Category: Pastor’s Corner

Dear Friends,

There’s a very old story about a man who went in search of our Lord.  He looked and looked and looked.  He searched everywhere, in cities, in the countryside, in deserts and in forests.  And everywhere he went he would ask the people he met, “Do you know where I can find my Lord?”  No one could answer him until one day an old woman said, “You can find him in a small hut at the edge of the forest.”  And so, very excitedly, the man went to the hut and knocked on the door.  From the other side of the door our Lord asked, “Who’s there?”  And the man answered, “It’s me.”  To which our Lord said, “There’s not enough room in here for both of us.” The man left very sad, going into the forest and there he stayed, and prayed and meditated upon what he’d heard.  A few months later he goes back to the hut and again he knocks on the door.  And again our Lord asks, “Who’s there?”  This time the man answers differently saying, “It’s you!”  To this answer the door opens and our Lord receives him.

To focus on the other is to “put out into deep waters.”  To focus on the “you” of God and neighbor instead of focusing on the “me” is to put out into deep waters and to let grace invade.

2000 years ago there’s a man sitting on the beach at the Sea of Galilee.  He’s very tired he’s had long night of work and he’s frustrated.  He’s got to be, he’s worked all night and has nothing to show for it.  No fish.  It’s not easy for a man to come home to his wife after an exhausting day and say, “Honey, I worked hard all night long but I have nothing to show for it.”   So here he is, cleaning his nets, and along comes this guy named Jesus.  And behind Him is this huge, massive crowd of people.  The crowd is so large that He stops in front of Peter, points to the boat off shore and asks, “Is that yours?  Can I get into it and talk to the crowds from there?”  “Sure,” Peter says.  And so Jesus talks to the crowd from Peter’s boat for a while, as Peter continues to clean his nets.  And then, when Jesus is done speaking, He turns to Peter and says, “Why don’t you put out into deep waters for a catch?”

Now at this point, you’ve got to believe that Peter’s a bit put out.  Maybe even thinking, “Hey buddy, I didn’t tell you how to preach; don’t tell me how to fish!”  What do you even know about fishing!  Not much obviously, because no one fishes in the middle of the day, and especially not in deep waters!  But there was something about Jesus that moved him, something about His voice and His expression that makes Peter think, “Okay, we’ll try one more time.”  So out they row.  And they throw out their nets, more out of duty than with any expectation, and he’s just about to haul them back in when, all of a sudden this school of fish, hundreds of fish, just pour into the net.  Peter can’t believe it.  He’s never seen this many fish before, and he’s lived on the lake for years. He and his brother Andrew, fill the nets and throw them onto the boat, which begins to sink, there are so many fish!  And so they yell to their partners James and John, “Get your boat out here!  There’s more fish than we’ve ever seen!”  And they fill that boat too.

And then all of a sudden, in the midst of his euphoria, Peter turns and looks at Jesus in the back of the boat.  And Jesus is just sitting there with His hands folded with a huge grin on His face.  Like He knew what was going to happen.  He knew the fish were there.  And something comes over Peter, something he’s never experienced before, some awareness that he’s not just in the presence of a man, and he drops to his knees in front of Jesus and says, “Depart from me Lord. I am a sinful man.”  In other words, “I don’t think I’m the kind of guy you’re looking for, Lord; I have one heck of a past.  But Jesus just totally ignores that.  And He looks Peter in the eye and reaching into his soul He says, “Do not be afraid.”  Peter leaves everything behind and follows Jesus.

Peter has spent most of his life in the shallows of the spiritual life but with Jesus he is taken to the deep, an abundance of grace has invaded his life.  One of the most important decisions we will ever make is whether or not we will cooperate with Jesus when he gets into our boat.  Will we let him take us into the deep waters of His grace?  And if we let Him, where might our Lord want to take us?

Is it to a deeper relationship with Him?   Maybe we’ve had a thought in the back our mind for a long time now that we should spend more time praying.  Maybe God has been nudging us to come to confession, and we’ve been ignoring Him.  Or maybe he’s been gently inviting us to study our faith more, to get to know Him better, and we’ve been resisting.

If we let Him where might our Lord want to take us?  Is it to a deeper and more meaningful relationship with others?  Maybe there is someone we need to forgive, or ask forgiveness from.  Maybe we need to cut off or pull back from a relationship that’s dragging us astray.  Maybe we need to renew our commitment to someone we’ve been neglecting or taking for granted.

If we let Him where might our Lord want to take us?  Is it our own character he wants us to deepen?  Maybe we need to leave behind a hidden habit of dishonesty or self-indulgence.  Maybe God is asking us to discipline a particular area of our life.  Maybe we need to leave behind mediocrity and strive again for excellence in one of our responsibilities.

Pope St. John Paul II once said, “Put out into the deep. The command of Christ is particularly relevant in our time, when there is a widespread mentality which, in the face of difficulties, favors personal non-commitment… Whoever opens his heart to Christ will not only understand the mystery of his own existence, but also that of his own vocation; he will bear the abundant fruit of grace… Trust Christ; listen attentively to his teachings, fix your eyes on his face, persevere in listening to his Word. Allow Him to focus your search and your aspirations, all your ideals and the desires of your heart.” Message for World Day of Prayer for Vocations, 2005

Jesus is asking each one of us to put out into the deep water of His grace.  He wants to live in a deep infinite relationship with each of us.  With less focus on the selfish “me” and more on the “you” of God and neighbor.  He wants to take you to the depths of His grace!  And as He said to Peter, our Lord right now is reaching deep into your soul telling you, “Don’t be afraid.”

Let us be great Saints,

Rev. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In our second reading today our Lord through the writing of St. Paul is telling us what is essential for life, for your life, for my life, and for every life to flourish: it’s love.  Love is needed for every life to flourish.  Matthew Kelly in his book, Rediscovering Catholicism writes that, “There are two simple truths:  people are made to be loved and things are made to be used.  But too often we get it backwards where we love things and we use people.”  And we end up with a culture where human dignity is degraded over and over and over, whether through abortion, or pornography, or neglect of the poor, or the plight of those in places of the world where the basics of life are missing.  This is not love.

I have a conversion story about a man who went from using people to loving people.  It shows the great power of God’s grace.   In 1902 an Italian by the name of Alessandro Serrenelli murdered a 12 year old girl.  This young girl resisted his advances as he tried to attack her with impure motives.  This resistance angered him so much that he stabbed her 14 times in the abdomen.  She died a few hours later.

Alessandro was an eighteen year old who was very much addicted to pornography and in his own words said, “My behavior was influenced by pornography and the bad examples of friends which I followed without even thinking, I was not worried and looking back now at my past, I can see that in my early youth, I chose a bad path which led me to ruin myself.”  After being captured and tried, and still being considered a minor, he was sent to prison for thirty years of hard labor.  He began his sentence in an unrepentant rage.  He attacked anyone who entered his prison cell.

After three years of anger and hard labor Alessandro was finally willing to let a priest visit with him.  He later sent this priest a thank-you note and in it he wrote about a dream that he had had.  He wrote that he had dreamt of the young girl he had murdered and in this dream she had given him a bouquet of white lilies, which in the dream, immediately turned black and disintegrated as soon as he touched them.  This dream marked the beginning of Alessandro’s conversion.  Peace began to invade his heart, he began to live a constructive life, and he began to live in repentance.  After twenty seven years of his sentence Alessandro was released three years early for good behavior.

After leaving the prison the very first person he visited was the murdered girl’s mom, he asked her to forgive him.  Which she did saying, “If my daughter can forgive you, who am I to withhold forgiveness?”  They went to Mass together and they received the Eucharist together, kneeling side by side at the communion rail.   He went from using people to loving people.

Alessandro eventually became a Third Order Capuchin and spent his remaining days working quietly as a gardener for The Brothers of St. Francis Monastery.  Toward the end of his life he wrote, “I feel that religion with its precepts is not something we can live without, but rather it is the real comfort, the real strength in life and the only safe way in every circumstance, even the most painful and difficult ones of life.”  This story of Alessandro is an amazing conversion story a testament to God’s grace.   God’s grace is always at work in our lives helping us to love more purely.  Helping us to love more purely without using.  It gives us hope.

In a series of teachings that became known as the “Theology of the Body” Pope St. John Paul II said that one of the key essentials to keep a marriage thriving, in fact, to keep all relationships thriving, is piety.  Now piety is not a word we often use today.  So what is piety?  Piety is a gift of the Holy Spirit.  Piety is that which helps us choose to love even when the feelings of love aren’t there.  And often in life, maybe even most of the time in life, the feelings aren’t there.  But we still choose to love.  Piety is an attitude of reverence, wonder, and awe in the face of the other person, whether that person is my spouse, my child, my parent, the kid in the classroom, the player on the other team, the co-worker, the woman in an ad on TV, the homeless man or the child in the womb.  This reverence, wonder, and awe stem from the fact that whenever I look at or talk to another person, no matter how big or small, how rich or poor, that person is someone God Himself has created personally, someone for whom God became a man, someone for whom Jesus shed His blood, someone who is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and someone destined to be divinized and share in God’s own life and glory forever.   Piety reminds us there are no unimportant people.

Most of our culture, as we know, is a culture of impiety.  That’s how it justifies abortion, so called mercy killings, pornography, the degradation of women in so many ways, a lack of attentiveness to the situation of those less fortunate, and so much more. How does this change?  In so many ways over much time, to be sure, but one way to start is simply by practicing piety.  This week, let’s make it a point to do something concretely to honor other people in our lives,  making it a goal every day to show reverence, wonder, and awe to each other,  watching how we treat and speak to our spouse, our children, our parents, our co-workers, those we don’t like, and even our enemies.

The love that God has for us personally, the love that God has personally for you and for me, as our Creator and Father is the whole basis of our identity, each of us is a beloved child of God.  God’s love is personal and individual.  Each of us has every right to say, “God loves me as he loves nobody else in the world!”  God does not love two people in the same way because it’s actually his unique love for each of us that creates our personality, a different personality for each of us.

Now God’s unique love for each of us includes the gift of a unique response in return.  We can give God and our brothers and sisters, the Church and the world a love that nobody has ever yet given them.  We can give them the love that belongs to us, in accordance with our personality.  We love in a way that no one ever has or ever will.  Each of us has a unique place, a unique and irreplaceable role, a fruitfulness that is all our own and cannot be taken on by anyone else.   When we don’t love, where we are meant to love, that void is not filled by another person.  When we don’t love, where we are meant to love, that void is not filled by another person.

May the Lord’s grace help us always to love.   May the Lord’s grace help us to love with reverence, awe, and wonder.

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. He is the Savior, anointed “To proclaim liberty to captives and to let the oppressed go free.” In the Bible, anointing meant that you were chosen and given a special power by God. Jesus is the Savior who brings us to the Father. He does something that we can never do on our own.

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.”

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 and point-ing 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 started 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 door-way 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 Christ-mas. 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 oppressed. But there is hope; Jesus came to change that, to reconcile us with God the Father, to show us his Father’s mercy. He came that we might know personally the Father’s love. He came so that we could share in the Divine nature. Jesus came to show us the merciful face of the Father.

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 will 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, or 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.

Let us become great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Back in 1988 an older cousin of mine got married. I had looked forward to this wedding and wedding reception for some time. So I bought a new pair of pants and a new blazer. And since it was the late eighties and the era of Miami Vice I tried to dress just like Don Johnson. For those of you who remember the eighties you can imagine what I looked like in my white pants and powder blue blazer. I cringe now. Thankfully there aren’t any photos that I know of.

My cousin Bill and his future wife Virginia had a beautiful wedding but they did something, at that point in time, that I don’t ever remember seeing at other weddings. Right after the vows and exchange of rings, while a woman sang Ave Maria they walked over to the side altar dedicated to Mary. And while the woman sang they prayed and placed a bouquet of roses on the altar. They had consecrated their marriage to Mary. Not only was Jesus an important part of their marriage, but Mary too, was an invited guest. Thirty-one years and eight kids later our Lord and his mother have been an important part of their lives.
Today in our Gospel we hear of the famous Wedding Feast at Cana. A marriage in the Middle East was always a time of great rejoicing. For the ceremony the bride was veiled from head to foot, because they veiled those who were to be cherished. And on the day of the marriage ceremony both partners fasted and confessed their sins in prayer. The ceremonies always began at twilight with the groom making his way to the bride’s house. Sometimes these wedding feasts lasted for seven days, but in the case of poorer people they probably only went for two days. Whatever was the case at Cana, at some point in the festivities the wine ran out. For the Middle Eastern couple this would have been very embarrassing, they would have been mortified to find out that the wine was gone. Not only were the Middle Eastern people known for their hospitality, but wine was also a symbol of God’s presence in their lives. What would it mean for this newly married couple to run out of wine? To run out of wine at the very beginning of their marriage.

One of the curious features of this marriage feast is that it wasn’t the head waiter, (whose business it was to serve the wine,) who noticed the short-age first, it was Mary who noted the shortage first (she always knows our needs even before we do). She then makes a simple prayer to her Son saying, “They have no wine.” Hidden in these words is not only the knowledge of her Divine Son’s power, but also an expression of her desire to fix a potentially embarrassing situation for the newly married couple. Perhaps the Blessed Mother had already seen Jesus work miracles in secret, although he hadn’t yet worked a single miracle in public.

Now there are two lessons from Cana that we can focus on, first God helps those who help themselves. Jesus could have produced wine out of noth-ing, as He had made the world out of nothing, but he asked the servants to fill the stone jars with water. We can’t expect God to transform us with-out our bringing something to be transformed. We may pray, “Lord help me overcome my evil habits, let me be pure in thought and word and deed.” But this prayer is no good unless we bring at least our own weak efforts. God will make us peaceful and happy but we have to bring our own weak water of feeble efforts. We can’t remain passive while waiting for God to act. We have to try. We have to work at it. Working with God is essential if we are to be his sons and daughters.

The second lesson from Cana is that Mary intercedes to gain for us what we need, sometimes without us always even knowing what we need. As we heard neither the headwaiter nor the diners knew that the wine was running out; therefore, they didn’t ask for help. In the same way we don’t always know what is best for our soul, and if we don’t know what is best, how can we put this in prayer? In his letter St. James writes, “You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly.” Even with Jesus sitting in their midst the people at the table didn’t know what they needed in order to keep the joy of the marriage feast. So Mary asks, making the prayer, “They have no wine.”

No one will ever call on Mary without being heard or without being led to her Son Jesus Christ. She knows our need, so we ask her to make them known to Jesus. We ask her to pray to Jesus for all our known and unknown needs.

Now just a few weeks ago we heard that Mary laid her “first born” in the manger. Some may ask does this mean that Mary was to have other chil-dren. The answer is yes, it did but not according to the flesh. Jesus was her only Son according to the flesh. But Mary was to have other children, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. We are those children, we are her spiritual children. And just as she did at the wedding feast, she will present our needs to Jesus, sometimes even before we know of the need ourselves. Keep her always in your life.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Today, the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, is the very last day of the Christmas season.  The last day to wish someone a Merry Christmas.  On Monday the 14th we enter into Ordinary Time.  Now in the days leading up to the Christmas season there was a radio station in Grand Rapids that after Thanksgiving began playing Christmas music 24/7.  And when in the car that’s what I listened to.  And it sometimes seemed that they played the same five songs over and over all day long. And one song in particular caught my attention, they played over and over, different singers but the same song.  That song was “Santa Claus is coming to Town.”   We probably all know this song by heart, “…He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.  He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”

Now when listening to this song this song seems to imply that Christmas is only for the good.   That Christmas is only for the nice.  But that’s just not right, it’s bad theology, it’s the exact opposite, Christmas is not for the nice.  Christmas is for the naughty, Christmas is for the sinner.  One of the charges laid against Jesus was that He ate with sinners.  And in many of the parables our Lord always seeks out the sinner leaving the good behind.  The Good Shepherd leaves the 99 in the field to go in search of the lost sheep and when found, with great joy is placed on His shoulders.  The lost coin when found is the cause of great rejoicing.  There was no party, however, for the other nine coins, which were never lost.   Scripture tells us there is great rejoicing in Heaven over the return of the fallen.

Now there would have been no need for Christmas if our first parents in the Garden had not committed the original sin.  There would have been no need for Christmas if they had remained sinless and nice.  But that Happy Fault of Adam gave us Jesus in the flesh, God incarnate, born on Christmas, born for sinful me and sinful you.  He became our bridge to Heaven.  And today on this very last day of the Christmas Season we hear of the Baptism of our Lord.  When Jesus enters into perfect solidarity with sinful humanity.  In the words of St. Paul, “He who knew no sin became sin for our sake” (2Cor. 5:21).

The Sacrament of Baptism is pure gift.  A gift of salvation not offered to us because we are nice, but offered because we are naughty, we are sinful.   A gift offered to even the most sinful. We could maybe think of baptism as Christmas for the soul.  The baptized soul becomes the new Bethlehem receiving our Lord, becoming his dwelling.

With baptism the Christian is grafted onto Jesus and drawn into the inner life of God, sharing in the very life of God, not only following and imitating Jesus but becoming a member of his mystical body sharing in his priesthood, his prophetic role, and his kingship.  As a priest we offer sacrifice and worship through prayer, sacraments, and Mass.  As a prophet we study the faith our whole life and bear it witness in our families and communities.  As a king we lead and direct others to God.  This is our mission as baptized Catholics; to worship God, to study everything we can about God knowing him not only in our mind but in our heart too, and finally to lead others to God.  This is our mission.

With the gift of Christmas Heaven can become our future home.  With the gift of Christmas our future can become a life totally immersed in the Trinity.    Cardinal Rigali once wrote that the goal of the baptized is to become more and more like Jesus.  And the highest compliment paid to any Christian it to be mistaken for Jesus.  At death we are greeted by God the Father and for the Christian faithfully following the mission of Jesus he or she is greeted and complimented with the words, “My Jesus, my beloved, welcome home.”

As baptized Christians may we too hear these words one day addressed to us, “My Jesus, my beloved, welcome home.”  Merry Christmas.

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 was Hindu, he didn’t really know anything 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.  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.”  Now as we know 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.  St. 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.   I think that today our Lord is offering each of us a challenge.  That challenge is to become more and more 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 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, all the hours of the whole week.   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 a light of Christ.

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 2019.  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.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

In 1982 the world of journalism was stunned when it learned that, one of their own, the famous British journalist, Malcolm Muggeridge, had been received into the Catholic Church.  Muggeridge was the son of agnostic parents, and they raised him in the religion of socialistic progress, from his father he had inherited the conviction that man was capable of building paradise here on earth all by himself, and there was no need for God or for grace.  Despite a brief interest in Christianity during his university days at Cambridge by the time he graduated Muggeridge was a convicted agnostic socialist, once writing, “I’m a socialist, because I believe that with the right conditions man can be good, and only the government of collectivism can create such good conditions.”

In 1927, Muggeridge married Kitty Dobbs, she was also a convinced socialist and religious agnostic.  They were proud to establish a marriage that was free of all religious constraints, and with their non-traditional and ultra-liberal attitudes towards sexuality there were many infidelities that caused much suffering for themselves and their children.  In the 1930s Muggeridge was sent to the Soviet Union as a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian newspaper.  He was convinced that in the USSR he’d find a land free of all exploitation and injustice.  He wasn’t there long before learning the truth, and witnessing firsthand the barbarism of that governmental system.  Muggeridge left Russia no longer convinced that socialism was the answer to all humanity’s problems.

Muggeridge made his way back to Great Britain and began to consider the idea of Christianity, the Catholic Church in particular.  But it would be forty years before he and his wife would enter the Church.  There were many experiences that helped to bring this well-known agnostic home to the Church but the deciding factor was his meeting with Mother Teresa (M.T.).  In M.T. he saw a woman whose life had been completely transformed by Jesus Christ, and it was impossible for Muggeridge not to be attracted to her witness of faith, hope, and love.  M.T. in all of her simplicity radiated Jesus to such a degree that Muggeridge felt compelled to embrace the Christian faith.  During the last 8 years of his life he became a devout Catholic, he was one of the Church’s staunchest defenders.  He died in 1990 at the age of 87.

God used Mother Teresa to bring Malcolm Muggeridge home to the Catholic Church.  On this feast of the Epiphany we are reminded of our own call to discipleship and evangelization, which M.T. lived and did so well.  The same missionary fire that burned in her heart should burn in ours as well.  Because of our baptism we are charged with bringing Christ to those who have never heard of him, or to bring him to those, who once knew him, but have grown cold in their faith and no longer see His relevance to their lives.

Today’s gospel describes a story we know very well.  The Magi from the east follow the star to do homage to the newborn king.  St. Matthew tells us that after the wise men have paid their homage they “Departed for their country by another way.”  The Magi after encountering Christ do not walk away the same, they are different.  When we encounter Christ as the magi did our lives too should be different.  And when we are transformed by our encounter with Christ, other people, hopefully, will be transformed by their encounter with us.  They will notice something different about us.  They will be attracted to this faith called Christianity, Catholicism in particular.  Have we let ourselves be radically transformed?  Do we pray for this radical transformation?

M.T. had been profoundly changed by the same Jesus the Magi paid homage to.  She was changed by Jesus every morning in her Eucharistic holy hour, she was changed by Jesus every day at Mass, she was changed by Jesus when she meditated upon His life in the Gospels, and she was changed by Jesus who she found in the poorest of the poor.  It was because she had allowed herself to be transformed that Malcolm Muggeridge was able to write of her in his book, Something Beautiful for God,

“Mother Teresa is, in herself, a living conversion; it is impossible to be with her, to listen to her, to observe what she is doing and how she is doing it, without being in some degree converted. Her total devotion to Christ, her conviction that everyone must be treated, helped, and loved as if he were Christ himself; her simple life lived according to the Gospel and her joy in receiving the sacraments–none of this can be ignored.  There is no book I have read, no speech I have heard … there is no human relationship, or transcendental experience that has brought me closer to Christ, or made me more aware of what the Incarnation means, and what is demanded of us.”

On this feast of the Epiphany as we celebrate the encounter of the Magi with the Christ child, we ask ourselves whether our own encounter with Christ leads us back by a different road, making us instruments of evangelization which M.T. and thousands and thousands and thousands of saints have carried out so well.  Once, when preaching on the feast of the Epiphany, St. Augustine said, “Even we, recognizing Christ our King and Priest who died for us, have honored him as if we had offered him gold, incense, and myrrh.  But what remains, is for us to bear witness to him by taking a different road from that on which we came.”  If we truly bear witness to Christ by taking a different road then we can firmly hope that God will use us the way he used Mother Teresa to bring others to the faith.

That what happened to Malcolm Muggeridge will happen to many others through the Holy Spirit working through us, enabling us to say confidently with the Psalmist today, “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.”

Merry Christmas,

Fr. Christopher Ankley

Dear Friends,

In today’s Gospel, we have the only story from the childhood of Jesus.  From his birth until his public ministry, for a total of about 30 years, the Gospels only record this one story.  We do know that most of these years, Jesus spent in Nazareth with Mary and Joseph.  But because we know so little about this time, these years are called the “hidden years” at Nazareth.  As Pope Paul VI wrote, there is much that we can learn about family life from this silence.

First of all, we learn from the silence itself.  The home life is a private life.  It is a place to protect and nourish the children as they grow.

As kids in school and at church, many people would often make comments to my parents about how well behaved me and my brothers were.  So much so, that my parents wondered if these adults were really talking about us.  They must have my kids confused with some other kids, they would think.  And I knew for sure they weren’t talking about my brothers.   Like most kids, my brothers could be polite and kind in public, but at home, it was an entirely different story.  They could be rude, demanding, selfish, and sometimes just downright mean.  And I’m sure my brothers could and would say the same about me.  At home I could be rude, demanding, selfish, and mean.  But in public it was the exact opposite.

The privacy of the home protected us from our own reputations.  And the keeping of this privacy taught us that such unruly behavior was shameful, and not something to be seen in public. And not in the home either, but that was a work in progress.   And because of this behavior in the home we also learned the willingness to forgive, on a daily basis sometimes.  The love within the family looks beyond these faults; it is always ready to forgive.  The privacy of the home combined with discipline, taught me and my brothers how to behave both in public and at home.  At home we learned the importance of forgiving.

Secondly, Nazareth teaches us about the dignity of work.  We know that Joseph was a carpenter.  And by his work he supported the family.  The dignity of work comes from the fact that it supports the family life.  By working, parents are able to feed, clothe, and shelter their children.  And although it’s nice to have jobs we like, and which pay well, these are secondary concerns. The first concern is providing for the family.

An autobiography by Don Snyder entitled, The Cliff Walk, writes about this.  The author is a college professor at Colgate who loses his job.  And he has to take up painting houses in order to support his family.  And here, he discovers the joy of family life.  His job is no longer his primary concern.  His family becomes the primary concern.  The experience of losing his job helps him find his life, a life centered on the people he loves, his family.  His life is no longer centered on reputation and work.

These two things which we learn from Nazareth about the silence and privacy of home life, and about the dignity of work, help teach us our third lesson from Nazareth.  And it’s this, the love within the family, is a love marked by the Cross of Christ.  The love within the family is a sacrificial love.  It’s the epitome of love; it’s the giving of oneself to another.

Family love begins its imitation of the Cross of Christ with the pangs of labor.  The mother endures the pains of labor so that her child might have life.  It continues with the hard works with which father and mother continue to support and raise the child.  The many little sacrifices, such as getting up in the middle of the night in order to change a diaper or feed a hungry baby, or to be with a sick child.  Then, the sacrifices continue as the parents forego their own activities, so that their children can participate in sports, or scouts or school activities.

And in the course of time, the sacrifices get turned around, as parents’ age, it becomes the children’s turn to sacrifice.  As they run errands for parents who can no longer drive or walk.  And as they take in parents, who can no longer live by themselves.

Family life is to be a life of love, a love that’s ready to forgive, and a love that’s always willing to sacrifice for another.  Christian family life is meant to imitate the Cross of Christ.   And for family life to have its fullest meaning, the presence of Christ in the family should be made explicit.  The family itself is a kind of church, it’s a community of believers.  And as a community of believers they gather together in prayer.  Not just in church every Sunday, but also in the home during the week.

Every home should have an area set aside for family prayer.  Ours was in the living room around the crucifix hanging above the couch.  This is where we learned to pray this is where we prayed the rosary.  (This is where I learned to forgive my brother Matt as he breathed all over me when we prayed)

Theologians tell us that we will spend eternity in Heaven with those we are closest to on earth, our family.  And the things we need for a good family life, are the same things we need for eternal life.  They are silence marked by prayer and forgiveness.  And they are work and sacrifice on behalf of the ones we love.  My prayer for us today is that we constantly imitate the example of the Holy Family so that after the trials of this world we may share their company forever.

May we be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Like all the saints, St. Francis was a man who loved to meditate on the life of Jesus.  He could sit or kneel or lie on the ground and pray for hours just thinking about the life of our Lord.   Many times he would picture in his mind a Gospel scene and put himself right into the midst of the action.  He’d be there at the Cleansing of the Temple watching Jesus drive out the money changers, or he’d be in the crowd listening to the Sermon on the Mount, or he’d be with the people lining the street watching as Jesus carried his cross, and then following our Lord all the way to Calvary and Crucifixion.   But there was one particular event in our Lord’s life that St. Francis loved to meditate on, and that was his birth.  And he must have preached about this quite a bit because many artists have painted St. Francis right into the nativity.  Many times he’s painted in among the shepherds and the sheep.  He’s in these paintings even though he lived 1200 years after the Birth of Jesus.

So we might ask ourselves in his meditation of our Lord’s birth what did St. Francis see?  He maybe saw a nervous first time mom and dad bringing their child into the world in the midst of poverty and grime.  What did St. Francis feel?  He may have felt the course straw and rough wood that was to be the first bed of our Lord.  He may have felt the wet noses of animals that just wouldn’t stay away.  What did St Francis hear?  He might have heard owls in the rafters, the sounds of sheep and cattle.  He may have heard the sound of a baby crying and a new mom soothing her baby.  What did he smell?  He probably smelled hay, manure, cows and sheep, and he smelled the shepherds. Who smelled just like their sheep.

What in his mind’s eye did St. Francis see in his meditations?  He saw that the one who could make the sun warm the earth would have need of an ox and donkey to warm him with their breath.  He saw the one who clothed the fields with grass would Himself be born naked.  He saw that the one from whose hands came planets and worlds would have tiny arms not long enough to reach up to touch the heads of cattle that hovered above.  That omnipotence Himself would be wrapped in swaddling and that salvation Himself would lay in a manger.  All these images and more is what St. Francis meditated on and from these meditations he preached on Christmas day.

A lesson on mystical theology.   As we know, God exists outside of time.  But when Jesus entered into time, time freaked out, time freaked because time cannot contain Jesus or any of the events of his life.  Jesus is not limited to his 33 years of life on earth two millennia ago.   Jesus is true man and true God and because he is true God his life cannot remain in the past, his life transcends time.  And here, is a beautiful and awesome thing about being a Christian.  When we were baptized we were filled with the very life of God, his sanctifying grace, and as the water was being poured over our body our souls received the Divine virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.  And it’s these virtues that allow us to transcend time, and be with Jesus at all the important events of his life.  Amazing!  That’s what we do here at Mass.

Example, whenever our heart is moved with faith and charity at the remembrance of some event of our Lord’s life, the nativity or the events surrounding the nativity, for example, then we are there mystically, transported to that event of our Lord’s life, we are there to love Him and console Him.  And using the Inn Keeper as an example, in a very real way we are more present to Jesus than that inn keeper who turned away the Holy Family.  The inn keeper was there physically but he had no faith and no charity.  But for us who live in faith and charity we are there making room for Jesus in our hearts.  The wisdom of Jesus, the words of Jesus, the Word made Flesh himself, cannot remain in the past, He transcends time.   Our faith, our hope, our charity keeps us very connected to Jesus.

Now it is to St. Francis that we attribute the custom of displaying a nativity in our town squares, our homes, and our Churches.    He may not have been the first to conceive of this remembrance of our Lord’s birth. But he was the one to popularize the custom.  In the year 1223 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 the people in town could attend.  Their Franciscan chapel was much too small for everyone to fit inside.  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.  It was “Perfect.”  So in this niche within the side 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 of the Child Jesus 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 manger in their midst and with the townspeople crowding in and around the animals.

I have homework for everyone here today.  During this season of Christmas, which lasts until January 13^{th (}Some even keep up Christmas decorations until February 2^nd), spend some time meditating on the nativity of our Lord.  Read the Gospel passages, sit before your nativity.  Statues and art are a great way to lift the heart, mind, and soul to the realities they represent.  And in your meditation put yourself right into the stable and use your senses, what do you see, what do you hear, what do you feel, and what do you smell?

At that first Christmas 2000 years ago, and every day since, God has been making a proposal to us.  Through his son Jesus he is saying to each and every one of us:  “You give me your humanity, I will give you my divinity.  You give me your time, I will give you eternity.  You give me your bonds; 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.”

Merry Christmas,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

One of my favorite saints is a man by the name of Maximilian Kolbe.  He might be familiar to some of you, especially if you’ve done Fr. Gaitley’s consecration to Jesus through Mary.  I have spoken of him before and I a picture of him in my office.  He looks like he could be one of the duck dynasty brothers (long crazy beard).

Kolbe was a Polish priest, born near the end of the 19^th century.  He was a brilliant Franciscan; he had earned two doctorates by the age of 25.  He did missionary work in Japan.  He used technology in every possible way so as to spread the gospel.  He founded a city in Poland dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God.  Over 800 monks lived there, many of them drawn there by his example of joy and holiness.   In 1941 he was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz.  The Nazis, it’s often forgotten, not only hated the Jewish people, they also hated Christians.  As the prisoners entered into this hell on earth they were welcomed with this message:  “You have not come to a sanitarium but to a Nazi concentration camp, from which there is no other exit except the crematorium.  If there are Jews here they do no have a right to live more than two weeks.  If there are priests, they can live a month; the others, three months.”

In late July of 1941, a prisoner escaped somehow from the camp, or at least went missing and was never found.  As punishment the commandant said that ten people from the cellblock out of which the man escaped would be executed by being locked inside a starvation bunker under the ground.  The commandant had the prisoners stand at attention most of the day and then finally began walking through the lines picking the condemned.  The tenth man he selected began to cry out, “Goodbye, goodbye, my dear wife! Goodbye, my dear children.”  At this the unthinkable happened.  Kolbe stepped out of the line and walked in front of the SS commandant, who said to him, “What does this Polish pig want?”  Kolbe answered, “I am a Polish priest; I want to take his place because he has a wife and children.”  And somehow, miraculously, the commandant agreed to let Kolbe take the man’s place, a man who survived Auschwitz and, to my knowledge, just died a few years ago.

And so Kolbe, who was 47 at the time, was placed with the nine other condemned into the concrete starvation bunker to die.  But an odd thing happened in that bunker.  Out of it, heard both by the prisoners in the camp and the SS guards, came singing.  In the middle of this place, a hell on earth, Kolbe was leading the others in prayer and song.  So annoying did this become for the Nazis that after two weeks of this they finally entered the bunker and executed Kolbe by a lethal injection.

Now I bring up St. Maximilian today because he is, I think, a more recent and powerful example of St. Paul and of his words to us in the second reading. St. Paul said to us, “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I shall say it again: rejoice! Have no anxiety at all.”  Now these may not be easy words to hear especially if we’ve lost a job, or we are worrying about the next house payment, or we are about to approach the holidays for the first time after the death of a loved one, or we are helping someone going through chemotherapy and all the hardships entailed with that, or maybe we’re going through that ourselves.    Or maybe it’s something else entirely that makes us anxious.  We might be tempted to say to St. Paul, “Maybe if you knew the suffering I’m going through, or if you were in a situation like mine, you wouldn’t say words like “Rejoice!”  And “Have no anxiety at all.”

But when St. Paul wrote these words of rejoice and have no anxiety, he was sitting in a prison cell.  Like Kolbe in that starvation bunker, Paul was confined to an underground prison when he wrote this.  And just as Kolbe was able, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to sing hymns in Auschwitz, so Paul could say in prison awaiting his own execution, “Rejoice!”

How?  Today’s Third Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete Sunday, is all focused on joy.  But Paul and Kolbe and all the saints powerfully remind us that joy isn’t dependent on, and doesn’t come from the particular circumstance I find myself in whether that’s being in a concentration camp, prison, out of work, struggling with cancer, or having difficulties in my marriage.  And neither Paul nor Kolbe were under the illusion God was going to magically swoop in and rescue them and “make it all better.”  No.  Their joy, their real joy, was rooted in what God had already done in their lives and for all the world, and in what He has said will happen when either He returns or I die, whichever comes first.

So what has He done that causes such joy?  There are three things that are found in our readings today.  First, he has “Removed the judgment against us.”  He forgives, we can repent, our past does not define us if we come to Him, especially in the sacrament of confession.  Second,  “He has turned away our enemies.  He has destroyed the hellish power of Satan and of death.  Death has been conquered and lost its sting.  There is now a divine hand to reach out to us in death. Third, He “Is in our midst,” as Zephaniah puts it.  Or, in Paul’s words, “He is near.”  He is near in the sense that He, is always with us, always offering us the grace we need for whatever situation we’re in.  And He is near in the sense that His return is closer than it was yesterday.  We’re nearer today to going home than we were last year or five years ago or ten years ago.  And these truths that forgiveness is there for the asking, that death’s power has been destroyed, and that God is both with us now, no matter the situation and will bring us home if we stay close is the cause of our joy, that nothing, no anxiety, no distress, no persecution, no sword, and not even a starvation bunker in Auschwitz, can shake.

As we draw nearer to Christmas, may God help us all better understand what He has done for us.  And may our joy help draw others to Him.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley