Author: Christine Jordan

Dear Friends,

Today we remember the birth of John the Baptist, the greatest of all prophets.  It fell to him to point others to Jesus, to give his people knowledge of salvation. And I think that each and every one of us has a bit of the John the Baptist within us.  If we don’t, we should. Each of us should be pointing others, directing others to Jesus, both by words and example.  Priests direct their people to Jesus.  Parents point the way to Jesus for their children.  Husbands do this for their wives and wives do this for their husbands.  Brothers and sisters do this for each other and we do this for our friends.

Now all of us are familiar with the words of John the Baptist.  Like, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” If we have a bit of the John the Baptist within us, some of his characteristics, we too prepare the way of the Lord.  And we’ve all heard the words, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” We too behold the Lamb at every Mass.   And finally John the Baptist once said this about Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease.”  With these simple words, he must increase, I must decrease, John the Baptist summarized our life as a Christian.

In all things we want Jesus to increase, we want him to increase in our hearts, in our prayers, in our families, in our parishes, in our places of work, in our studies, in our leisure, in our entertainment, and finally in our society.  We want Jesus and His ways to increase within our society.  At the time of Jesus and John the Baptist the king decreased the space for all the things of God.  The king did not want to hear the voice of religious truth; the king did not want to permit the preachers that freedom to preach.  John the Baptist did not give in.  He spoke the truth about the sanctity of marriage.  And for his fidelity King Herod had him imprisoned and beheaded.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States have declared a Fortnight for Freedom, asking Catholics to engage in a great hymn of prayer for our country.  The Bishops have asked us to look to the great saints of History whose courage we can emulate.  The fortnight began on June 21^st, the vigil of the Feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More, who like John the Baptist were beheaded by a king who didn’t want them to speak the truth about the Church and the sacred bond of marriage.  During this coming week we celebrate the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, who likewise were martyred by the Roman emperor for their preaching  of Jesus Christ.  The fortnight ends on July 4^th, the day when we celebrate our American liberty.

Our first, most cherished liberty as Americans is religious freedom.  It’s the first freedom listed in the First Amendment.  It’s the foundation of all our freedoms, and if Americans are not free in their consciences, in their religious faith, in their corporal works of mercy, then all freedoms are in jeopardy.  When the government commands us to do what God commands us not to do, then our long history of freedom is in grave danger.

Our Bishops have identified several attacks on religious liberty.  The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services that all employers, including Catholic agencies, provide health insurance for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs, is a national assault on religious liberty without precedent in our history.  There are other worrying measures at the state and local level too, laws which prohibit the spiritual and charitable assistance given by the Church to undocumented immigrants.

When the government says that we must do what our faith forbids us to do, or when it says we cannot do what our faith mandates – then we too might be called to have the courage and the voice of John the Baptist.

Let us pray for religious freedom and let us be great witnesses for our faith.  This is no private matter.  In our lives who will increase?

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

With this parable of the mustard seed Jesus is helping his audience grasp the mystery and grandeur of God’s Kingdom.  And because the kingdom is a divine reality it can’t really be fully defined or contained in human explanations.  It can, however, be understood by using analogies, word pictures for our minds that help us to think and ponder and meditate at a deeper level.

For Jesus the thing of earth that is most suitable as an analogy to the kingdom is a tiny seed and Jesus emphasizes its smallness.  For the Jewish audience hearing this for the very first time, this would have come as a surprise.  For them a more predictable comparison would be a mighty army.   They expected their messiah to be a great earthly ruler commanding a large battalion of soldiers.

But no, the kingdom is like a mustard seed, “The smallest of all seeds on earth” the most insignificant of seeds.  But Jesus adds once sown, “It springs up and becomes the largest of plants.”  And in mentioning the large branches that shelter many birds Jesus is reminding us of the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel who writes of a lofty tree that symbolizes an empire that gives protection to all people of all races and languages.

Early Christians saw in this parable of the mustard seed Jesus Christ himself.  Jesus crucified, a young man on a cross dying alone and mocked was the mustard seed.  But from this despicable low beginning, through the power of the resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit a great church was born that now reaches every continent with over a billion souls.  This growth is not due to human methods.  This growth is due to God’s hidden power.  Only with Him can we do it.  Jesus speaks with utter assurance of the future success of the Kingdom urging his disciples, urging every one of us, to persevere with hope and patience.

Now this parable of the mustard seed is repeated over and over and over again in the history of the Church.  We see it in the saints and their works and we see it in ourselves too. We see the mustard seed in St. Francis, one lone man considered crazy and deranged at first who, as we know, went on to found and form a world-wide order of both men and women.  We see the mustard seed again in Mother Theresa one lone sister going into the slums of Calcutta but emerging to form another world-wide order helping the poor in every major city of the world.  And in a last example we see the mustard seed in St. Charles Lwanga a Ugandan whose feast is celebrated on June 3^rd.

On June 3^rd, just two weeks ago 500,000 African Catholics came to the site of his martyrdom in Namugongo to celebrate his feast day.  St. Charles was a page to King Mwanga back in the 1880s.  King Mwanga was a violent ruler who demanded certain favors from the court pages and attendants.  As the oldest page Charles tried to protect the younger ones from the king’s advances.  This enraged the king he wanted nothing to do with Christianity.  He expelled the missionaries and at one point locked his royal household staff within the gates of the palace saying, “Those who do not pray stand by me, those who do pray stand over there.”  Those who prayed were martyred; Charles Lwanga was among this group.  The Christians were taken on a 37 mile trek to the place of execution at Namugongo.  Wrapped in reed mats the Christians were burned to death.  Charles endured the flames without complaint and the very last words to come out of his mouth were a long drawn out sigh of “Oh God.”  A century ago there were hardly any Catholics in Africa; today it is the fastest growing religion with over 400 million.  Through the grace of God the mustard seed grows.

Now we can see this mustard seed in us as well, both physically and spiritually.  Back in 1991 John Cardinal O’Connor of New York founded the Sisters of Life.  They are a religious community of nuns founded with the apostolate of protecting and enhancing the sacredness of all human life.  Part of their religious habit it a medal of our Lady and on the back of the medal is the inscription, “Nothing again would be casual or small.”  It is meant to be a reminder that all human life, no matter however seemingly small or insignificant in the eyes of others, is important.  The great beauty of the human person, created in the image of God, begins with the joining of just two microscopic cells, smaller even than the mustard seed.  And yet those two cells grow and develop to be the people we see all around us.  Through the love of God the seed grows.

We see this in our spiritual life as well.  Holiness is a process.  Sanctity doesn’t usually happen all at once.  But when we persist in the grace of the sacraments of reconciliation, the Eucharist every Sunday, and prayer and good works every day, there is growth, usually imperceptible to us.  God is always at work within us bringing his plan to completion.  “The seed would sprout and grow we know not how.”  My prayer for us today is that we never give up on God and His grace because He is always nurturing that seed within our soul.  Through the love of God the seed grows.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

St. Bonaventure
With you is the source of life
You who have been redeemed, consider who it is who hangs on the cross for you, whose death gives life to the dead, whose passing is mourned by heaven and earth, while even the hard stones are split. Consider how great he is; consider what he is.
In order that the Church might be formed from the side of Christ as he slept on the cross, in or-der that the word of scripture might be fulfilled – ‘They shall look on him whom they have pierced’ – God’s providence decreed that one of the soldiers should open his sacred side with a spear, so that blood with water might flow out to pay the price of our salvation. This blood, which flowed from its source in the secret recesses of his heart, gave the sacraments of the Church power to confer the life of grace, and for those who already live in Christ was a draught of living water welling up to eternal life.
Arise, then, bride of Christ, be like the dove that nests in the rock-face at the mouth of a cavern, and there, like a sparrow which finds its home, do not cease to keep vigil; there, like a turtle-dove, hide the fledglings of your chaste love; place your lips there to draw water from the wells of your Savior. For this is the spring flowing from the middle of paradise; it divides and becomes four riv-ers, then spreads through all devout hearts, and waters the whole world and makes it fruitful.
O soul devoted to God, whoever you may be, run to this source of life and light with eager longing. And with the power of your inmost heart cry out to him: ‘O indescribable beauty of God most high! O pure radiance of everlasting light! O life that gives life to all life! O light that illumi-nates every light, and preserves in its undying splendor the myriad flames that have shone before the throne of your godhead from the dawn of time!
‘O water eternal and inaccessible, clear and sweet, flowing from the spring that is hidden from the eyes of all mortal men; the spring whose depths cannot be plumbed, whose height cannot be measured, whose shores cannot be charted, whose purity cannot be muddied.’
From this source flows the river which makes glad the city of God, so that with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving we sing to you our hymns of praise, and by experience prove that with you is the fountain of life; and in your light we shall see light.

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 par-ents 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 Christie, 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 them 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. Its 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.
Peace and all good,
Fr. Christopher J. Ankley
The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ June 3, 20

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 ser-vice 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,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau, Germany on February 4th in 1906. He was a vocal opponent of the Nazi party. Dietrich Bonhoef-fer began a promising career as a theologian and Lutheran pastor at the University of Berlin in 1931. The political events occurring in Ger-many in the early 1930s, however, soon brought about many profound changes in his life. Bonhoeffer’s opposition to the Nazi party led to his decision to abandon his academic career when Hitler came to power in 1933. He had a bright career ahead of him. He was an intellec-tual in the Lutheran Church but he was beginning to see the face of Jesus in the people being killed by the Nazis and he had to do something.
Hitler’s subsequent policies led to divisions in the German Lutheran Church, and Bonhoeffer became an active member of the Confessing Church that was formed in opposition to Hitler’s totalitarian government. This Church commissioned Bonhoeffer to direct one of the under-ground seminaries that were established for the training of young pastors. The seminary was eventually closed by the Nazis in 1937.
The late 1930s brought further changes for Bonhoeffer. As the German war operation expanded, he was drawn more and more into active opposition against Hitler’s government. Convinced of the righteousness of the course, he eventually became involved in a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler. He was arrested by the Gestapo on April 5, 1943, and spent the next two years in prison. Another attempt to overthrow Hitler in 1945 led to the execution of a number of political prisoners only weeks before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer, only thirty-nine years old at the time, was among them. He was executed by hanging just twenty three days before the Nazi surrender.
A camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw pastor Bonhoeffer…kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. Now one of the last things that Bonhoeffer was heard to have said was, “This is the end…for me the beginning of life.” “This is the end…for me the beginning of life.”
Bonhoeffer was stating a truth. Our true citizenship awaits us in heaven. We are made for Heaven and life here on earth is but an infinitesi-mal part of our life compared to the eternity that waits. So why do we spend so much of our time, 99% of our time probably, focused on the mundane things of this world? St. Paul in the second reading states that Jesus is the one who descended. As we know that descent began with the Annunciation which we celebrated not long ago. Our Lord descended and became human to make visible the invisible love of God. He descended to become a model of holiness. He descended to make us partakers of the divine nature to deify us to elevate our own human nature into God’s own life. Our nature needed to be healed, it was fallen and needed to be raised, and it was dead and needed to rise. We had lost the possession of the good, we had lost heaven, and it was necessary for heaven to be given back to us. And from the moment of our Lord’s incarnation we see him setting things right, restoring humanity to the dignity that we had lost, and even elevating us beyond our original state. God became man so that we might be able to live with God forever in Heaven.
Now St. Paul goes on to say in the second reading that the one who descended is also the one who ascended. Christ brings the human to the divine. What is earthly is intimately wedded to what is heavenly. The king who first came down from heaven, who died, and who rose to life again, has returned triumphantly to heaven, carrying with him his sacred humanity, to take his seat at the right hand of the Father. When Christ ascended into heaven, he took humanity with him. And where he has gone, we hope to follow, for he had gone to prepare a place for us.
Now before ascending Jesus gave us some instructions. He told us to go into the world and to proclaim the Gospel to every creature. And to proclaim the Gospel means keeping the focus on Heaven. There is a paradox that comes with hoping and straining towards Heaven. And it’s this, the more we focus on the Heavenly life to come the more dedicated we become to this world. The more we look towards heaven the more concerned we become with the sufferings and sorrows of other. We have only to look at people such as Pope St. John Paul II, St. Theresa of Calcutta, and St. Damien of Molokai to name just a few to see that this is true. They kept their eyes fixed on Heaven and in do-ing so they made a huge difference here on earth. The ways of Heaven through their actions invaded the ways of Earth. And every time we perform those works of mercy, the ways of Heaven invade the ways of earth. God uses us to bring Heaven to earth.
Pope Benedict once wrote that to focus on Heaven is to focus on Jesus Christ. Because Heaven is a person and it’s Jesus himself what we call Heaven. Keep your eyes on Jesus as Sister Mary so many times told me, as she punched me in the arm. I guess it was the punch in the arm made the message stick.
My prayer for us today is that we always keep our eyes on Jesus and in doing so we proclaim the Gospel with our every word and action. So that through us the ways of Heaven invade the ways the earth. So that when people look at us they know that we are truly citizens of Heaven. And on our death bed may we say: “This is the end…for me the beginning of life.”
Peace and all good,
Fr. Christopher J. Ankley