Category: Pastor’s Corner

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

 Tom Hoopes – published on 01/17/19

 If you were to marry a fabulously wealthy person, you would expect your life to change. That’s what you’ve done.

This Sunday at Mass, the Gospel explains how Jesus turns water into wine. But that’s just the beginning of what Jesus does. Consider everything Jesus transforms this Sunday.

First, Mary is transformed into a heavenly advocate.

When his mother says “They have no wine,” Jesus answers, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”

This sounded less harsh in its original culture than it does to us, but its meaning is the same. Jesus is not calling his mother by name, but calling her by a category, “Woman,” much as Eve was called by God after she ate the apple.

He knows that she is asking him to do a miracle, and to start on the road to the cross, which will reverse what Eve did long ago. He knows that this miracle will change everything about his life: His identity will go from private to public, from a messiah-in-waiting to the messiah, from safely ignored to targeted by the authorities.

But in asking him, Mary changes too. She becomes an Advocate for those whose needs she sees — at Cana and in your home. It is because “her constant intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation” that the Second Vatican Council called her “Advocate” and “Mediatrix.”

Second, the servants at the wedding are transformed into models of the lay apostolate.

Despite Jesus’ apparent hesitation to do what she is asking, Mary charges ahead. She turns to the servants at the wedding and gives what St. John Paul II calls  “the great maternal counsel, which Mary addresses to the Church of every age: ‘Do whatever he tells you.’”

The servants do exactly what Jesus asks them, filling large stone jars with water and bringing them to him. At some point as they do this, Jesus changes the water into wine.

They therefore become models for lay Christians everywhere.

We don’t transform the world. We don’t do extraordinary things. We do ordinary work that looks like drudgery, but by doing it for Jesus and by bringing it to him, we play an integral part in his transformation of the world — starting with our work.

Third, he transforms marriage into a sacrament.

Jesus could have chosen any location for his first public miracle. That he chose a wedding is significant.

If Jesus is the divine Son of God, and he is, then his very appearance at a wedding changes the event.

The God who became man in the family of a married couple now begins his ministry at a wedding. He will later call himself the “bridegroom.” St. Paul will later stress how deeply the mystery of Jesus and the Church is like a marriage in its very essence.  Marriage is central to salvation history from the first book of the Bible to the very last. The Church sees Cana as a sign that marriage is a sacrament through which Jesus transforms the relationship of husband and wife. But that’s not the only relationship he transforms.

Fourth, Jesus “marries” all of us.

The bridegroom in the story goes unnamed, perhaps because the Gospel wants us to focus on Jesus, who called himself our bridegroom.

You can see what this means in the first reading, a love poem that strains ordinary language in its attempt to describe how much God loves his people:  “You shall be called ‘My Delight and your land ‘Espoused.’ For the LORD delights in you and makes your land his spouse.”

We are all familiar with the concept that we should “love all people.” But no one suggests we should love all people like a groom loves a bride. Yet that’s how God loves us.

“As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder shall marry you,” says the First Reading, “and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.”

Fifth, this new relationship transforms our lives throughout.

If you were to marry a fabulously wealthy person, you would expect your life to change. If you join a Church married to one rich in spiritual wealth, most importantly God, you would expect your life to change also.

It does. The second reading from St. Paul explains. When we enter the Church, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit,” he says. Then he lists the gifts we might receive: healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, and tongues.  These will mean different things in different lives, but you can see how it works in today’s Gospel.

We saw how Jesus transformed the servants who carried jugs. Look how he transformed the steward.  “The headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.’”  This man’s words are quoted by the greatest theologians in history. In this utterance, he becomes a prophet, whose words reveal how the New Covenant follows the Old — simply by participating in Christ’s act.

It is always the same equation: Our reality + Jesus = a new reality.

This is how Christ shares his power through his bride, the Church every day.  If we stay close to him we can see our lives with Christ’s vision: A vision that transforms everything.

Dear Friends,

St. Peter Claver a Spanish Jesuit of the 16^th century took very seriously the words of our Lord at the end of St. Matthew’s Gospel.  At the end of that Gospel Jesus says, “Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  As a student at the University of Barcelona, Claver was noted for his intelligence and piety, after two years of study he wrote in his notebook, “I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave.”

Claver joined the Jesuits and they sent him to the port city of Cartagena in Columbia.  It was in that city that he completed his studies for the priesthood.  Living in that city he observed and was greatly disturbed by the harsh treatment and living conditions of the slaves who were brought from Africa.    Cartagena was the slave-trading hub and 10,000 slaves came into the port every year.  While in seminary Claver learned all he could about the languages and customs of the slaves who entered that port city.  At his solemn profession St. Peter Claver signed his document with these words, “Peter Claver, servant of the Ethiopians forever.”  With his ordination Peter Claver began his work with the slaves.

When the slaves disembarked, they were unwashed, starving, and covered in sores.  And so Peter met them with medicine, soap, disinfectants, food, bread, brandy, lemons, and tobacco.  And with the help of interpreters and pictures he also gave basic instruction in the faith.  And in the off season he would visit the slaves at the plantations, going from village to village, giving them more instruction and spiritual consolation. One of the simple prayers he taught to the slaves was this; and this one makes me smile, “Jesus, I love you very much, much, much.”   During his 40 years of ministry it is estimated that St. Peter Claver personally catechized and baptized 300,000 slaves. They called him a man filled full of God.

The word baptism comes from a Greek word which means to immerse or plunge.  Baptism is a sacrament, which is an outward sign instituted by Christ that gives grace. Baptism is a sign that points to a reality beyond itself.  It’s a special sign that causes to happen what it signifies.  In Baptism the outward sign is the body being washed, while at the same time the soul is cleansed and made whole.  And it is Jesus who works through the sign.  Jesus is one who baptizes.  Even though I pour the water, Jesus is the one who baptizes; he’s the one who celebrates all the sacraments using me as his instrument.

So what can water do?  First, it destroys; think of the devastation caused by Tsunamis and Hurricanes.  St. Paul writes in Romans 6:3, “Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  Baptism sacramentally connects us to the Cross.  Baptism destroys sin, both personal and original.  And second, water gives life.  Without water there is no life.   St. Paul when speaking of baptism says that a new life is poured out onto and into us.  The Holy Spirit begins to dwell in us, and we are reborn.

Baptism means we have access to an extraordinary power, a Divine Power.  We can change.  We are not stuck in our habits, and fears, and anxieties, and struggles.   Living the Christian life means I can change.  I can change because the One, who raised Jesus, lives in me.  If I surrender to him I can be different.

Baptism gives us a new identity.  You are a daughter of the King; you are a son of the King.  To know this with conviction changes everything.  Our God is not distant.  The prophet Isaiah writes, “Fear not to cry out, here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord God…like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care.”  Our God is not distant.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus once said this about baptism, “Baptism is God’s most beautiful and magnificent gift… We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment, garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, and most precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light; garment since it veils our shame; and bath because it washes.”

In today’s Gospel we heard God the Father say to Jesus, “You are my beloved.”  Every baptized person should know and hear these words, every baptized person is made a member of the mystical body of Christ should hear and know these words, God the Father says to you, “You are my beloved, my beloved son, my beloved daughter.”  So the next time you come into Church and dip your fingers into the Holy Water, remember these words, “You are my beloved.”  As you make the sign of the Cross repeating the words of your own baptism, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, remember the words of God our Father, “You are my beloved.”  “You are my beloved.”  To which we might respond, “I love you very much, much, much!”

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

There is a story that the Missionaries of Charity tell of Mother Teresa.   The story is about a Hindu man that Mother Teresa saw lying in the streets of Calcutta and whom she took home to one of the many houses they have for people who are dying.  She cared for him for many days, feeding him, bathing him, and simply talking with him as one person to another, giving him the respect that he deserved as a child of God.  As it became clear that he was soon going to die, she would say to him often, “You have nothing to be afraid of; soon you are going to be with Jesus, soon you are going to be with Jesus.”  As the man had spent most of his life as a Hindu, he didn’t really know a lot about Jesus and so, moments before he died he looked at this woman who had taken him in off the streets, provided him with food and shelter and clothing and dignity and asked her, “Is this Jesus anything like you?” 

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, also known as the Feast of the Manifestation. When Jesus made himself known to the whole world, not just to the Jewish people but to the whole gentile world as well.  In today’s Gospel there are a few key figures that we could focus on; there’s Jesus, His mother Mary, King Herod, the Magi.  And there’s the star.  It was the star that the Magi followed from some far away country.  The star led them to Jesus, God born in the flesh for the salvation of all the world.  Mother Teresa led that Hindu man to Jesus, just as the star led the Magi to Jesus.   Without the appearance of that star, presumably, the Magi would never have left their homeland, would never have met Jesus, and would have remained in ignorance not only about who God is but about the ultimate purpose of life and what it truly means to be human and how to be happy.

As God once provided those Magi with that star so as to lead them to His son, so in every age He provides “stars” so as to help draw people to Jesus.  In his letter on “Hope” Pope Benedict wrote, “Human life is a journey.  Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route.  The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives.  They are lights of hope.”  “Certainly,” the Pope continues, “Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history.  But to reach Him we also need lights close by, people who shine with His light and so guide us along our way.”  The greatest of all those close by stars is our Mother Mary.  But there have been countless other stars who have shown us the way, who have lived good lives, and have made Jesus known to us.  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta was one of them.

As we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, as we reflect upon the stars in our lives.  The stars that have helped us to know Jesus and how to truly live.   Today our Lord is offering each of us a challenge.  That challenge is to become a star ourselves.   Not a pop star, not a Kardashian type star, but a star of divine light.  The baptismal call, the mission, given by God to each of us is to, in some way, be intentional about helping others come to know Jesus.  We do this by the witness of our lives and by our words.  We can’t be silent about our faith.  It can’t be hidden.

The mission is simply this:  to know Jesus and to make Him known.  The mission is to let the light of Jesus shine through us, not for an hour once a week but in all things.  The mission is to be stars.  The mission is to have the intention in every situation, wherever we are, to bring Jesus by the witness of our lives and the words we speak. This was Mother Teresa’s intention; it’s why she made such an impression on the whole world.  She was the light of Christ.  She had the aroma of Jesus as St. Paul would say.

Hundreds of years before Mother Teresa there was another star who single-handedly, not in legend but in fact, converted all of Ireland.  St. Patrick is famous for many things and there is a prayer that he prayed at the start of each day.  In it he prays to be so conformed to Jesus Christ that when others see him they see only Jesus Christ.  This is the ultimate goal of Christianity; to be another Christ.  It might be a great prayer for us as we begin 2022.  It goes like this:  “Christ be in the eyes of all who see me, in the ears of all who hear me, on the lips of all who speak of me, in the minds of all who think of me, in the hearts of all who love me.  Christ be before me, behind me, above me, beneath me; Christ on my right and my left.  Christ be my all.”

May our lives, like the Star of Bethlehem, Mother Teresa, and St. Patrick, help lead others to Jesus.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In Rome on August 5th in the year 352 AD a man had a dream. And in that dream our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, told him to build a church in her honor. He would know the place it was to be built by the appearance of snow. So when the man woke up the next morning he found the Esquiline Hill covered in snow. This was a miracle, because Rome in the month of August is hotter than heck.

And so the man and his wife used their immense wealth to build a church in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. That church still stands today. Throughout the centuries it’s been repaired, rebuilt and made more and more grand. And every year on August 5th white rose petals are showered down from the dome, remembering that miraculous August snow so many centuries ago, remembering the miracle of Our Lady of the Snows.

Today that beautiful church is a basilica and it’s known as St. Mary Major, the oldest Church in the West dedicated to Our Lady. This is a church we visited during our St. Philip High School pilgrimage. When you walk into St. Mary Major you’ll notice a ceiling with gold medallions, you’ll see beautiful statues, paintings, mosaics, you might notice a side chapel where St. Jerome is buried, and you’ll see a beautiful marble altar covered by a baldacchino. And up high above that altar on an arch you’ll notice an original 4th century mosaic that depicts something unusual; it depicts a lavish gorgeously decorated throne, a big fancy chair which is completely empty. It’s a mosaic of an empty heavenly throne.

And as you walk closer to the altar you’ll notice steps leading down directly beneath the altar. The entrance is surrounded by ornate banisters. And if you were to walk down those steps to the crypt beneath the altar you’d find a beautiful reliquary of gold and glass and inside that fancy container you’d see the rough wood of a manger. The Basilica’s most famous relic is the crib that Mary and Joseph used for the infant Jesus on the night He was born.

Out of infinite love for us Jesus the Son of God, left his heavenly throne to come and dwell among us here on earth to fight for us and become our salvation. With God becoming man God invades the kingdom of darkness, with His own much more powerful Kingdom of Light. The prophet Isaiah writes, “Those who walk in darkness have seen a great light.” Jesus is that great light. C.S. Lewis put it this way, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say, landed in disguise.” God became man that we might become God. In this great exchange we give Jesus our humanity and in return He gives us His divinity.

St. Francis of Assisi had a great devotion to the Nativity of Jesus, he would meditate often on the birth of Jesus meditating on this great exchange where Jesus fights for us, by taking on our humanity. Knowing of this devotion artists through the centuries have painted St. Francis into their renderings of the Nativity, even though he lived 13 centuries after the birth of Jesus. “What’s St. Francis doing there at the birth of Jesus?” Great was his devotion to the birth of Jesus.

I know that St. Francis visited Rome on a number of occasions, sometimes as a pilgrim, sometimes on official business. And when you go to Rome you visit all the great churches. You go to pray and to take in all that great beauty and history which just lifts the heart, mind, and soul to heaven.

I wonder how the sights of the Basilica of St. Mary Major affected St. Francis. The empty throne up high in the Heavens, and the rough wood of the manger way down below? How did that inspire him? I have no proof that St. Francis ever visited St. Mary Major but he did capture the simple grandeur and humility of our Lord’s nativity one Christmas eve in the year 1223.
On Christmas Eve that year St. Francis found himself in the small town of Grecchio. This was a small Italian town built on the side of a mountain. And St. Francis wanted Midnight Mass to be celebrated in a place large enough so that all of the people in town could attend. Their Franciscan chapel was much too small. So St. Francis went looking for a larger place to celebrate Mass. And he found the spot. He found a cave like niche in the side of the mountain near the town square. “Perfect” he thought, so in this niche within the rock of the mountain he placed an altar. And then he was inspired, this cave like niche reminded him of the very first Christmas where our Lord was born in similar circumstance. He said to his brothers, “I want to make a memorial to the Child who was born in Bethlehem and in some sort behold with our eyes the hardships of His infant state, lying on hay in a manger with the ox and donkey standing by.” And that’s what they did. He found a manger for a crib and filled it with hay. He then found both a donkey and an ox and tied them up next to the crib. There were probably even a few sheep running around. And that’s where the people of Grecchio celebrated Midnight Mass in the year 1223. They celebrated Mass in a stable with a rough wooden manger in their midst and with the townspeople crowding in and around animals. At that Christmas in a very profound way the townspeople of Grecchio mediated on the descent of God form the Glory of Heaven into the hardships and messiness and humility of a manger.

It’s no accident that our manger crib is placed directly beneath our altar. Our Lord left his heavenly throne 2021 years ago to enter into humanity, and now at every Mass he continues to come down from His throne in Heaven to dwell among in the Eucharist.

During the Eucharistic prayer I will call upon the Holy Spirit as I hold my hands over the bread and wine. And while my hands are held over the bread and wine I will pray: “Be pleased, O God, we pray, to bless, acknowledge, and approve this offering in every respect; make it spiritual and acceptable, so that it may become for us the Body and Blood of your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the incarnation, this is Christmas made present to us now in the 21st century, God becomes Body and Blood, and this is Christmas, right there on the altar. And then we receive Him, body, blood, soul, and divinity. To receive him is to allow ourselves to be rescued and to live in His divine love.

At the first Christmas and every day since, God has been making a proposal to you. Through his son Jesus he is saying to each and every one of you: “You give me your humanity, I will give you my divinity. You give me your time, I will give you eternity. You give me the bonds that tie you down; I will give you my omnipotence. You give me your slavery; I will give you my freedom. You give me your death; I will give you my life. You give me your nothingness; I will give you my all.”
Jesus came down from Heaven 2021 years ago to fight for you with His divinity hidden by human flesh He came to fight for you. And every time Mass is celebrated Jesus comes down from Heaven to the altar, His divinity hidden by bread and wine He comes to fight for you. Let Him fight for you, let Him fight for you against the kingdom of darkness, you don’t have to do this alone.

Merry Christmas!

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley