Author: Christine Jordan

Dear Friends,

St. Monica was born in North Africa in the early 4^th century.  She was born into a very devout Catholic family.  She knew her faith and she practiced it.  But even so she was married off to a Roman pagan by the name of Patricius.   After marriage Monica went to live in her husband’s home.  The mother-in-law was also in residence.  Both Patricius and his mom had bad tempers and the mother-in-law in more than one source is always described as cantankerous.  They were a challenge to Monica.  They didn’t appreciate her prayer life or her care of the poor or her piety.  But Monica never gave up her faith or the practices of her faith and she never hid her faith either.  And with time both her husband and mother-in-law asked for baptism.  God used Monica to win them over; he heard her prayers for their conversion.  In our Gospel today our Lord teaches the disciples to pray, and later he tells them, “Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Be persistent in prayer.  Now many times St. Monica is held up as a model of one who prays well.  She persisted in prayer.

And today St. Monica is known mostly as the mother of St. Augustine.  She’s known as the mother who prayed almost 20 years for the conversion of her son.  She spent almost 20 years begging God with daily tears and prayers to convert her heretical and pleasure-loving son.  Augustine knew of her prayers.   And her example later helped him to explain how God answers our prayers in three different ways.

He once wrote, “If we ask God for something in prayer, God can say one of three things in response.”  First, he can say OK, and give us what we ask for.  Second, he can simply say no, which means that what we are asking for is not good for us.  This too is an answer to prayer, and, as every parent knows, sometimes it’s the most loving answer of all.  Third, he can say OK, but not now.  And to this response Saint Augustine would say that God makes us wait because he wants to give us more.  God is inviting us to be persistent so that he can stretch our hearts, making them able to receive more grace, stretching our hearts the way you stretch out a burlap sack so you can fill it to the brim.  He explained it this way, “Suppose you want to fill some sort of bag and you know the bulk of what you will be given, so you stretch the bag or the sack or the skin or whatever it is.  You know how big the object is that you want to put in and you see that the bag is too narrow so you increase its capacity by stretching it.  In the same way by delaying the fulfillment of our desires God stretches our souls.  By making us desire more, he expands the soul, and by this expansion he increases the soul’s capacity to receive.”

Yes, no, and not now are the three answers that God has to choose from.   In responding to our prayers of petition it’s either yes, no, or not yet and he always chooses one of them.  Pope St. John Paul II once referred to the parish as a school of prayer.  It’s where we pray the Mass; the most perfect of prayers and learn to pray.  I want to share with you a way of praying, it’s called the A-R-R-R prayer, sometimes referred to as the pirate’s prayer.  ARRR!  You might even already be praying this way, you just didn’t know it.  The letters stand for acknowledge, relate, receive and respond.   The first step is to acknowledge; openly and honestly we acknowledge how we are before God.  What are you experiencing?  What is moving in your heart?  What are your thoughts, what are your feelings, and what are your emotions?  An example from my life; on a Friday a few years ago I was anxious and stressed.  It was going to be one of those days.  And I remember that I had just exposed the Blessed Sacrament.  It should have been a moment of peace.  But kneeling in front of that altar I was anxious and stressed.

The second step is relate; bring yourself as you are into relationship with God.   Tell God what you’re experiencing.  He knows, but tell him anyway, speak to Him from your heart, your thoughts, your feelings, and your emotions.  And so kneeling in front of the altar, I told God I’m stressed out here.  I need your help; I can’t do this by myself.

The third step is receive; listen to what God is doing with the movements of your heart, your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, and your memories.  Receive his presence and the constancy of his love.  Spend some time receiving his love.  I spent some time in quiet prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, celebrated Mass and then went about my day with its appointments and meetings.  It was about 2:00 in the afternoon when I met by accident Fr. Klingler walking down Michigan Ave. in downtown Kalamazoo.  He gave me the counsel of an old experienced priest.  He put everything into perspective.  I don’t even remember exactly what he said, but I do remember a weight being lifted from my heart.  We are never forgotten by Heaven.  God used Fr. Klingler to answer my prayer.

The fourth step is respond; what we receive from God impels us to respond in gratitude and with a renewed heart.  I remember walking away from Fr. Klingler looking upward and saying, “Thank you.”  I was probably smiling too.

God is all around us.  And to pray is to breathe in God.  And in breathing in God He resuscitates and revives and enlivens our souls.  We exhale our own self will and agenda to inhale the Divine.  With time as we more and more breathe in God, as we more and more pray, we are made over more and more in His Divine image.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel we see two approaches to life.  First there’s Martha, and we can imagine that she’s industrious and in a hectically busy way she always looks after her guest.  She probably radiates a hullabaloo and from sheer enthusiasm makes a lot of bother for herself and for her guest.  Then there’s Mary who sits at the feet of Jesus just listening to him speak.  She has time entirely for him and is full of interest in him.  Martha has welcomed Jesus into her home while Mary has welcomed Jesus into her heart.  She makes him a gift, not of her activity, but of her attention.

Martha is making a great deal of trouble for herself and she’s in danger of forgetting the most important thing; what use is all the trouble and anxiety if in the midst of all that work she no longer has time for Jesus.  What use is her hospitality if she wears herself out and has no energy to be with Jesus.  Seeing to things and taking trouble to be hospitable are not bad, but they shouldn’t swallow everything up.  It’s necessary to be active but our activity and our work needs to be supported by contemplation, moments of tranquility, reflection, and prayer.  We can’t do it without prayer.  Listening comes before acting, prayer before action.

John’s gospel tells us that Jesus loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Most likely Jesus was a frequent guest at their home in Bethany, a small village about two miles from Jerusalem.  Many of us find it easy to identify with Martha.  She welcomes Jesus and his disciples into her home and immediately goes to work to serve them.  Hospitality in the Middle East is very important and Martha believed in it.  We can imagine her frustration when her sister Mary ignores the rule of hospitality and sits to listen to Jesus, just sitting there, not working.  But instead of speaking to her sister, she asks Jesus to intervene.  He doesn’t.  Jesus’ response isn’t unkind and gives us an idea of his affection for her.  He observes that Martha is worried about many things that distract her and keep her from really being present to him.  He reminds her that there is only one thing that is truly important, listening to him.  And that is what Mary has done.  In Martha we see ourselves, worried and distracted by our work, and sometimes forgetting to spend time with Jesus, it is, however, comforting to note that Jesus loved her just the same.

When I was very young we would sometimes visit my Dad at work.  He was a machinist who worked for GM; he worked there for 30 years.  He worked at various plants in Flint, but the one I remember most is plant 29.  Every year there was family day when the plant was open to visitors.  A very interesting place, I remember the assembly line with cars chugging slowly along as they were being built.  I remember a huge oven with flames shooting out; I don’t know what it was used for but it was hotter than you know what.  I remember a pigeon who had built a nest outside my dad’s window, something a future veterinarian would remember.  I remember my dad’s work area with its huge tool chest, taller than me.  He opened it for us to show us everything inside.  I remember that on the inside top lid there were three photos, a photo of me and one each of my brothers Matt and Joe.     But there was also something else I remember, something a future priest would remember, there was a crucifix tacked among the photos.  And today I wonder, did my Dad use it as a reminder of where his focus should be? Did he use it as a reminder of the One who gives him his strength in the midst of all his work?  Work he did to support his family.

Our Gospel tells us that Jesus sees that Martha is, “Anxious and worried about many things” and these work things distract her and keep her from being present to Him and listening to Him.   We too can become worried, anxious, and distracted by all the many tasks we have to complete and we too can sometimes forget to spend time with Jesus or we can sometimes forget that Jesus is always our focus.  This can easily happen to a priest as well.

But work doesn’t have to interfere or distract us from Christ. And we all work even if retired because there are still many household tasks and services for others that need to be done.  We could be like my Dad and place a crucifix or a picture of Jesus in our work space.  Reminding us that Jesus is our focus in all that we do, reminding us to listen to him.  The catechism tells us that work honors the gifts and talents that God has given to us.  Work can redeem us. By enduring the hardship of work in union with Jesus, the carpenter of Nazareth and the one crucified on Calvary, we collaborate in a certain fashion with the Son of God in redemptive work.  This is a beautiful way of saying, as my Mom would say, “Offer it up.”

In last week’s Gospel we heard, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind.”  And to love this way means that the whole sum of our life is for God.  Even when God is not consciously in our thoughts, if we’ve given Him our day, offered him our day the moment we get  up in the morning, then God will be in our hearts and hands as we pursue our work.

There’s an old prayer that a priest once recommended I pray every day and in this prayer we offer up to God our day, we offer him our work.  It’s a way to make our whole day into a prayer, to focus our day unto Him.  It’s called the daily offering, so even when our focus is elsewhere we’ve given our day and our work to God.  The priest who gave it to me told me to tape it to my bathroom mirror.

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day, for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my relatives and friends and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father.   Amen

In the Gospels we only read of Martha in three passages.  The last we read of her is in John 12 and all that’s written is, “Martha served” she simply served Jesus.  My prayer for us today is that we always serve Jesus in all that we do, welcoming him into our home like Martha and into our heart like Mary.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

There once was a boy by the name of Jimmy.  He was in the second grade and after learning about baptism in religious ed. he went home to baptize his dog.  As soon as he got to his house he went into the kitchen for a large glass of water.  He then ran to the backyard to find his dog Spot.  Once he had Spot under control he began pouring water over the dog’s head saying, “I baptize you Spot in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” After this he added, “Now you are a human being.  Speak to me.”  Slowly Spot rose up on his hind legs until he was standing straight up. “Well” Spot said, “I’ve never talked before.  Just give me a little time to get used to it.  I have a feeling that you and I are going to get along very well.”  “But first, let’s talk about this dog food you’re feeding me.”

Now of course, this incident never happened, except in Jimmy’s vivid imagination.  It is, however, a good illustration of what did happen to you and me when, in Baptism, God chose to share His own divine life with us.  Before Baptism there was an impassable gulf between God and us.  We couldn’t possibly enjoy what God enjoys, no more than a dog can enjoy reading a book.    We couldn’t possibly communicate adequately with God nor God with us, no more than a dog owner can share his inner most thoughts with his dog.  He just won’t understand.  For a dog to be able to think and speak and to share his owner’s loves and joys, the dog would have to be raised to the level of a human being.  He would have to be given a human nature.  For the dog this would be a super nature, a kind of existence above the nature of a dog.

Although Jimmy couldn’t humanize his dog Spot, God could and did divinize you and me.  We’re not little gods, we don’t cease to be human but with baptism we are made like God.   In Baptism God gives to us a supernatural life, a kind of life above the nature of a human being.  In His great love God raises us to His own level.  He chooses to share with us His own divine life.  He chooses to share his Sanctifying Grace and this grace guides us, strengthens us, and inspires us.  And in return God asks for our love.  He calls us to love him out of our own free will.

As we just heard in our Gospel, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind.”  This is a very definite command and it can seem a very hard command, maybe even too hard or impossible.  How can I love God with all my heart and strength?  And if I really loved God with all my heart, being, strength and mind shouldn’t I feel it a little bit, like I feel when I love other people?  When love is strong, sometimes just hearing the name of the one we love can make our heart beat faster, it can give a lift to our spirits.  But I never catch my heart beating faster at the mention of God’s name, nor do I feel the least bit excited when I think of Him.  How can I ever hope to love God with all my heart?  When we think this way we’re confusing sentimental love with the pure love of spirit-for-spirit which is the basic nature of our love for God.  The love of human for human almost always has an emotional or sentimental basis.  It’s a love that we can feel.  It’s not necessary, however, that there be any emotional content in our love for God.  Real love for God rests in our will, not in our emotions.

Now it’s true that some people, especially the saints, have been able to feel their love for God in an emotional way. It’s a grace and a consolation.  St. Philip Neri, for example, at the thought of God would often be seized with such violent palpitations that his whole body would tremble.  This was a special grace that God gave to St. Philip yet it wasn’t these violent palpitations that measured the intensity of his love for God.  Our love for God as was St. Philip’s is not gauged by feelings and emotions, but by what we stand ready to do for God.  True holiness is measured by charity, by how we love God and our neighbor.  If in our mind and heart we are genuinely convinced that nothing and nobody are to be preferred to God; if there is nothing that we have, any position we hold, or any one person that we would ever let stand between us and God, then our love for Him is real.  Think of Mother Theresa she spent many years loving in spiritual dryness without feeling the consolation of God’s love, yet through His grace she remained faithful and continued to serve God and her neighbor.

Another gauge of our love for God is the extent to which the thought of God dominates our day.  If we love God we live for God.  This doesn’t mean we’re thinking about God all the time.  What it does mean is that always, just below the surface of our mind, is the conviction that what we’re doing, we’re doing for God; our labor, our recreation, our family relationships, our social responsibilities, our whole sum of life is for God.  Because even when God is not consciously in our thoughts, if we’ve given Him our day, the moment we wake up, then He’ll be in our hearts and hands as we pursue the tasks of our life.

In today’s Gospel we are like the victim found at the side of the road.  His wounds were cleansed with oil and wine while our wounds have been cleansed in the sacraments of baptism, reconciliation, and the Holy Eucharist.  The victim recuperates at the inn while we recuperate inside the Inn of the Church.  And during our life long recuperation, with the grace of God, and we can’t do it without his grace, we learn to love more and more until we reach that perfection of love in Heaven, where we know we will love God with a whole heart, with all our being, with all our strength, and all our mind.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In 1957 Red Skelton was one of the most popular comedians on TV.  His show on CBS was always highly ranked.He’d come a long way from his earlier days as a rodeo clown.  Red was married to a wonderful woman by the nameof Georgia and he had two children a son Richard and a daughter Valentina.  Life was very good for Red.  But then toward the end of spring that year his son Richard was diagnosed with Leukemia.  Unlike today, a diagnosis of leukemia in a child of 1957 was the same as saying that Richard was going to die, and die very soon.

So Red and his wife made two decisions.  First, they weren’t going to tell Richard how sick he really was.  He was temporarily in remission and outwardly he looked healthy.  And second, they were going to take their two kids on a sight-seeing tour of Europe.  So Red took a leave of absence from his highly rated show and went to Europe with his family.  The press at that time was just as aggressive as it is now.  Skelton informed the newspapers why his family was going on the trip, and he asked for their assistance in helping to keep the secret from his son that he was afflicted with a mortal illness.  Amazingly the American press agreed to help.  It wasn’t until the family reached Britain that Richard learned the truth of his fatal illness.   Reading the news, however, he said, “Everybody says I’m going to die but that means everybody but me.”

Even though the Skeltons were not Catholic both Richard and Valentina attended a Catholic school (St. Martin of Tours in Hollywood) and for the Protestant family the two high points of the trip were Lourdes and their audience with Pope Pius XII.  At Lourdes Red showed great faith saying, “God alone can save my boy’s life as science has done all it can.”  At the Vatican the Pope spent a great deal of time talking to the Skeltons.  He blessed Richard and the other members of the family and gave them religious medals.  And as they were leaving the Pope gave them these words of comfort, “Life is eternal because of God.  So if life is taken away from one person in a family they are never separated because the family will always live together in eternal life with God.”

After they returned to the States, the leukemia came out of remission and it took its deadly course very quickly.  Richard was quite a religious boy.  His room was filled with religious pictures and statues.  Shortly before dying he asked the Pope to send him a blessed crucifix.  The crucifix didn’t make it in time.  It arrived just shortly after his death.  The crucifix, the cross with the image of Jesus upon it, however, was buried with him.  It was placed in his hands.

Richard, even though only nine, understood the great truth of the cross; it’s the instrument of Christ’s victory over death.    And that’s why he wanted an icon of Jesus on the Cross.  In today’s second reading St. Paul totally agrees and he says something very odd and strange for a first century man, something never said before.  He says, “I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  This doesn’t sound strange to us because we see crosses on steeples and in homes all the time.  But to the people listening to Paul, they would’ve been thinking or saying, “What you talkin’ about Paul? That’s crazy talk!”  To his listeners this is madness.  The cross was something unspeakable.  The most miserable thing of torture ever thought up by a cruel person.  To die on a cross was a shameful death.  It’s the last thing you’d ever boast about.  If your son, brother, or husband ended his life on a cross you’d change the subject, if it ever came up in conversation.  You would not be in a mood to boast about it.  The cross was only for revolutionaries, slaves, thieves, or prisoners of war.

In his boasting of the cross St. Paul is inviting his listeners and us into the upside down world of Christian faith, where Christianity turns the values of the world upside down. Where in God weakness becomes strength and where in God death leads to eternal life.   St. Paul then goes on to say, “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  In saying this Paul is not saying that he hates the physical world or the flesh.  He’s not a puritan.  He loves all of God’s creation both physical and spiritual and that includes the body.  What he is saying, is that he hates the worldly power of sin, division, and hatred, all the things that contributed to the death of Jesus, all these forces that caused the death of Jesus.  Now over and above all of this Paul never loses sight of the importance of the resurrection.  The world of sin, oppression, and hatred killed Jesus but God raised him up.  What contributed to Jesus’ death is now under God’s judgment.

This faith of ours, this faith of the cross has conquered the world.  Of course there are still evil skirmishes and resistances to the cross of which we must be vigilant and give witness against, but the cross has already conquered the world.  Now each one of us at baptism received an indelible mark upon our soul, this spiritual mark means we belong to Christ.  And nothing can ever erase this mark.  We could totally turn our back on God and the mark would still remain.  Now this spiritual mark which brands our soul can also be thought of as the sign of the cross.  St. Ivo of the 12^th century wrote that, “For it is by the power of the sign of the cross that all our sacraments are also accomplished and all the illusions of the devil are frustrated.”

Don’t hide your soul’s mark of the cross.  As we know this mark of the cross is not visible to the eye the only way it becomes visible is if we let the cross influence what we say and what we do.  So don’t hide it.   It’s not something to be kept private and separate as some in our government tells us.  It’s not something to be put on display for only one hour a week here at St. Jerome’s.  The mark of the cross, the mark of our Catholic faith, should influence everything we do all week.  It should be made visible every day and everywhere, to everyone.   Don’t hide the mark of the cross that brands your soul.

A nine year old boy dying of leukemia chose to rally behind the cross.  Let us always do the same, always glory in the Cross of our Lord.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

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PAX

My dear Family,

The following words from Job clearly state what I am feeling: “…the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). There is sadness in parting and leaving my family; but there is also peace knowing that this is the will of God. I pray that you can also see the goodness and blessing of God in all this. We are all looking for true happiness, and at times we forget that we can only find it in the will of God, even if at the moment it might not feel like “happiness”, but we must have faith and trust “…that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints” (Romans 8:28).

I want to take this time also to ask for your forgiveness if at any point I offended anyone with anything I did, said or did not do. Know that I tried to give my all out of love for God and the salvation of your souls. To the best of my knowledge, I always spoke the truth of the Gospel  to you, realizing that only the Truth would makes us true disciples of the Lord Jesus and truly set us free (John 8: 31-32). Always remember that at times the Truth will be painful to hear and hard to accept, just like the medicine we have to take for a physical illness is at times painful or bitter to the taste, but we know that it is for our physical well being.  The same is with the Truth, it can be painful to hear and bitter to swallow, but if we abandon ourselves completely to the will of God, this at times painful and bitter medicine, will bring us to Eternal Life.

You have taught me so much these past three years which God has blessed me with. I have been graced to meet in this faith community people of great Faith, Hope and Charity. The witness of so many of you has strengthened my priesthood and my commitment to continue to die daily to self that I may live completely for God and the salvation of souls. There are no words to express my gratitude for all that you have done for me. Your smiles, your words of encouragement, your love for me and above all your faith, all these truly humble me and encourage me to keep fighting the good fight. It is not an easy time to be a Catholic and it is less easy to be a priest, but you all have helped me and encouraged me to not lose hope to always remember that Christ is still King, and for this I am greatly thankful. I only hope that I was able to return the favor and gave you a little hope in the Church and the priesthood.

Even though I will not be here with you, know that I will always carry you in my heart and will always remember you in my prayers. I ask that you please pray for me; that you beg God for my sanctification. My deepest longing for you and for me is for us to become saints! So let us follow the council of St. Paul: “Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.  And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one.”(1 Corinthians 9: 24-25). So let us run the race that will win for us the crown of Eternal Life without counting the cost. Always remember that we will receive much more than what we are asked to give. Always remember how BLESSED YOU ARE IN CHRIST!

In the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

Fr. José Haro

Dear Friends,

There once was a rich young man by the name of Alexis.  He lived in Rome during the fourth or fifth century and he lived at a time when it had just become legal to be a Catholic.  People could finally practice the Christian faith out in the open.   Both of Alexis’ parents were devout Catholics and his father was a senator.  Alexis’ parents taught him the faith and taught him to be especially charitable to the poor.  When Alexis was a teenager, he decided that he wanted to give up everything, give up his wealth and give up his place of privilege in Roman society.  He wanted to live a life of poverty and prayer, and he wanted to do this all for God, but his parents had other plans for him.  They had arranged for him to marry a rich young woman.  And because it was their will for him he went along with it.  He really listened to his parents.  Yet on his wedding day when he saw his bride for the first time, he had second thoughts, this woman was smart, loving, and beautiful, and she would be a great wife, but even so, he asked for her permission to leave her for God.  She gave him the permission.   So he left.

He made his way to Syria, where he lived the life of a beggar.  Any money he received he first shared with the many poor people around him using only what was left over for himself.  When he wasn’t begging he was praying in the various churches of the city.  After living this way for several years people began to recognize him for his extraordinary holiness.  People would come to him for advice and to ask for his prayers.  They called him the living saint.  And this made him very uncomfortable.  So after seventeen years in Syria he made his way back to Rome and to his parents’ house.  He came as a beggar to his own house where he’d grown up.  His parents didn’t recognize him and so he started living under the stairs leading up to the front door.  His parents allowed him to live there not knowing who he really was.  And there he stayed spending his time begging for food, praying in the churches of Rome, and teaching the homeless about God.  With his parents never realizing who he was, even though they passed him and looked at him every day as they went to and from their house.

Now the servants of that house were quite cruel to Alexis and though he could have ended all these sufferings just by telling his parents who he was, he chose to say nothing.  Alexis lived this way for 17 years.   It was a hard way of life.  And one morning the servants found him dead under the stairs.  But before burying him they went through his few possessions even going through the pockets of the jacket he was wearing.  And in one of his pockets they found a note.  The note explained to them who he was and how he had lived this life of penance and prayer from the day his wedding was supposed to take place until then, a total of thirty-four years.  Writing that he did it all for the love of God.  Praying and sacrificing for the people of God.

When Alexis’ mother came to look and to hold the dead body of her son she cried out, “My son, my Alexis, I have known you too late! You were there all the time and I never really saw you.” She was heartbroken.  This was a good and charitable woman but she had seen her son every day for seventeen years yet she didn’t really see him.  She had heard her son every day for seventeen years yet she didn’t really hear him.  She had invited her son into her home yet she didn’t really invite him in.   He got only as far as the space beneath the stairs.  It was a superficial relationship.  Alexis’ parents looked at their son every day for 17 years without ever seeing him.  And then it was too late.

On this Feast of Corpus Christi, Feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus, we are reminded that at the end of our life our soul will see at last our Lord who we have possessed all along in the Eucharist.  At that time will we say to our Lord using the same words as Alexis’ mom, “My Jesus, my Lord, I have known you too late!  You were there all the time and I never really saw you!”  After a lifetime of receiving the Eucharist did our soul really see who he or she was consuming?

In the middle ages people rarely received the Eucharist.  They might receive on a special occasion or a milestone event in their life like an anniversary, but it was very rare for to receive Holy Communion.   And if they were not receiving, the high point of the Mass for them were the two elevations.   The elevation of the Sacred Host and the elevation of the Chalice of Precious Blood.  Bells were rung to remind them of the importance of these two moments.  At those moments their eyes were focused intently at the Eucharist.  And in those moments they received Jesus into their soul through the sense of sight.  They were taking in the Divine through the sense of sight.  As poets will sometimes write, the eyes are the windows into the soul.   That’s why we take care to keep custody of our eyes, guarding them against the profane and the impure.  What we receive through the sense of sight really has an effect on our soul.  That can be for good or for bad.  But when we look at something that has true beauty, that true beauty has a way of lifting our soul to heaven.  And so we look at beauty, we look at the Eucharist.  Those people in the middle ages through the sense of sight were making a spiritual communion with Jesus.

Before ever tasting the Eucharist, we see the Eucharist and in faith we get a view of Heaven.   To look upon the Eucharist is to practice Heaven, because in Heaven for all eternity we will look intently on our Lord.  We won’t be golfing or playing cards in heaven, we’ll be adoring God.  That’s why adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is so good for us.  It’s practice for Heaven.  Even if it’s difficult for us sit there/kneel there, good things are still happening to our souls.

On this Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ we remind ourselves that we should occupy ourselves with simply looking at Him who is looking at us.  Keeping Him company, talking with Him, praying to Him, remembering what a privilege it is to be near Him and to receive Him into our very being.  Let us always look with love upon the One who has known us and loved us from before all time.

Let us be great Saints,

Rev. Christopher J. Ankley

A letter by St. Athanasius

 Light, radiance and grace are in the Trinity and from the Trinity

It will not be out of place to consider the ancient tradition, teaching and faith of the Catholic Church, which was revealed by the Lord, proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers. For upon this faith the Church is built, and if anyone were to lapse from it, he would no longer be a Christian either in fact or in name.

We acknowledge the Trinity, holy and perfect, to consist of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In this Trinity there is no intrusion of any alien element or of anything from outside, nor is the Trinity a blend of creative and created being. It is a wholly creative and energizing reality, self-consistent and undivided in its active power, for the Father makes all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit, and in this way the unity of the holy Trinity is preserved. Accordingly, in the Church, one God is preached, one God who is above all things and through all things and in all things. God is above all things as Father, for he is principle and source; he is through all things through the Word; and he is in all things in the Holy Spirit.

Writing to the Corinthians about spiritual matters, Paul traces all reality back to one God, the Father, saying: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in everyone.

Even the gifts that the Spirit dispenses to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all that belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son, and so the graces given by the Son in the Spirit are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit dwells in us, the Word who bestows the Spirit is in us too, and the Father is present in the Word. This is the meaning of the text: My Father and I will come to him and make our home with him. For where the light is, there also is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there too are its power and its resplendent grace.

This is also Paul’s teaching in his second letter to the Corinthians: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For grace and the gift of the Trinity are given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit. But when we share in the Spirit, we possess the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.

Dear Friends,

Today is the Feast of Pentecost, a Feast that officially ends the season of Easter, a Feast that celebrates that day when the Holy Spirit descended, like tongues of fire, upon Mary, the Apostles, and all the other disciples gathered together in that upper room in Jerusalem 2 millennia ago.

So we might ask ourselves, what does this have to do with me?  What difference can the Holy Spirit really make in my life?  To answer this we sometimes have to see the difference in someone to understand; the difference the Holy Spirit makes, sometimes we have to meet someone animated by the Holy Spirit to be reminded of the difference that the Third person of the Trinity can make in our lives.

Now the person I have in mind is Immaculee Ilibegiza.  She’s an author and motivational speaker who radiates a combination of joy, freedom, and security.  She knows who she is.  She’s also a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

In 1994, Immaculee was 24 years old and studying at a university in her home country of Rwanda when a time of intense and brutal fighting broke out.  Through a series of circumstances, as the fighting began, she was hidden away by a neighbor in a bathroom in his house.  The bathroom was 3 ft. by 4 ft.  She stayed locked inside that bathroom for the next 91 days.   In that bathroom with her were 6 other women.  During those 91 days over 1,000,000 people in Rwanda were slaughtered, including her family.  By the time the fighting was over and she emerged from the bathroom, she weighed barely  60 pounds.

hink that after having gone through all that she had gone through, after having seen friends turn against her family and horrifically murder them, that her demeanor would be one of a woman who is angry, resentful, and bitter.  But she’s not anything like that at all.

During those 91 days this young woman, in the midst of great disaster and personal loss, found God.  In her book, “Live to Tell” Immaculee writes how the faith she had been taught as a child suddenly came alive.  She writes how she began to talk incessantly with God, to argue with Him, to wrestle with Him trying to figure out what was happening all around her.  She was able to get a hold of a Bible from the man who was protecting them, and together with her rosary that kept her occupied for the next 3 months.  You can only imagine how well she got to know the Scriptures during that time.  And by her constant dialogue with God, her reading of Scripture, and her meditation on the mysteries of the rosary, she experienced some life-changing revelations.   

The greatest of those revelations was the experience of being God’s child.  She came to know, and not just in her head, she came to know in her heart that God was her Father and that she was His daughter, and that even in the midst of great distress He was there for her.  At one point as she was reading Scripture she blurted out to God, pointing to the Bible she said, “This says You have created me.  That means I am Your responsibility! You have to take care of me.”  This is the spirit of adoption that St. Paul talks about in our 2^nd reading today, a Spirit that enables us to know, to confidently know, to know within our heart that God is our Father and that we are His children.  Enabling us to cry out Abba, Father or more accurately Daddy, Father.  In those terrible and confining days Immaculee not only found God she found out who she was.  She found her identity.  She knew who she was and whose she was.  She discovered she was His daughter, and this one insight is the reason why she is now so free, forgiving, and joyful.

Many people wrestle their whole lives with things, things like insecurity, jealousy, envy, pride, not wanting to forgive.  We wrestle with these things for many reasons, but the root reason, I think, is because we are unsure of our identity; we don’t really know who we are or whose we are.  The Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit given in power to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, enables us to know who we are, enable us to know that we are sons and daughters of the Heavenly King, and that no matter what may be going on in our life, even in the midst of difficult circumstances, like dealing with cancer wrestling with some sort of an addiction, or dealing with problems in our marriage, we are not on our own;  we are God’s responsibility, and He will give us, He will always give us the grace we need.  This is a simple yet profound fact of our faith and this makes all the difference in our lives.  This is the difference that Holy Spirit makes.  And that grace of the Holy Spirit may come to us in ways we don’t even expect or through people we don’t even know.

The love between the Father and the Son is so monumentally strong that we name it the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is love personified.  And because of our Baptism that monumental love dwells in us, so that along with Jesus we can call God our Father.  May the Holy Spirit remain ever present within us, keeping us in a state of grace, revealing ever more our true dignity as sons and daughters of God the Father.

May the prayer of “Come Holy Spirit” be always on our lips.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

From a sermon by Saint Augustine

No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven

Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him. Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth. For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.

Christ is now exalted above the heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his body, have to bear. He showed this when he cried out from above: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And when he said: I was hungry and you gave me food.

Why do we on earth not strive to find rest with him in heaven even now, through the faith, hope and love that unites us to him? While in heaven he is also with us; and we while on earth are with him. He is here with us by his divinity, his power and his love. We cannot be in heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love.

He did not leave heaven when he came down to us; nor did he withdraw from us when he went up again into heaven. The fact that he was in heaven even while he was on earth is borne out by his own statement: No one has ever ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven.

These words are explained by our oneness with Christ, for he is our head and we are his body. No one ascended into heaven except Christ because we also are Christ: he is the Son of Man by his union with us, and we by our union with him are the sons of God. So the Apostle says: Just as the human body, which has many members, is a unity, because all the different members make one body, so is it also with Christ. He too has many members, but one body.

Out of compassion for us he descended from heaven, and although he ascended alone, we also ascend, because we are in him by grace. Thus, no one but Christ descended and no one but Christ ascended; not because there is no distinction between the head and the body, but because the body as a unity cannot be separated from the head.

Dear Friends,

On this Sixth Sunday of Easter the Gospel reading is taken from the farewell discourses.  In the hours of the night before he was taken captive, Jesus talked at length to his friends.  He confided to them what was most important.  Every word here is weighty.  It’s all so dense with significance that we need a great deal of time to grasp the meaning of his words.  People have been meditating on them, and drawing strength from them, for almost two thousand years now.    And one saying here has always struck peoples notice: “We will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” 

God does not live in Heaven alone, in that world of his, “up above,” away from earth.  He also dwells within our midst, in his Word, within our Souls, and most especially in the Holy Eucharist.  And He makes himself a Divine Prisoner of our tabernacle.   I want to share with you a story about a Saint and his great love of the Eucharist.  This saint’s name is Tarcisius and he lived in third century Rome when it was very dangerous to be a Christian.  Mass was celebrated in secret usually in houses or the catacombs where the dead were buried.  Tarcisius was an altar boy and he assisted at Mass whenever possible.  Following Mass one day the Bishop gave him an important task.  He asked Tarcisius to bring Holy Communion to a group of condemned Christians who were awaiting their execution.  The Bishop thought that the guards at the prison would not suspect a twelve year old boy, would not suspect that he was there to bring Communion to the condemned.

Tarcisius accepted his assignment.   The Bishop carefully wrapped the Blessed Sacrament within a fancy decorative cloth.  He gave it to Tarcisius who gently but securely carried it under his coat next to his heart.  So off he went.  No one suspected a thing until he met a group of his friends.  Friends, who though not Christians, were ones he often played with in the streets.  These young boys saw Tarcisius and asked him to join in their games.  Tarcisius quickly declined, saying he was on an important errand.  The boys saw that he was carrying something under his coat and they became curious asking, “What are you hiding under your coat?”  “We want to see” they excitedly yelled.  Tarcisius had learned to have a great respect and love for our Lord present in the Eucharist.  So he refused to show them saying it wasn’t for them and that they wouldn’t understand.  But these boys were very determined to see what he carried.  So they asked and pleaded many times.  Each time Tarcisius emphatically said no.

These young men would not let him pass.   They began to threaten him with harm if he didn’t show them.  Again Tarcisius refused.  Eventually it came to violence with the group of boys beating Tarcisius repeatedly until he was unconscious and mortally injured.  A passer-by, an adult Christian, who recognized Tarcisius, chased the boys off.  He brought the injured boy back to the Bishop who anointed him and looking under the young boy’s coat, the Bishop found the Holy Eucharist just as he had sent it safe and unharmed still within the fancy cloth.  Tarcisius died soon after.

St. Tarcisius showed a great love and devotion to our Lord present in the Holy Eucharist.  He showed a great attentiveness and protection.  What is our response to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament?   In that situation or any situation do we show the same attentiveness and devotion and love?

Last Fall I was in Boston visiting my friend Fr. Joe.  And on the trip home I sat next to a woman who half way through the flight asked if I was a priest.  I don’t know what gave me away, probably the collar.  We had a pleasant conversation.  She told me that she had been born, raised, confirmed, and married in the Catholic Church.  But in her thirties she just kind of drifted away from the faith.  She wasn’t upset or mad about anything she was bored and she just drifted away.  She drifted away, unknowingly leaving behind the greatest gift, the gift of the Eucharist.  I think the Church failed her.  We didn’t do a good job of educating her and witnessing to her our great love of the Mass and of the Eucharist, the source of our spiritual life and the height of our spiritual life. She didn’t learn that each Mass allows us to be mystically present at the Last Supper.  And as the Apostles are fed with the Lord’s body and Blood so are we.  So that’s our job now, that’s the job of all Catholics (you reading this letter), to teach those around us and to joyfully witness to our great love of the Eucharist and the Mass.  This fall I’m going to be adding classes for the parents of those making their First Reconciliation and First Communion.  I want them too, to grow in knowledge and love of the Eucharist.  They are, after all, the first teachers of the faith to their children.

Our Lord says to us in the Gospel today, “I will come back to you.”  And he keeps his promise he comes back to us at every Mass and he stays with us as a divine prisoner of the Tabernacle.  So as the Christmas hymn says, Come, let us adore him!  Always!

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley