Category: Pastor’s Corner

Dear Friends,

During my first semester of seminary we had a course in early Church history.  This course was taught by the Dean of Studies, Fr. Palardy.  Fr. Palardy was a brilliant scholar earning his undergraduate degree from Harvard in just three years before entering the seminary and he was also a diehard Red Sox fan.  You always knew when the Red Sox were playing because on game days you could see red socks poking out from beneath his black pants.   He did that to goad the Yankee fans in our class.  And they were goaded.  Very early on in the course when we were beginning to learn about the Church Fathers he brought in an icon of St. Ignatius of Antioch.  This icon, he told us, hung above his desk and it showed St. Ignatius standing between two lions.  One lion is biting into Ignatius’ neck while the other lion is biting into his leg, not very inspiring.  On tough days, however, Fr. Palardy told us that he would look at this icon and think to himself, “It’s not so bad.”  Maybe we all need this icon.

St. Ignatius was a disciple of St. John the evangelist.  He learned the faith from the man who rested his head upon the heart of our Lord.  Ignatius was the Bishop of Antioch for forty years before being arrested and martyred for being a Christian.  After his arrest he was interrogated and at this questioning he was asked, “Do you worship as God this Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate?” Ignatius immediately answers, “Yes” and then he added, “By his death Jesus has crucified both sin and its author, and has proclaimed that all malice of the devil should be trodden under foot by those who bear Him in their hearts.”  This prompted the government official to ask, “Do you really carry this Jesus about within you?” Ignatius answers, “Yes, for it is written that Jesus said, ‘I will dwell within them and I will walk with them.’”  For this testimony and for refusing to worship the false gods of Rome, Ignatius was sent to Rome to be killed by wild animals.  He was to be killed for the entertainment of the Roman crowds.  He would later say, “I am God’s grain and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.”

This statement of Jesus which Ignatius repeats to the interrogator, “I will dwell in them and walk with them” was prophesied by Jeremiah 700 years earlier at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction when its leading citizens were forced into exile.  We heard it in the first reading, “The days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant… I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts.”  This passage from Jeremiah has sometimes been called the Gospel before the Gospel and it’s a landmark in Old Testament theology.

Jesus fulfilled this new and everlasting covenant the night before he died and we hear His words at every Mass.  When I’m bowed over the chalice I repeat the words of Jesus saying, “Take this all of you, and drink from it, for this is the Chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This is a pledge of mutual love and a wedding vow is being made, our Lord is saying to each and every one of us with this covenant, “I’m yours and you’re mine.”

The Jewish people of the Old Testament found it hard to follow the law. They couldn’t live up to it. And they repeatedly failed.  But Jeremiah predicts that one day God will write the law on their heart and then they’ll be able to fulfill the law.  Jesus speaks this new covenant at the Last Supper speaking the words over the cup of his blood, the cup of his life.  Jesus Christ is the Law made flesh.  And every time we take Him into our bodies, every time we take him into our souls we are becoming more and more conformed to the Law which is being more and more written into our hearts.  The Eucharist Christifies us, the Eucharist conforms us to His life.  When we consume the Eucharist we are not only taking in our Lord, we are also taking into ourselves the Law made flesh and He now dwells within our hearts.

The law that was once written on tablets of stone but now through Christ it’s being written within the flesh of our hearts and we carry this law wherever we go and this gives us a responsibility.  St. Ignatius was a writer and we still have seven of his letters.  And they’re very important letters giving us a glimpse of early Christianity.  At the time the Canon of the Bible was being assembled some thought his letters should be included.  I urge you to read them.    To the Ephesians Ignatius wrote of the Holy Eucharist, calling it the flesh of Christ, the Gift of God, and the Medicine of Immortality.  And to receive the Eucharist is to make us beholden to our neighbor. And he wrote this about our neighbor:  “In face of their outbursts of wrath be meek; in face of their boastful words be humble; meet their reviling with prayers; where they are in error be steadfast in faith; in face of their fury be gentle.  Be not eager to retaliate upon them.  Let our forbearance prove us their brethren.  Let us endeavor to be imitators of the Lord that no rank weed of the Devil is found in you.  But in all purity and sobriety abide in Christ Jesus in flesh and in spirit.”   Let Christ live within your heart.

St. Ignatius was martyred within a Roman amphitheater in the year AD 107.  He was killed by hungry lions as the crowds cheered.  But he lives on not only in his letters but more importantly he lives on in the eternal bliss of Heaven where he praises God and intercedes on our behalf.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

When we come to Eucharistic Adoration, when we come to pray in the presence of the Eucharist within the monstrance, or we come and sit in the church before the Eucharist housed in the tabernacle, in doing these acts of worship, we imitate our patron St. Joseph.  His vocation was one of perpetual adoration.  He kept his eyes on Jesus, even before Jesus was born he kept his eyes on Jesus, first by caring for Mary and watching over her, the first Tabernacle, and then after his birth protecting, housing, feeding, teaching, and loving Jesus.

As we know Joseph and Mary find Jesus after three days, they find him in the Temple.  But when we think about it, they’ve had the new Temple with them for 12 years.  They’ve adored him already for 12 years.  Focusing on our patron, St. Peter Julian Eymard put it this way, “St. Joseph was the first adorer, the first religious.  Although he never adored our Lord under the Eucharistic species and never had the happiness of receiving Holy Communion, he did possess and adore Jesus in human form.”  He goes on to say, “In Joseph, we find the perfect adorer, entirely consecrated to Jesus, working always near Jesus, giving Jesus his virtues, his time, his very life; it is thus that he is our model and our inspiration.”

St. Joseph was an adorer of great faith.  When he looked at Jesus he saw human flesh, but in his heart he believed, “Here is God!”  We pray to have that same faith, when we look at the Eucharist, we see bread, but in our hearts we believe, “Here is God!”  Under the veil of Bread our faith must see our Lord.  Ask St. Joseph for his lively and constant faith.  Pray for us St. Joseph to have the faith you had here on earth.

In 1997 Pope St. John Paul II conducted a papal visit to the Shrine of St. Joseph in Kalisz in Poland and he told those in attendance that, before each of his Masses, he prayed the following prayer to St. Joseph.

O happy man, St. Joseph, whose privilege it was not only to see and hear that God whom many a king has longed to see, yet saw not, longed to hear, yet heard not, but also to carry him in your arms and kiss him, to clothe him and watch over him!                 O God, who has conferred upon us a royal priesthood, we pray to you to give us grace to minister at your holy altars with hearts as clean and lives as blameless as that blessed Joseph who was found to hold in his arms and, with all reverence, carry your only-begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary.  Enable us this day to receive worthily the sacred Body and Blood of your son, and equip us to win an everlasting reward in the world to come.  Amen

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel we hear of the cleansing of the Temple.  Jesus deeply loved the Jerusalem temple.  He had been brought there by Mary and Joseph as a newborn baby and he probably went to the temple time and again throughout his life for the many pilgrim feasts.  We know that as a twelve year old he had remained there, and when his parents finally found him in the temple, he asked them in astonishment, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  For Jesus, the temple was his Father’s house, and that’s why he felt so at home there.  That was also why he couldn’t bear to see it turned into a house of materialism and commercialism.  And in a holy wrath he cleansed the temple.

For the pious Jew of that time the Temple meant everything.  It was not only the religious center but also the political center, the social center, the cultural center, and the economic center. The Temple was the place where God dwelled and from where the nation was governed.  In its full glory it was the center of Jewish Society.  And so here comes this prophet from Nazareth, in their eyes he’s a nobody, from a nowhere place.  And he begins to make a ruckus, he cries out, he shouts, he makes a whip of cord, he scatters the animals, and he turns things over.  If this were to happen today in St. Peter’s the man would be hustled off to the police very quickly.    Historians say that this was the act that sealed our Lord’s fate on Good Friday.

And so after the ruckus and wanting a reason for it all the Jews ask Jesus, “What sign can you give us?”  And Jesus answers as we know, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  They totally misunderstand, because only enemies would destroy their temple.  Throughout the centuries anytime an enemy invaded Jerusalem the Temple was destroyed.  Only an enemy would tear it down.  So what is Jesus telling them and us?  This Gospel today shows us who he is.  First, Jesus demonstrates the authority of God.  He’s making a divine judgment of corruption.  This cleansing of the Temple identifies Jesus as God.  Second, Jesus is instituting a New Temple, after

three days he raises the Temple of his own body.  He’s telling them and us, “I am God’s dwelling place among you.”  Something totally new is happening.  Jesus is the mystical body onto which we are grafted, and once grafted by baptism we become Temples of the Holy Spirit.

March 7^th is the Feast day of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity. In the early church they were often cited as examples of what it meant to be a temple of the Holy Spirit.   They lived in North Africa and they were martyred in the year 203 and for 100s of years they were the rock stars of sanctity.  Their story of heroism was wildly popular.  St. Augustine also from North Africa would get mad because his people wanted to hear more about them than his sermons.  There is so much in their story, read it if you get a chance.  Now Perpetua and Felicity were still catechumen, they were still studying the faith, when they were arrested, they hadn’t even been baptized yet when they were taken to prison.  Felicity was a slave while Perpetua was an aristocrat.  Both were new moms, Perpetua had recently given birth, while Felicity gave birth in prison.  Now while in prison they were secretly baptized by their teacher who voluntarily turned himself in so as to finish their education.   Everyday Perpetua’s father, a leading man of the city came by trying to convince her to give up this foolishness of Christianity, offer a little incense to the gods and you can leave, he would say.   But Perpetua always refused and one day she said to her father holding up a pot, “Do you see  this water pot?  … Can it be called by any other name than what it is?  No he replied.  So also I cannot call myself by any other name than what I am – a Christian.”

At their trial both Perpetua and Felicity were found guilty of being Christians and they were condemned to be taken to the amphitheater for the public games and to be killed by wild animals.  They were mortally wounded by a wild ox and then they were beheaded.  If you look for their images in historic pieces of art many times they are shown with a wild cow in the background.    Something, as a former vet I would notice.

In today’s Gospel we read of oxen, sheep, and doves and for early Christians these animals came to represent certain human sins and weaknesses.  Oxen which are used for digging up the earth, getting it ready for planting, signify earthly desires; sheep which are sometimes considered stupid animals, signify man’s obstinacy; and the dove they sometimes saw as signifying man’s instability, his flightiness.  The wild ox of earthly desires could not destroy Perpetua and Felicity.  God was their number one, no amount of enticement by their families could change their minds.  They were baptized and their souls were made temples of the Holy Spirit, so while the bull could kill their bodies it couldn’t kill their soul.  Their souls had been grafted to the New Temple of the Mystical Body of Jesus.  So in our Gospel today in the cleansing of the Temple we see Jesus wiping away earthly desires, obstinacy, and instability.

So what can we say of ourselves during this season of lent.  Are we letting our Lord actively dwell within the temple of our soul?  Are we letting our Lord cleanse it more and more of earthly forces and tendencies, and attitudes, and influences?  What table are we letting him overturn, what thieves is he kicking out, what animals are being scattered?  The soul of a Christian is beautiful, one of the most beautiful things there is, and it’s meant to be a place where God actively dwells.

To paraphrase St. Perpetua let us not call ourselves by any other name than that of Christian.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher Ankley

Dear Friends,

Before time began, before the creation of the world, there was a conversation in Heaven.  It was a conversation about your soul, your soul wasn’t even created yet, but already your soul was known and loved.  And the conversation went like this:

The Heavenly Father said to His Heavenly Son, “For that soul and for that soul’s salvation can you go down from Heaven and be made man?”

And the Heavenly Son, the Divine Word answered, “I can!”

The Heavenly Father continued, “Can you live a life of 33 years, toiling and teaching, and giving that soul all the Divine means necessary for that soul’s salvation, and then to end that life of hardship and suffering by a death of pain and shame?”

And the Heavenly Son replied, “I can!”

The Heavenly Father goes on, “Can you perpetuate (prolong) that incarnation and sacrifice even to the end of time; hiding yourself under the form of bread in order to meet that soul on her entrance into real life (on his entrance into real life), to be that soul’s companion, to be that soul’s refuge, to be that soul’s food all the days of her pilgrimage (all the days of his pilgrimage)?”

And the Heavenly Son replied, “I can!”

The Heavenly Father went on saying, “And when, my Heavenly Son and lover of that soul, can you still love that soul when your friendship, your advances, and your sacrifice are met with coldness, waywardness, and indifference, can you still love that soul?”

And the Heavenly Son replied emphatically, “I can!”

I have a story of one such soul.  A soul who was once cold, wayward, and indifferent, yet a soul still loved by Heaven.  His name was Hermann Cohen.  He was born in Germany in 1821, his parents were Jewish and they owned a successful bakery.  At a very early age Hermann was found to have an extraordinary talent for the piano.  When he was 11 his mom moved with him to Paris so he could study with an expert.  By age 12 he was traveling across Europe giving sold out concerts.  He was a prodigy, however, this fame and fortune was detrimental to his character.  Hermann was a tyrant; he later described himself as mean, disrespectful, arrogant, greedy, and vain.

On tour nothing stopped this teenager from living out every whim and pleasure imaginable.  He even developed the vice of gambling, losing money faster than he made it.  He remained immersed in this lifestyle until the age of 26 when his life was radically changed.  Asked by a friend to be a substitute choir director for benediction at a local Catholic Church, and despite being Jewish and hardly holding any religious leanings at the time, he needed the money and so he agreed. Throughout all the music, prayer, and litanies, he was very unmoved, that is, until the moment of benediction. Unaware of the meaning of what he witnessed, he saw the people kneel as the priest elevated the golden object to bless them.  At that moment, something deep within Hermann stirred him to the core. Even after leaving the church, he could not shake the disturbance that had arisen in his soul. He returned to the same church one week later for another benediction service. At the same exact moment, when the golden object was raised to bless the people, he was again inwardly unsettled but, this time; tears began to pour down his face.

Hermann found himself being drawn to this church almost every day, often arriving either at the time of Mass or for benediction. In the presence of the consecrated host, he would find himself trembling yet filled with a mysterious sense of inner peace and joy. He finally told a friend about these experiences who introduced him to a Catholic priest. He was advised to pray and trust in God’s providence. Not long after this, he went to Mass in a small German parish before playing a concert and, throughout the entire Liturgy; he was moved by every aspect of it – the hymns, the prayers, the readings.

He later wrote of the experience saying, “When the priest raised the host, my tears began to flow. It was a consoling and unforgettable moment.  I immediately wanted to confess everything to the Lord, all the sins of my life. There they were all before me, countless and despicable and deserving of God’s punishment. But at the same time I felt a deep peace which really healed me.  I knew he would forgive me recognizing my resolve to love him above all things from now on.

A few months later Hermann was baptized, a few months after that he made his First Holy Communion and was confirmed. And during this time, he also discerned a vocation to the priesthood. However, before he could make any commitments to the religious life, he had to pay off the large debts he had incurred from gambling. And so for the next two years, he was teaching and performing concerts to earn money and in his spare time he prayed. After finally paying off his debts he also came to the realization that not only was God calling him to be a priest, but also to become a Carmelite.

For the next 20 years Fr. Hermann spent his time restoring Carmelite houses, preaching missions, and establishing chapels for Eucharistic adoration.  He died at the age of 50 while serving as a chaplain during the Franco-Prussian war.  He had contracted tuberculosis.  Fr. Hermann’s life was filled with many blessings, his failing eyesight from glaucoma was healed at Lourdes, he was friends with many of the saints of his time, and thousands were converted by his preaching.  And all of this began, all of this good began with Fr. Hermann’s encounter with Jesus in the elevated Eucharistic Host at Benediction.  His soul was shaken at the sight of the elevated Host.

Peter, James, and John had the same experience when they encountered Jesus elevated before them at his transfiguration.  They were shaken at the sight.  They experienced our Lord’s glorified humanity, his divinized humanity.  They saw the future.  And it changed them, just as Fr. Hermann was changed with his encounter with Jesus in the elevated Host.

That glory of God witnessed by Peter, James, and John at the Transfiguration and that glory of God felt by Fr. Hermann at the elevation of the Eucharist is what awaits us.  Our life as Christians is about deification, becoming conformed to the Divine Nature of God. The early Church Fathers would say, “God became man that man might become God.”  Becoming like God is what awaits us.

At the beginning we heard a series of Heavenly questions.  And each time our Lord answered, “I can!”  Our Lord, the lover of your soul, now asks you, “Can you for the sake of your salvation cooperate with me, resolving to avoid everything that would imperil the great work we have undertaken, avoiding sin, infidelities, and anything that would obstruct My grace?  Can you, with the eye of faith, see Me in My suffering Members, the poor, the sick, the outcast, the unprotected, the little helpless children, and serve them?  Can you come after me by taking up your cross daily?”

With our eyes fixed on the transfiguration, with our eyes fixed on the Eucharist, with our eyes fixed on being made like God, may our answer be, “In union with your Lord, I can!”  “In union with your Lord, I can!”

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher Ankley

Dear Friends,

February 11^th was the Feast Day of Our Lady of Lourdes.  In 1858, in Southern France, Mary the Mother of God appeared 18 times to St. Bernadette.  Over the course of those visits Our Lady and St. Bernadette prayed together, Mary revealed her identity as The Immaculate Conception, and at Mary’s direction Bernadette dug into the ground with her hands revealing a stream of water, a stream of water that is still running today and has healed countless men and women in the last century and a half.

After those 18 visits with the Blessed Virgin, St. Bernadette went on to become a religious sister.  And as you can imagine she was asked many questions about those apparitions.  One question that Bernadette was frequently asked was about how Mary made the sign of the cross.  As I said during the apparitions St. Bernadette and the Blessed Virgin Mary prayed together always beginning with the sign of the cross.  And so people were curious about how an inhabitant of Heaven would sign herself.   St. Bernadette always showed them; in fact it was now the way she made the sign of the cross herself.  It was a slow, thoughtful, and big sign of the cross.

Throughout the past two millennia much has been written about this 15 word prayer, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  There is a great depth and breadth to this prayer, we could talk for hours and hours and hours, but today I want to focus on something very simple and it’s based on something many of us learned in the Baltimore Catechism.  When I was a kid and we got home from Religious Ed, mom would have us study questions out of the Baltimore Catechism, she didn’t think we were learning enough, so she supplemented.  We loved it!  ☺So the question I have in mind today is:

Question 6:  Why did God make you?

Answer:  God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next. 

The great truth of question #6 is demonstrated every time we make the sign of the cross.  To know Him (touch head), to love Him (touch heart) and to serve Him well (touch shoulders).  Know, Love, Serve.  It’s in our mind that we know.  It’s in our heart that we love.  And it’s in our shoulders connected to arms, and hands that we serve.

I have a challenge for these next forty days of Lent; ask the Lord everyday:   how will I better know you today Lord, how will I better love you today Lord, and how will I better serve you today Lord.  Pray for these graces.  And pray too for the graces to respond generously.  Pray for the grace to remember these questions every time you make the sign of the cross.  Making the sign of the cross slowly and thoughtfully.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher Ankley

Dear Friends,

Our culture tells us that to be free is to do “whatever you want.”  We are not to be retrained by the first three commandments and we are not to be retrained especially by the sixth commandment.  For the Christian, however, freedom means something deeper, something that should fill us with wonder.  For the Christian to be free, means to be fastened to truth.  Only those who live in truth are free, only those in communion with the author of truth Himself, are free!  To be attached to God is to be free.  Along with Sts. Jerome and Philip this building (St. Joseph Church) is the truest and freest place in Battle Creek.  Some find this odd.  To be free is to be attached to God.  Now we know this because experience and Divine revelation have unveiled this truth.  Being alone and autonomously free is not good.  It is not good to be alone as we read in Genesis.  We need God and we need neighbor.  We need both God and neighbor.  To be alone is Hell.

I have a story about a man who tried to do it alone, alone in supposed freedom.  He was not fastened to God or neighbor.  His name was Moses.  This is not the Moses of Exodus who led the Israelites to freedom, but a Moses who lived in 4^th century Egypt.  He was a big man known for his strength and ferocity.

Moses began his life as a servant.  He was not a good servant.  In fact he was an awful servant; he was a thief who constantly stole from his boss.  And when he became a suspect in a murder case the boss told him to leave.  He’d had enough.  He didn’t want a murderer living under his roof.  Once let go from his job Moses turned to a more devoted life of crime.  Moses was a large and imposing figure and wherever he went he brought violence and terror.

There is the story of Moses planning the robbery of a very wealthy man.  This rich man had a fortress and many guards that protected his money.  But Moses had a fool-proof plan, or so he thought, of breaking into the man’s house to steal a fortune.  The plan didn’t work, a dog began to bark alerting the guards to Moses’ presence.  And so he ran.  This failure put him into a rage.  He vowed to come back and try again, not only would he steal from the wealthy man, but he would also murder him.  He was in a great rage.  He was enslaved to his rage.

And so a few weeks later he came back.  Again, before even implementing his plan, the dog again alerted the guards to Moses’ presence.  That dang dog!  So he ran and the guards chased him.  To hide, Moses entered a Monastery.  And there he stayed waiting for things to cool down.  The monks welcomed him and took care of him.  Hospitality was their charism.  They had no idea he was a wanted man.

The life of the monks impressed Moses.  The dedication of their lives as well as their peace and contentment influenced Moses deeply.  He wanted that peace.  He wanted that contentment.  Eventually he asked for baptism and later he asked to join the community.  Like we heard in our Gospel, Our Lord stretched out his hand, touched Moses and said, “Be made clean.”  And he was made clean.

The leper of today’s Gospel can be seen as a symbol of a soul cut off.  The leper was not attached to family, friends, or community.  He was not attached to God; he was kept from worshipping in the Temple.  He was totally cut off.  Cut off in a lonely freedom away from God and neighbor.  Moses was a leper in the spiritual sense, no connection to God or neighbor.  But with outstretched hand our Lord changed all of that.

Moses had been a zealous thief.  His dedication to stealing made him a very good thief.  And so he brought this same zealousness to religious life.  He wanted to be the best monk possible.  But it was hard, he kept slipping, he kept sinning, he kept making mistakes.  He was tempted to discouragement. He wasn’t perfect enough.  He wasn’t growing in holiness as quickly as he would have wanted.

Sensing his frustration an older monk one morning took Moses to the roof of the monastery and together they watched the sunrise.  As they watched the first rays of dawn come over the horizon the old monk said to Moses, “Only slowly do the rays of sun drive away the night and usher in a new day, and thus only slowly does one become perfect.”  “Don’t give up; don’t give into the temptation of discouragement.”

He never did give into discouragement.  Even when he failed, he didn’t give into discouragement.  Each time he turned away from truth and freedom to the leprosy of sin he remembered the Gospel, saying to Jesus, in the confessional,  “If you wish Lord you can make me clean.”  And our Lord always stretched out His hand, touched him and made him clean.

St. Moses died at the age of 75 on July 1^st in the year 405.  He was martyred by men who were looting the monastery.  He died with no trace of spiritual leprosy, never giving into discouragement.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In our first reading from the Book of Job we heard of these human conditions, drudgery, slavery, misery, troubled, restlessness, anxiety, hopelessness, and sorrow.  All these in a very short reading, a real downer, but I’m sure that most everyone can relate.  We’ve probably experienced each of these states; they are part of the human condition.  As we know our Lord experienced all things human, he experienced everything we have, but without sin.  In His true humanity he knows how it feels to be miserable, troubled, restless, anxious, and sorrowful.  But he did come to heal us of all that, to heal us of all that afflicts us.

In our gospel today, Peter’s mother-in-law is sick, and the disciples demonstrate the Christian response to troubles:  they immediately tell Jesus about it.  They go to Jesus.  When there’s trouble they go to Jesus.  That is their very first instinct, they don’t even know what he’s going to do, but they trust, they go to him first.  This is what a Christian disciple does.  St. Basil, a fourth century doctor of the Church wrote that a disciple is one whoever draws near to the Lord, to follow him, to hear him, to believe him, and to obey him, obeying him as Lord, and King, and Doctor, and Teacher of all truth.  Complete abandonment to Him.

Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo was such a disciple.  He understood the relationship between our neediness and God’s goodness.  Fr. Dolindo was an Italian priest who lived from 1881-1970.  Ordained at the age of 23, Don Dolindo spent his life in prayer, sacrifice and service. He heard confessions, gave spiritual guidance and cared for those in need. Fr. Dolindo was a contemporary of the more widely known saint, Padre Pio.  When some pilgrims from Naples, where Don Dolindo lived, went to Padre Pio in Pietrelcina, Padre Pio responded: “Why do you come here, if you have Don Dolindo in Naples? Go to him, he’s a saint!”

As scholars begin to study his many written works this simple priest is becoming most known for his spirituality of surrender. He was well aware of the depth of human weakness and neediness, and Fr. Dolindo saw this as a way of fostering continual union with God.  While inviting us to continually bring our worries and concerns to the Lord, Fr. Dolindo would teach that the focus doesn’t stay on our needs. Instead he would always encourage his people to bring their needs to God and to then be at peace, leaving God free to care for them in his own way and his own wisdom. Don Dolindo told his people that the Lord has promised to fully take on all the needs we entrust to him. In his own words:  a thousand prayers do not equal one act of abandonment; give yourself to Jesus, and don’t forget it.  Every malady we suffer is an opportunity for trusting in the love of Jesus.  Give it to God and let go.  And there is no better prayer than this he would say:  Jesus, I abandon myself to you.  Jesus, you take over.  Repeated over and over many times throughout the day.

Fr. Dolindo knew suffering, his body was crippled with arthritis, his legs were always covered in ulcers that were always becoming infected, and for the last ten years of his life he was completely paralyzed.  In each of these sufferings and every day of his life he too would pray:  Jesus you take over.  This always filled him with joy.

We know that Jesus is the Divine Doctor; the Divine Physician as we say, he healed the mother-in-law of a fever.  And like any good doctor he is attracted to a wound.  Have you ever noticed how doctors will sometimes talk about different cases they may have seen.  And they will sometimes talk about the wounds they have seen, in great gory detail sometimes, they are attracted to them because they want to heal them.  In the same way our Divine Doctor wants to heal our wounds, he’s attracted to them.  He wants to heal us; sometimes physically, but he also wants to heal us of our spiritual wounds of drudgery, slavery to sin, misery, troubledness, restlessness, anxiety, hopelessness, and sorrow,  all the things of Job.  He wants to heal.  God is not attracted to our gifts, and virtues, but rather to our weakness, brokenness, and sin.  This is the very definition of Mercy.  He wants to heal.

God loves like a doctor, he loves like a doctor loves a wound, and we are wounded.  And God rushes to our wounds.  Every time we make the sign of the cross He rushes to our wounds.  So as his disciples, go to Him, let Him minister to the wound, abandoning everything to Him saying, Jesus you take over, Jesus you take over, Jesus you take over.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

As we read in today’s Gospel, the people in the synagogue were astonished.  They were astonished because Jesus speaks to them as one having authority.  He doesn’t repeat the words of an Old Testament prophet and he doesn’t refer to an older respected teacher.  This poor carpenter out of Nazareth claims his own authority.  Sometimes this word authority is translated as the word power.  He speaks as one having power.  And the original word from which we translate into either authority or power is dynamis.  Our Lord speaks with dynamis.  This is where the word dynamite comes from.  So maybe we could even say our Lord speaks with the power of dynamite, it’s no wonder the people sitting in that synagogue were astonished.  His words shook them out of their complacency.

Now as we read further, there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit but with just five words our Lord exorcises the unclean spirit and the man is freed.  “Quiet! Come out of him!”  His words have the power to exorcise.  There was an exorcist in Rome by the name of Fr. Amorth and he’d successfully conducted hundreds of exorcisms.  But even with this experience of success he will always tell people, “One well done confession is more powerful than ten exorcisms!”  An exorcism is a sacramental while confession is a sacrament, a sacrament where our Lord’s voice speaks to us.  You may hear the sound of a priest saying the words of absolution but it’s our Lord, with the power of dynamite, who’s speaking to you.

Once in a letter to a missionary priest, St. Therese of Lisieux wrote about the sacrament of confession.  And she used the example of two small guilty boys.  So in this story the father comes home to find that his two sons have been disobedient.  They’ve caused some sort of ruckus in the home.  They’ve been fighting, they’ve been destructive, they’ve done something, and both sons in their heart of hearts know that they probably deserve punishment.  We’ve all been there.  Now the first son, as soon as he sees his father, runs in the opposite direction trying to get as far away as possible from his father.  This first son is filled with fear and trembling.

Now the second son is much more crafty, but crafty in the right way.  This second son throws himself into his father’s arms telling him that he is sorry to have hurt him, that he loves him, and that he will prove it by being good from now on.  And for punishment he only asks for a kiss.  Of course the son’s love has to be genuine, with a real desire to behave better. And the father is wise he knows that his son will fall into the same faults again and again and again, but he’s ready to forgive him every time, if his son catches him by the heart, he forgives.  We too should catch our heavenly Father by the heart, and we do that just by contritely entering the door to the confessional.  We capture our Father’s heart, drawing down his forgiveness and grace.

Confession when it’s done well, properly and with the right attitude of repentance is a privileged means for helping us to rediscover God’s real face, his infinite love, his forgiveness, his generosity, and his unbelievable patience towards us.  Entering that door we capture our Father’s heart.  Telling him in repentance that I have truly sinned, telling him my heart was hard, telling him I was proud and I despised my neighbor, telling him I sought my own pleasure at other people’s expense, and telling him I forgot all about You, the one I should love most of all.  When we do this we capture our Father’s heart and he forgives; punishing us only with a divine kiss, with a new outpouring of his love.  Each confession is a little Pentecost, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a kiss of the Divine.

Now some critics of St. Therese would say that her great trust in God’s forgiveness was because she had hardly committed any sins.  But she responded saying, even if I had committed every sin possible I would still have that same trust.  All that multitude of sin would only be like a drop of water falling into a blazing furnace.  I trust in God not in myself.

Our Lord still speaks to us with the power of dynamite.  We hear him in Scripture, we hear him during the consecration, and we hear him in all the sacraments.  In the sacrament of confession it may sound like me but it’s His voice saying to you those sweet powerful words, “I absolve you from your sins.” 

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

From a conference by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest
The cross exemplifies every virtue

Why did the Son of God have to suffer for us? There was a great need, and it can be considered in a twofold way: in the first place, as a remedy for sin, and secondly, as an example of how to act.

It is a remedy, for, in the face of all the evils which we incur on account of our sins, we have found relief through the passion of Christ. Yet, it is no less an example, for the passion of Christ completely suffices to fashion our lives. Whoever wishes to live perfectly should do nothing but disdain what Christ disdained on the cross and desire what he desired, for the cross exemplifies every virtue.

If you seek the example of love: Greater love than this no man has, than to lay down his life for his friends. Such a man was Christ on the cross. And if he gave his life for us, then it should not be difficult to bear whatever hardships arise for his sake.

If you seek patience, you will find no better example than the cross. Great patience occurs in two ways: either when one patiently suffers much, or when one suffers things which one is able to avoid and yet does not avoid. Christ endured much on the cross, and did so patiently, because when he suffered he did not threaten; he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and he did not open his mouth. Therefore Christ’s patience on the cross was great. In patience let us run for the prize set before us, looking upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith who, for the joy set before him, bore his cross and despised the shame.

If you seek an example of humility, look upon the crucified one, for God wished to be judged by Pontius Pilate and to die.

If you seek an example of obedience, follow him who became obedient to the Father even unto death. For just as by the disobedience of one man, namely, Adam, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man, many were made righteous.

If you seek an example of despising earthly things, follow him who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Upon the cross he was stripped, mocked, spat upon, struck, crowned with thorns, and given only vinegar and gall to drink.

Do not be attached, therefore, to clothing and riches, because they divided my garments among themselves. Nor to honors, for he experienced harsh words and scourgings. Nor to greatness of rank, for weaving a crown of thorns they placed it on my head. Nor to anything delightful, for in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Question:  Can a person who is dying receive the Precious Blood?

The quick answer is yes, but let me first quote a few paragraphs from the Catechism. Like all the sacraments the Anointing of the Sick is a liturgical and communal celebration, whether it takes place in the family home, a hospital or church, for a single sick person or a whole group of sick persons. It is very fitting to celebrate it within the Eucharist, the memorial of the Lord’s Passover. If circumstances suggest it, the celebration of the sacrament can be preceded by the sacrament of Penance and followed by the sacrament of the Eucharist. As the sacrament of Christ’s Passover the Eucharist should always be the last sacrament of the earthly journey, the “viaticum” for “passing over” to eternal life (1517). And,

In addition to the Anointing of the Sick, the Church offers those who are about to leave this life the Eucharist as viaticum. Communion in the body and blood of Christ, received at this moment of “passing over” to the Father, has a particular significance and importance. It is the seed of eternal life and the power of resurrection, according to the words of the Lord: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” The sacrament of Christ once dead and now risen, the Eucharist is here the sacrament of passing over from death to life, from this world to the Father (1524).  And,

Thus, just as the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist form a unity called “the sacraments of Christian initiation,” so too it can be said that Penance, the Anointing of the Sick and the Eucharist as viaticum constitute at the end of Christian life “the sacraments that prepare for our heavenly homeland” or the sacraments that complete the earthly pilgrimage (1525).

The very last Eucharist a person receives before death is many times called food for the journey, the journey home to Heaven.  There are circumstances, however, where it is very difficult for a person to receive the Sacred Host; in those instances the person may receive a drop of the Precious Blood within the mouth.  The Eucharist is never to be placed within a feeding tube.  But for a person to receive the Precious Blood the priest needs to be made aware of the impending death.  He needs to know so that he can make special arrangements at Mass for special storage of the Precious Blood.

So if you are aware of someone who is close to death and they are not able to receive the Sacred Host please get in contact with me and we can determine if receiving the Precious Blood is an option for the dying person.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In our first reading we heard that Samuel was sleeping in the temple and today I have a story about a man who also slept while the Lord called to him, in fact spiritually speaking he slept most of his life.  His name was Andreas Wouters he was a Dutchman living in 16^th century Holland during the Protestant Reformation.  Andreas was a priest, but he wasn’t a very good priest.  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 woke up, he woke up to the call of the Holy Spirit.  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 woke up and gave great witness and glory to God.

Now as we heard in the 1^st reading Samuel was asleep in the Temple, and to read this in the spiritual sense this is a sign of trouble.  To be asleep in the presence of the Lord is never a good thing.  Think of the 3 disciples who slept in the garden while our Lord prayed.  He asked them, “Could you not stay awake for even one hour?”

Now at the time of our first reading Eli was the chief priest of the Temple in Shilo, this was before the time of the Temple in Jerusalem, it hadn’t been built yet.  In this Shilo Temple the Ark of the Covenant was housed.  Eli was not the best of priests, he was lazy, unfocused, and a bad supervisor of his sons Phineas and Hoffney who were also bad priests.  Eli was indifferent to what his corrupt sons were doing.  His sons abused the priesthood taking advantage of the people in their care.  And it’s in this atmosphere that Samuel sleeps.  And so the Lord called to Samuel 4 times and at that last call Samuel finally says “Speak Lord for your servant is listening.”  His eyes were wide open; he’s awake to the ways of the Lord.  Meaning he was ready to do the will of God. And he did, serving as a prophet to the people of Israel.

So what about us?  Where are we asleep to the Lord’s presence, a presence that calls to us.  Where do we not recognize his presence?  Because he is there!  Is it a temptation that we just can’t seem to overcome, an addiction, a place of shame, or maybe it’s a relationship we just can’t seem to mend, a loss, any suffering we don’t bring to him, or maybe we just don’t think God is there for us.  Spiritual theologians will sometimes say that these are our places of poverty.  And it’s in these places exactly that our Lord calls to us, because he knows we can’t do it on our own.  He meets us in our poverty.  And so we pray to be open to hearing our Lord in these places of poverty.  But it sometimes requires patience on our part and making time for quiet prayer every day.  God overcame the barriers of Samuel and St. Andreas.  He can overcome ours.  The saints, the martyrs, Samuel and St. Andreas came to know that God is always with them.

Let us pray to have that same awareness, to be awake to this reality.  Our Lord meets us in the poverty of the crib, the poverty of the cross, the poverty of the altar, and our own poverty.   And in all these places he brings the riches of His healing and consoling Grace, let us be humble enough to receive.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley