young girl went out the back door.  The next door neighbor, wanting to protect the child and not seeing the rest of the family, brought the girl inside as she called 911.  The father not finding the daughter, stayed in the house looking for her.  And he stayed in there. And he stayed in there.  And he stayed in there longer.  Eventually the roof collapsed on top of him.  When the firefighters found him he was so badly burned that they thought he was dead.  The doctors say it was a miracle that he lived.

As we know an earthly fire consumes and destroys and disfigures anything in its path but today in our first reading we hear about another type of fire.  A heavenly fire and this is a fire that does not consume, or destroy, or disfigure.  Moses on Mount Horeb sees fire flaming out of a bush and yet the bush is not destroyed.  This fire is the presence of God making himself seen and felt.   That bush represents creation; it represents one of God’s own creatures, one of his own creations.  And when God comes close the bush is set on fire, but it’s not consumed or destroyed.  And the same can be said about us too, when God is close to us nothing of his Earthly creation is destroyed or consumed.  God’s presence in us makes us radiant.  I’m sure we all know the person who always seems to glow with God’s grace, a person filled with the fruits and gifts of the Holy Spirit.  That person has let herself/himself receive the heavenly fire (grace).   When we let God come close, when we let Him into our soul, we are made more beautiful, more radiant, more perfect, and more fully ourselves, and like that burning bush we become a source of light for those around us.

Now in our first reading God also tells us, “I am who  am” and in this statement He is telling us that He is not just one being among many, but that He is Being Himself, sheer Being itself.  There is no category for God he is above all categories.  He’s not animal, vegetable, or mineral.  He’s infinitely above all these labels.  If He were just some being, if we could put a label on God, then He could never come close to us without competing with us.  I’m a being and I can’t come near you without violating or competing for your space.  A wolf can’t enter into the space of a deer without violating the deer.  But because God is beyond, and because God is Being Himself, He can enter into our being without consuming or destroying or competing with us, and in the process of entering our being he makes us radiant.

Now all of this goes against what the modern world is telling us.  The world tells us that the more we give to God the less we have for ourselves.  Saying no to God is saying yes to me.  But this is the exact opposite of what we believe, St. Irenaeus, from the second century, once said, “The glory of God is man and woman fully alive.”  Meaning that the more we give glory to God the more we let God into our lives the more fully alive we become.  When  God comes close to us when we invite him into our hearts 24/7 the more fully alive we become.  His grace, his fire, doesn’t consume it only enlightens and makes us free.

Now back to the man rescued from the burning house, that man survived, but from the fire he was left with many physical scars and disfigurements that just couldn’t be fixed with surgery.  From outward appearances some may have called him ugly.   His soul, however, and his outlook on life is a different story.  His soul is filled with heavenly fire and there is no ugliness there, like Jesus he loved until it hurt and to that young girl her father’s wounds are not hideous.  After growing up and learning the significance of the scars, she will forever look upon her father and see not ugliness but only see the glory of a total and selfless love.  Those wounds that he bears are a permanent physical reminder of his love.

Throughout his pontificate Pope Benedict called us to an authentic and deep personal relationship with Jesus.  He’s been quoted as saying many times, “Do not be afraid of Christ!  He takes nothing away and he gives you everything … Open wide the doors to Christ and you will find true life. “Our Lord is waiting to set us on fire with his grace.  This heavenly fire does not destroy but only perfects and gives life.  This fire awaits us in the Eucharist; this fire awaits us in the sacrament of reconciliation, waiting to burn away our sins and imperfections revealing the child of God that we truly are.  Right now we are in the midst of Lent, a season that gives us the chance to change our minds and our hearts.  We don’t have to be afraid of God, the God of the Burning Bush.  He wants to set our soul on fire.  He wants us all to be fully alive.  So go to Him, go to Him often, give Him your heart and soul, let His fire transform you and find a life you never thought possible.

If you are what you should be you will set the world ablaze.  St. Catherine of Siena.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

I have a story about St. Anthony.  As you probably recall he’s the saint we call on when something is lost.  We might pray, “Tony, Tony look around something’s lost and can’t be found.”  He always comes through.  Now the story I have about him happened when he was just 9 years old.  St Anthony belonged to a wealthy family and they had the tradition of generously giving to the poor.

One day a beggar knocked at their door.  And it was Anthony who opened the door.  And there standing in front of him was a very poor looking man.  Seeing the sad plight of the beggar Anthony dropped a small bag of gold coins into his hands.  But the beggar refused the money and gave it back.  So Anthony went to the kitchen and came back with a platter filled with all sorts of fruit and bread.  But again the beggar refused.  Anthony then went into his dad’s room and got some clothing and a nice warm coat for the beggar.  And again the beggar refused the gifts.  Anthony was losing his patience and in frustration, staring into the face of the beggar he said, “What do you want me to give you?”  And the beggar looked straight into his eyes and said, “I want your sins!”  Simple as that, “I want your sins!” 

At once the beggar disappeared leaving Anthony all alone.  It was a mystical moment he never forgot, he was deeply moved, realizing that it was Jesus who had appeared as the beggar.  Our Lord wanted his sins.  In this story Anthony stared into the face of Jesus, and all Jesus wanted was his sins.  To look into the face of divine innocence, the face of Jesus, is to know that you’re accepted and your sins are forgiven.  And the face of Divine innocence the face of divine love is experienced by us as mercy.

In the Bible the wish to see God’s face is expressed more than a 100 times.  God has a face and this means he is someone we can enter into a relationship with.  He talks to us, he listens to us, he sees us, he makes a covenant, and he loves.   The desire to know God truly, the desire to see God’s face, is innate in every human being, even in atheists, they just don’t know it.  As St. Augustine once wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you O Lord.”   And as we know God had shown his face, he is visible in Jesus Christ.

To see and live within the gaze, the look, of the Holy face is our goal.  That’s Heaven.  Not long ago I went to a funeral and during the pastor’s talk she wondered out loud if Heaven would be boring.  You probably surmised that it wasn’t a Catholic funeral.  I should have shouted out, “No it won’t be boring!”  Baptized into the mystical body of Jesus, in Heaven, we are pulled into the ever present love of the Trinity.  That’s a love that is infinite and rapturous and ecstatic.  And it’s a love experienced while looking into the face of God.  That’s not boring.  We will not be on the side lines looking at God; instead we’ll be pulled into the infinite, the rapturous, and the ecstatic.  The catechism (221) tells us that God has revealed his innermost secret:  He himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in this exchange.  Peter, James, and John in today’s Gospel got a look at what this Divine Love looks like in a human face.  Our Lord’s face becomes like the Sun in Glory.

And here on earth we get glimpses of the face of God; we get glimpses in the faces of our spouses, our children, our parents, and our neighbors.  We get a glimpse of the face of God in scripture, prayer, and the sacraments, the Eucharist and Reconciliation especially.

Sometimes when we struggle, instead of going to the face of Jesus we instead go to all the artificial consolations, all the distractions the world can throw at us.  In sin we turn away from the face of Christ.  But what makes a saint is one who struggles and longs to see the face of God.  And we can very easily see the face of our Lord in the confessional.  Looking into the face of our Lord, disguised as a beggar, St. Anthony heard our Lord say, “Give me your sins,” very simple, “Give me your sins.”   In the confessional Our Lord’s love meets our sins, he forgives us, takes them away, strengthens us with grace and through it all he remains love.  Not a very fair exchange we give him sin, and he gives us love, forgiveness, and grace.   The confessional is  a very safe place.

In California, a priest relates the story of a young girl sitting outside the confessional and every time someone left the confessional, she started clapping wildly and loudly.  The little girl’s mom was so embarrassed but she had told her daughter that confession makes us friends with God and like the angels in Heaven she was just so happy for the people leaving that little room.

I’d like to end with a poem written by the priest, Fr. Emory Petho, who heard my confessions when I was a kid.

Holy Face of Jesus

Be my joy

Holy Face of Jesus

Be my strength

Holy Face of Jesus

Be my Health

Holy Face of Jesus

Be my courage

Holy Face of Jesus

Be my Wisdom

Holy Face of Jesus, image of the Father

Provide for me

Holy Face of Jesus, mirror of thy Priestly heart

Be my zeal

Holy Face of Jesus, gift of the Spirit

Show me Thy love

Holy Face of Jesus, saddened by sorrow

Grant my requests through Thy merits.

Amen

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Not long ago I was in Chicago for the funeral of a friend.   On the morning before leaving to come back to Battle Creek I decided to visit the beautiful church I could see from the window of my hotel room.  After a few minutes of walking I found the church, its name was St. Michael and miracle of miracles the door was open.  So I went in.  Inside there were all these kids lined up to go to confession.  They were second graders and it was their first reconciliation.  So I asked one of the adults if I could line up too.  They said sure, and so I took my place at the end of the line, not at all awkward.  I was the only one there without a cheat sheet with all the steps of confession and the act of contrition.   There to heal and be forgiven it was a beautiful gift, to hear our Lord say those words, “Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.”  To hear our Lord say, through the priest, those words, “Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.”

St. Michael’s is a beautiful church.  It’s in the Old Town section of Chicago.  There were statues and murals everywhere.  Now at the very front of the church way above the tabernacle, at the very top of the reredos there was a statue of St. Michael bathed in a heavenly blue light and beneath him, vanquished, was Satan covered in an eerie red light.  A little much, maybe, but it got the point across, the powers of Heaven are mightier, much mightier than the powers of Hell.  And those powers of Heaven can be experienced in the confessional.

I go to confession because I commit sin and our Lord knows every single one of those sins.  But, yet, he calls me by my name.  The tempter, the devil, he knows my name too, yet he calls me by my sin.  Pope St. John Paul II once wrote, “You are not your sin; you are not the sum of your weaknesses and failures, you are the sum of the Father’s love for you.”  Theologians will say that God the Father displays his power and love by forgiving sins.  God the Father created the universe out of nothing and he creates saints out of sinners.  Both are miracles, but the greater miracle is the saint.  Creation will someday cease to be, but a saint, will live forever, a work of eternal significance, carrying a greater weight of glory than the creation of the entire universe.  That’s how much you are loved by God.  Let Him turn you into a Saint!

As you know we are in the season of Lent.  And Lent has only one goal.  Only one.  Now, how we choose to arrive at that goal is going to be different for each of us.  But this wondrous season of grace is given to us to help us all grow in conformity to Jesus.  That’s the goal to grow in conformity to Jesus.  To be like Him, to be more and more his disciple and to become a true disciple is to become a saint.  What does this mean?  How does a disciple look and act?  I’m glad you asked.

As we see in the Gospel this Sunday, Jesus lives a life of radical love for and obedience to His Father.  He loves the Father with all He has and is.  This love is seen in the many passages where Jesus goes into the Temple or the synagogues to pray or in the passages where he spends all night in conversation with His Father.

But this love for the Father also shows itself in Jesus’ pouring out of His life for man and woman created in the image and likeness of God.  Jesus’ life on earth, then, is spent both being poured out in prayer and being poured out for others in service, reaching in the total gift of Himself upon the cross at the end of this season, in a week known as Passion Week.  A week that powerfully reveals both Jesus’ passionate love for the Father and His passionate love for all of us.

So, by looking at Jesus we grow in our own understanding of what it means to be a disciple.  To be disciples of Jesus means to be both men and women of intense prayer (not superficial prayer, but encounters of the heart with our Lord who delights for us to know Him) and to be men and women who, in the course of our daily lives, in whatever vocation or state of life we find ourselves, pour out our lives for each other.  In living this way we keep that Great commandment: to love the lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as our self.

Lent is given to us to help us reach that ultimate goal, disciple of Jesus, where we enjoy communion with both God and with one another.    Or maybe we could simplify that to say that God has made us for friendship:  friendship both with Him and friendship with one another.  The two of these combined, fulfill and satisfy the human heart.  And Lent is simply a time set aside to deepen these friendships.  And everything that we have chosen to do for Lent should be aimed for this goal.

On this first Sunday of Lent, we can ask ourselves what can and should we do, so that at Easter we will have grown both in our friendship and communion with God and our friendship and communion with one another.

Creation will someday cease to be, but a Saint, will live forever, a work of eternal significance, carrying a greater weight of glory than the creation of the entire universe.  That’s how much you are loved by God.  Let Him turn you into a Saint!

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In the book of Genesis we read of God creating the world and it is good, very good.  We also read of His creation of our first parents and how He wanted them to share in His goodness and love.  He gave them everything, even giving them His very self.  But they turned away.  And after committing the Original Sin Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened.  They realized they were naked.  They realized that they were vulnerable; they realized that they could be hurt by the other.  And so they covered themselves and hid.  They felt the full weight of sin.

But God came looking for them repeating, with concern, over and over “Where are you?”  “Where are you?”  And in answer to this question they gave excuses.  Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent.  But God wasn’t looking for excuses; He was only looking for His friends and a simple contrite heart. 

In 13^th century Laviano Italy there was a young girl by the name of Margaret.  She was an only child and she was very beautiful.  In their devotion to her, Margaret’s parents spoiled her.  She grew to be willful, restless, and very dissatisfied.  Very dissatisfied with what she had, she wanted more.  What she wanted was more life and more excitement, more of anything than what she found in her small sleepy town.  And because of her good looks she learned how to use men and to get what she wanted.  And there were always men who were only too happy to comply.

As a teenager Margaret’s mother died and her father quickly remarried.  Margaret and the step-mom did not get along.  The step-mom was amazed at Margaret’s self-indulgence.  By the time Margaret was 17 there was just too much turmoil in the house so she moved out.  She went to the next town over, Montepulciano, and hired herself out as a servant in the castle.  She was finally free of her stifling home; she could now live as she pleased.  She soon caught the eye of the Master of that castle.  He made her his mistress and he gave her anything and everything she wanted. He indulged her every whim.   She lived this way for nine years.

But every so often she would think of home.  And that maybe it wasn’t as unhappy as she had thought.  She had traded her freedom in that little town of Laviano for the slavery of riches and pleasure.  These riches are misery she would think.  It’s as if our Lord was saying to her, as He said to Adam and Eve, “Where are you? Where are you Margaret?”  But she pushed those guilty thoughts aside and went back to castle life.

The turning point eventually came when one evening the master failed to return home.  His hunting dog came in all by himself, but no master.  Margaret grew concerned so she went in search of him.  Eventually she found him.  He was out in the woods hidden under a pile of brush.  Someone had murdered him and tried to hide the body.  In her conscience our Lord said to her again, “Where are you?  Where are you Margaret?”

She began to wonder, “What happened to the soul of her master?”  He had the same attitude towards life as she did, focused more on pleasure and self than on anything else.  Where is his soul?  Margaret then began to wonder what would happen to her if she were to die at the moment.  This moment became her moment of conversion.

She went home to her father’s house, and like the prodigal son of scripture, she fell at her father’s feet begging him with tears and repentance to give her shelter.  Her father forgave her right away.

Margaret spent the next 33 years working at putting her focus on God and her neighbor; she did this by working with the Franciscans helping the poor.   She worked at learning humility.   Margaret’s long conversion was not always easy; as we can imagine, there were still moments of great temptation when she wanted to return to her old way of life.  When things got difficult she was very tempted to just run away and return to that old way of life.  It could’ve happened but with grace Margaret successfully overcame those temptations.  With God’s grace we now know Margaret as St. Margaret of Cortona, a patroness to invoke against temptations.

At the beginning I spoke of those three words that God asked of Adam and Eve, He said, “Where are you?” We might ask ourselves, who is the God speaking these words?  Is he the All Powerful, the All Holy, the All Supreme and Infinite One?  Yes, He’s all of these, but I think these three words more accurately describe a loving Father looking for his children, wanting to restore a broken relationship.  It is a loving father who asks the words, “Where are you?”

I think that any time we feel a good guilt that is our Lord saying to us, “Where are you?” any time we feel pain, that’s our body’s way of telling us something in our body needs attention.  In the same way anytime we feel a good guilt that’s our soul’s way of telling us the soul needs attention.  Our Lord wants to give us so much more, so much more than we are settling for.  And that much more is found in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

When I was a veterinarian, the cases I enjoyed treating, the cases that gave me a great deal of satisfaction were wounds.  It didn’t matter if they were infected with lots of purulent discharge or if they had an odor, or if they even had a few fly larvae. I was always eager to treat a wound, to drain, to flush, to debride and to cut away the diseased and dead tissue.  And when they healed there was always a great sense of satisfaction.  Everything was back as it should it be, all was well.  I was attracted to those wounds.  I wanted to heal them.

The same can be said of our Lord, although He’s attracted to our spiritual wounds, he’s attracted to our hurt.  He wants to heal.  He’s the One who left the 99 in search of the lost one.  Our Lord isn’t attracted to our gifts, our virtues, or our talents, but rather he’s attracted to our weakness, and to our brokenness, and to our sin.  Not to leave us there but to heal.  This is the very definition of Mercy.  He’s like a doctor who’s attracted to a wound in need of healing.    He is after all, the Divine Physician.

Sometimes we mistakenly think that the spiritual life is all about attracting the love of our Lord, we make it an effort to attract His infinite love.  Astoundingly, we are already attractive to God.  And even more mysteriously, like a doctor to pain, our Lord is attracted to our woundedness and sin.  One of the great temptations is to think we have to be already perfect to be attractive to Him.  No doctor demands we be healed before he attends to our wounds; so it is with our Lord.

I have a story about a severely wounded individual his name was Andreas Wouters he was a Dutchman living in 16^th century Holland during the Protestant Reformation.  Andreas was a priest, but from all outward appearances he didn’t seem to be a very good priest.  In fact he caused a great deal of scandal.  He was a drunkard and a prolific womanizer, fathering many children.  Not a good role model.  Needless to say the Bishop suspended him from actively serving as a priest.  He lived in disgrace.

At that time, June of 1572, Andreas was living in a sea side town by the name of Gorkum.  And during that month a band of Dutch pirates captured the town.  They had no love for the Catholic Church and so they rounded up all the priests, they captured 18.  The pirates had plans of torturing and killing them.  The pirates ignored Andreas and given his history he should have run as far away as possible.  But he didn’t, he responded to grace, he responded to the call of the Divine Physician.  He went to his brother priests where they were being held and he volunteered to join them.  The pirates were amazed; they took him in and put him with the other priests.

The 19 priests were tortured and subjected to every type of humiliation and mockery, especially Andreas who was constantly reminded of what a disgrace he was.  At the very end all the priests were given a choice, they could save themselves if they would renounce their belief in Papal Supremacy and the Eucharistic Real Presence.  All of them refused.  So on July 9, 1572 all 19 priests were hanged.  Andreas was saved for last and as the noose was being fastened around his neck, his captors kept mocking him.  They mocked him to the very end.  His last words before entering into eternity were, “Fornicator I always was, but heretic I never was!”  The martyrs of Gorkum were canonized by Pope Pius IX in 1865.  St. Andreas Wouters was healed and he gave great witness and glory to God.

Sometimes our Spiritual life appears to us to be very dark, dark because of weakness, brokenness and sin.  But do not get discouraged.   Recognize, without giving up, that some struggles are chronic.   Realize, without despairing, that they may be with us till our dying day.  Buts it’s also about realizing that this does not prevent us from becoming saints.

So, even if we have to go to Confession over and over for the same sins, we shouldn’t get discouraged.  And we should listen to Pope Francis, who said, “The Lord never tires of forgiving, never!  It is we who tire of asking his forgiveness.”  Of course, we need to be sorry for our sins and make a firm purpose of amendment.  But if we do that, if we keep trying, then there’s no end to the Lord’s mercy, and we can believe that he can and will satisfy our desire for holiness.

Knowing the darkness of our brokenness we keep trying and we trust.  To keep trying to grow in holiness and doing little things with great love.  To keep trusting that God will satisfy our desire for holiness even if we don’t yet fully understand how.  Keep trying, Keep trusting.

St. Andreas knew the darkness of his sin but it did not end in despair, it ended in love and trust.  He made an act of love by going to his brother priests.  And he trusted that our Lord would take care of him.  He did, and now he’s a saint.

As we sang in our Psalm, “The Lord is kind and Merciful, He takes our sins away from us as far as the east is from the west.”  Don’t stay away from our Divine Physician.  He wants to heal our wounds.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Fr. Jean Delbee a French priest and author once wrote of the time he visited the Motherhouse of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  This famous worldwide order was founded by St. Jeanne Jugan back in the early half of the 19^th c.  The order began when St. Jeanne brought an old blind woman into her home.  The woman had no one to look after her.  So Jeanne brought her in and gave her, her own bed.  That was the beginning of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  The Little Sisters, who are all over the world now give great care and comfort to the aged, poor and infirm.

While there on his visit the mother superior led Fr. Delbee to the cemetery.  And there in the center was a magnificent tomb with a beautiful cross of sculptured stone.  Fr. Delbee mistakenly thought that it was the tomb of the St. Jeanne Jugan the foundress.  “No,” the mother said, “that’s the tomb of our 2^nd superior general.”  Out of envy St. Jeanne was forced out of her leadership position.  In an effort to suppress her true role as foundress she was assigned to do the most menial of tasks, cooking, cleaning and begging on the streets for food and supplies for the order.  It was a common site to see her going door to door with her basket asking for donations for her poor.  She did this for 27 years until she was sent into retirement.  They say this pained her interiorly but she never uttered a single word of complaint.  At the time of her death in 1879, most of the Little Sisters did not know she was the one who had founded their congregation.  She died mostly forgotten and was buried in a grave with a simple wooden cross marker.  It would be 11 more years after her death before she was recognized as foundress.

To Fr. Delbee the mother superior then went on to say, “Today, if we wish to receive favors, if we wish to obtain a miracle, it is not the beautiful stone tomb to which we go to pray; we go to the little tomb of Jeanne.”  A little tomb, lost among the others, with its wooden cross planted in the earth.  Jeanne Jugan, in her little hidden way, did more for the foundation of the Little Sisters of the Poor by her humble acceptance of being cast aside and by her humility than by any other great works which she might have accomplished as a superior.  With her small acts of love, she was the seed buried and hidden which bore great fruit.

The Beatitudes describe perfectly St. Jeanne Jugan, she was a poor sorrowful beggar pushed aside by hateful envy.  But she continued to love in her little ways.  She once said, “We are grafted into the cross and we must carry it joyfully unto death.”  Charles Dickens after meeting her said, “There is in this woman something so calm, and so holy, that in seeing her I know myself to be in the presence of a superior being.  Her words went straight to my heart, so that my eyes, I know not how, filled with tears.”

With the Beatitudes our Lord is warning us against self-sufficiency, he’s warning us not to trust in our wealth, our strength, or our power.  They will not save us, only our Lord can save us.  We are to trust in Him alone.  He is to be our Trusted One in all things and at all times.

How can we live the Beatitudes?  Maybe a simple way to live them is to, like St. Jeanne; consciously try to do little things with love.  Do them for the love of our Lord, our family, and our neighbor.  And there are so many opportunities throughout our day, to do little things intentionally with charity.  Little things for our children, our spouses, our co-workers, our neighbors, our bosses.  Not done with impatience or begrudgingly but with intentional conscious charity.  Doing those things we do every day cooking, cleaning, carpooling, going to work, doing them with intentional conscious charity.  Maybe even saying to ourselves, “I do this for you Lord.  I don’t want to do it, but I do it for love of you.”

I just received a letter from my prayer-sister, Sr. Maria Francisco.  I’ve spoken of her before; I pray for her and she prays for me.  She’s a Dominican sister of Mary Mother of the Eucharist. In two years she will make her final profession of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  In this letter Sr. M.F. speaks of doing little things out of love.  She quotes a book she had been reading.   She writes, “I just finished reading Alice Von Hildebrand’s book “By Love Refined – Letters to a young Bride.”  They are a series of letters she wrote to her god-daughter giving her advice.  It is beautiful and so applicable to a soon to be professed sister.  I wanted to share a little section of it with you.”

(From the von Hildebrand book) “You say that true lovers are concerned with ‘great things, beautiful things’ and should not let themselves be troubled by small things.  Roy wouldn’t agree.  He and my friend Evelyn have been married 35 years.  She’s sloppy and he’s meticulous.  During their honeymoon, Roy noticed that she always left the toothpaste tube open.  He asked Evelyn to put the cap on, but she laughed at him, claiming he had the habits of an old maid.  Time and again, Roy has asked her to change.  After 35 years, the cap still remains off and Roy has resigned himself to it.

Compare this to my own husband’s attitude.  Early in our marriage, I noticed he would always leave the soap swimming in a pool of water.  It would slowly disintegrate into unattractive, slimy goo, something I found unappealing.  I drew it to his attention.  From that day on, he made it a point of drying the soap after each use, to such an extent that I couldn’t tell from the ‘soap testimony’ whether he had washed himself or not.  (Moreover this was typical of him; he too developed a strong dislike for sticky soap).  I was so moved by this, that to this day I feel a wave of loving gratitude for this small but significant gesture of love.  My husband was a great lover.  And because he was one, he managed to relate the smallest things to love and was willing to change to please his beloved in all legitimate things.  This characteristic is typical of great love.”

Sr. Maria Francisco goes onto to write:  “That is how I want to love my Beloved.  With a readiness to change in all things to please Him.  I think that the smaller the things the more they please Him for if you can be faithful in the little things the big ones will come easier.  For love makes everything easy.”   And then she signs it, In Jesus through Mary, Sr. Maria Francisco

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

The Seraphim cried out, “Holy holy holy is the Lord of Hosts!  All the earth is filled with His glory!”  God created the cosmos in an explosion of generosity, giving rise to myriad plants, animals, planets, stars, angels and us – human beings, man and woman.  All designed to reflect some aspect of His own splendor and glory.  At the summit of all of God’s physical creation stands us, the human being man and woman, loved into existence as all things are, but we are invited to participate even more fully in God’s perfection by loving Him in return.

God in his infinite love and design has endowed each and every one of us with a body and a soul.  And made in His image and likeness we also have both an intellect and a will.  With our intellect we can know the Truth; we can know Jesus and His way.   And with our will we can love Him with all our being.  St Ireneaus once said that the Glory of God is man fully alive.  How do we live like this?  With body, soul, intellect and will; how do we live fully alive so as to give God glory?   I’m glad you asked, there are a few things we can do:

1. Recognize your incredible dignity. As soon as we receive the Sacrament of Baptism, God literally floods us with sublime and ineffable gifts.  First and foremost, Baptism transforms us into living Tabernacles of the Blessed Trinity.  We become a son/daughter of God the Father, brother/sister of Jesus Christ, and intimate friend of the Holy Spirit.  A great dignity.

2. Recognize your destiny. We are destined to eternal glory in heaven.  We were made for Heaven.   If we glorify God in our bodies/souls, intellect/will during this brief and transitory pilgrimage on Earth, Heaven is ours.

3. Develop a deep relationship with our Heavenly Mother. She not only brings us closer to Jesus but she is also an expert in purity.  With this relationship we can ask for her help in growing more pure.  With her help we can be made more and more pure in mind, voice, body, and spirit.  As St. Matthew once wrote, “Blessed are the pure of Heart for they will see God.”

4. Purify your whole being by the Blood of the Lamb of God. If and when we fall into sin, never give into discouragement or despair.  Instead place your trust in God’s infinite mercy!  In other words, go to confession.  Like the Prodigal Son run to the Father and launch yourself into His loving and merciful arms.  Jesus longs to be your Savior.  In her diary St. Faustina writes of this promise that Jesus made:  “The greatest sinners can become the greatest saints if they simply trust in my infinite mercy.”

5. Receive the Holy Eucharist. The greatest action that a human person can carry out on earth is to attend Mass and receive the Eucharist.  Your body, upon receiving the Eucharist, becomes a living tabernacle, a living sanctuary, a living castle or palace of Jesus the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father.   If received properly your whole being is transformed.  Your memory is purified; your understanding is enlightened; your will is strengthened; your heart is set on fire with divine love.

To live fully giving great glory to God, know your great dignity, know your destiny, develop a deeper relationship with Mary, go to our Lord in the sacrament of confession, and receive our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.

This Thursday February 10^th is the Feast day of St. Jose del Rio.  He was one who was fully alive.  Our school chapel is named after him.  St. Jose was a 14 year old Mexican martyr of the Cristero War of the 1920s. The Cristeros resisted the government’s attempts to eradicate the Catholic Church.  Even though only 14 St. Jose was very persistent in wanting to join the rebel movement.  When his mother said “No” for the 100^th time, in a fit of determination he said to her, “Mama don’t let me lose the opportunity to gain Heaven so easily and so soon.”  Eventually she relented and the general allowed him to be the flag bearer.

In late January 1928, José was captured by Mexican government officers. He had given his horse to the general after the general’s horse had died.  He then sought shelter to hide from the enemy, but he was found and captured.

The young prisoner of war was taken to a makeshift jail cell in the sacristy of a nearby church. According to the witness of childhood friends, while there, he prayed the Rosary throughout the day and prepared for his impending death. They allowed his Aunt to bring him the Eucharist.   He was ready to do God’s will.

José never had a trial but was offered the chance to live if he would renounce his faith. He refused. Hoping to weaken him in his determination, his persecutors brought him to witness the hanging of a fellow prisoner of war.   But instead of scaring him into recanting his faith in Christ, José encouraged the condemned man telling him, they’d soon see each other in heaven.

On the night of Feb. 10, 1928, José was forced to walk through town making his way to the local cemetery. Before he set out, they cut the bottoms of his feet, and as he walked, they inflicted several wounds upon him with a large blade. It was torture. He shouted in pain. He left a trail of bloody foot prints.  Again they tried to cause him to renounce his faith, “If you shout ‘Death to Christ the King,’ we will spare your life.” José had nothing of it. “I will never give in. He said, Viva Cristo Rey!”

Finally, they reached the cemetery — the place of his death — and, with bayonets, his persecutors stabbed him repeatedly. Their commander, however, shot him, frustrated with the slow, agonizing death his soldiers had inflicted upon the boy. He was not dying fast enough.  Just before dying, José traced a cross into the dirt, to which he kissed.

St. Jose was fully alive giving glory to God.  He knew his incredible dignity as a son of God.  He knew Heaven was his goal.  He had a deep relationship with Jesus and Mary.  And he was a regular receiver of the Eucharist and Reconciliation.

I give some homework this week.  Spend some time with our 1^st reading.  In it we see elements of the Mass.  First, Like Isaiah and the Angels we stand before an altar crying out “Holy holy holy Lord God of Hosts.”

Second, Isaiah’s sin was purged by a burning ember taken from the altar.  Our venial sin is purged by the burning love of our Lord in the Eucharist, also taken from the altar.  And finally, at the end of the 1^st reading the Lord says, “Who shall I send?”  And Isaiah answers, “Here I am, send me.”  We too are sent.  At the end of Mass we hear the words, “Go in peace glorifying the Lord by your life.”

Christian; know your great dignity

Christian; know your destiny.

Christian; develop an ever deepening relationship with Jesus and Mary.

Christian; receive our Lord’s mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation; receive his burning love in the Eucharist.

And then go; glorify the Lord by your life.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

A few years ago on Christmas day the movie Les Miserables opened to great reviews.  It was based on the musical and the book of the same name.  The author Victor Hugo, a nominal Catholic, lived in the 19^th century.  He’s also known for the book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Les Miserables is a spiritual story filled with Christian themes, and Christmas was a perfect day to release it.  The story begins with the main character Jean Val Jean being released from prison.  He’s been in jail doing hard labor for 19 years.  He was sent to prison for stealing a loaf of bread.  He committed this understandable crime in order to feed his sister’s hungry child.  After 19 years Val Jean is a bitter man raging against all people and institutions.  But once freed from prison he soon falls on hard times.  No one will hire an ex con.

After a time he meets a kindly Bishop who finds him sleeping in his doorway.  Filled with pity the Bishop takes him in and gives him food to eat and a warm bed to sleep in.  However, during the night while everyone is asleep Val Jean steals the silver and escapes into the night.  He’s soon apprehended by the police who bring him back to the Bishop.  They don’t believe his story that the Bishop would give his silver to this suspicious looking man.  But the Bishop corroborates Val Jean’s story and tells the police that he did indeed give the silver as a gift (a holy lie?).  Val Jean is no thief says the Bishop, the Bishop then goes on to say that Val Jean left so early that he left behind some of the silver.  He then places two silver candlesticks into his bag.  The police leave Val Jean in the company of the Bishop.

Val Jean is overwhelmed by the Bishop’s generosity; he can’t quite take it all in.  He wonders, “Why is this man being so kind to me?”  The Bishop then goes on to say that he has retrieved his soul for God and that his gesture of generosity is meant to awaken a similar generosity in him.  This incident between the Bishop and Val Jean represents the heart of the Christian spiritual life.    God is love, God is gracious gift of self, that’s all God is, love and gracious self gift.  And God wants us all to receive that grace, to receive that love and to participate in it fully and then to give it away.  We are to become imitators of the grace that He is.  The Bishop’s act of giving away his silver is thoroughly gratuitous; there is no self interest in it.   And now Jean Val Jean does the same.  And he does using the silver he begins a new life.  He becomes an honorable businessman participating fully in God’s grace by receiving it and giving it away reaching out to the poor and the destitute. We are to love like that we are to love like God.

And to love like that St. Paul helps us by giving us 15 characteristics of love.  Giving us seven positive traits of love and eight faults that love is not.  These are the traits of God, the traits of Jesus, and to take them on is to become more and more like Him.  Now this love that St. Paul writes about is called agape in Greek.  The Greeks have four different words for love and they are each used in different situations.  It’s not like English where we use the one word love to express our feelings for anything or for anyone from an iced coke, to a spouse, or even for God.  The Greeks are different they differentiate between the various loves.  There’s eros for romantic and sexual love.  There’s philia for the love between friends.  There’s storge for the love parents have for their children.  And finally there’s agape which St. Paul writes about in our second reading.  This is a love that is totally benevolent and disinterested.  It is willing the good of the other without expecting anything in return.   This is the love that the Bishop expressed towards Jean Val Jean.  This is the love of Jesus on the Cross.  This is God’s own perfect love, and we strive to love in that way.

Chapter 13 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians shows us how God loves and to make it even clearer for us wherever we see the word love in Paul’s letter we could replace it with God, because God equals love.  So it would read like this:  God is patient, God is kind, God is not jealous, God is not pompous, God is not inflated, God is not rude, God does not seek His own interests, God is not quick tempered, God does not brood over injury, God does not rejoice over wrong doing, God rejoices with the truth.  God bears all things, God believes all things, God hopes all things, God endures all things, and God never fails.

Now we could carry this exercise even a little further, replacing our name wherever we read the word love.  So that it might read like this:  Chris is patient (not always), Chris is kind (not always), Chris is not jealous (I fail there too) and so on.  This letter of Paul’s is an excellent examination on loving like God.   We can use this letter to the Corinthians as an examination asking ourselves:  am I kind, jealous, pompous, inflated, rude, do I seek my own interests, am I quick tempered, do I brood over injury, rejoice over wrong doing, do I rejoice with the truth, bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.

You have homework this week, use the 2nd reading as a meditation this week, maybe read it out loud with your kids, tape it to the refrigerator.  Let it be a constant reminder.  Someday our love will be perfected, perfected through prayer, through grace, through the sacraments.  Someday our love will be all these 15 characteristics.  It might be in Heaven when we get there but we will get there, we’ll get there as long as we are faithful, faithful to prayer, to doing good, to Mass every Sunday, to the Eucharist, and to Reconciliation.  Christ did not call us to a casual or lackadaisical approach to our faith.  He calls us to be zealous in our love of God, to have a generous and merciful heart for our neighbor and to strive for the spiritual heights.  As St. Matthew wrote in the Gospel, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In his book, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI asks a surprising question.  He asks, “What did Jesus actually bring?”  We still have wars, we still have famine, people still suffer, and people still get sick and die.  He asks again, “What did Jesus actually bring?”  Pope Benedict then answers his own question by saying, “Jesus brought us God.  Jesus brings us God.”  He is God made visible.  He came to bring us life and to free us from whatever enslaves, so that we can be truly alive.  He is so much more than a social worker.  He’s not a nice guy who came to teach us a few useful things about living in harmony.  He’s not a philosopher who gives us a theory about life.  And He’s not a politician who promises to fulfill every wish we could ever have.  Jesus is the Savior who brings us to the Father. Bridging Earth and Heaven

In our Gospel Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-2, he reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.”  This was considered a very hot text; it was a predictor of the Messiah.  And so Jesus reads it, sits down, which is a sign of authority and he begins to preach basically saying, “I fulfill this passage.  I am the Messiah, I am your Savior.”  A savior is not a social worker, a nice guy, a philosopher or a politician but the one who bring us to the Father.

As Christians we know that we can’t save ourselves.  Sometimes we find ourselves wondering why we seem to commit the same sins over and over again.  Sometime we say with St. Paul, “I don’t do the good I want to do, but I do the evil I don’t want to.”  Caryll Houselander tells the following story in the Reed of God.  “Through sin we forget what God looks like…I once saw an old, old woman shaking the photograph of her long dead husband, while tears, which seemed literally to hiss from her eyes, blistered it.  ‘It won’t speak to me,’ she said, and I have forgotten his face.” Sin is like that. We forget what God looks like.  But Jesus came to show us the way to the Father, to bring us into the light of his face.  Bringing us in from the darkness, and doubt, and fear.

I have a Paul Harvey story and it’s mostly told during the Christmas season.  It’s a story about how God meets us where we are, walking with us and pointing us to where we need to go.  It goes like this.  There was a kind, decent, and mostly good man.  Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others.  But he just didn’t believe all that Incarnation stuff that the churches proclaim at Christmastime.  He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to earth as a man.  “I’m not going with you to Church this Christmas Eve.”  He told his wife, stating that he’d feel like a hypocrite.  And so he stayed and his family went to Midnight Mass.

Shortly after the family drove away, snow began to fall.  He watched the flurries getting heavier and then went back to his fireside chair to read his newspaper.  Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound.  Then another.  Sort of a thump or a thud.  At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window.  But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow.  They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large picture window.  Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn.  He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds didn’t come in.  So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable.  But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow.  He tried catching them.  He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms.  Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.  And then, he realized that they were afraid of him.  To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature.

If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me.  That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them.  But how?  Any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them.  They just would not follow.  They would not be led because they feared him.  If only I could be a bird, he thought, and mingle with them and speak their language.  Then I could tell them not to be afraid.  Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm barn.  But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand.

At that moment the church bells began to ring.  He stood there listening to the bells, playing “Adeste Fidelis” and pealing the glad tiding of Christmas.  And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.”  Maybe we’re captive right now, or maybe oppressed in some way.  But there is great hope, Jesus can change that, he can  reconcile us with God the Father, and show us his Father’s mercy. He came that we might know personally the Father’s love.

In the first centuries of Christianity monks had a prayer that they would pray throughout the day.  It’s called the Jesus Prayer, and it’s a way for us to stay in contact with Jesus. To not forget God.  It goes like this, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  It’s just 12 words, but when repeated often, they  change the rhythm of our day.  “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

As we prepare to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, let’s speak these words from our heart, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  And during the week when we’re in the car, waiting in line, in an elevator we can say these words, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  When we’re frustrated or filled with doubt, when we’re weighed down by our own sins or the sins of others we can pray these words, “Jesus, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” 

And he does.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley