Category: Pastor’s Corner

Dear Friends,

As the days get shorter and Christmas gets closer the Advent wreath gets brighter. It’s a powerful reminder that light overcomes darkness. The light of Christmas, the light of Christ, overcomes the darkness.  The Church gives us the season of Advent to train us in attentive trust, so that we can give God permission to come into our lives.  To let the light of Christ come into our lives.  And so the gospel today brings us St. John the Baptist.  He’s a wild character, the last of the Old Testament prophets.

Now John the Baptist doesn’t mince words. He calls for repentance.  And this call to repentance is hard and relentless but despite this, people flocked to him coming from great distances.  John the Baptist didn’t tell people what they wanted to hear, he told them what needed to be heard.  And maybe that’s why he was so popular.  He was a genuine man and on top of that he was also very hopeful.  He offered hope.  “Our savior is coming.”

His call to repentance affected hearts.  People believed him when he said it was time to rethink their lives and to repent.  It was time to change.  So people began to speak up and to say what was wrong in their lives.  They admitted their guilt and their regret.  And to make the cleansing of their hearts and consciences visible John washed them in the waters of the Jordan.

For the Jews the Jordan River was a powerful symbol of hope and new life.  God did great things at the Jordan.  He cleansed Naaman, the Syrian, of his leprosy there and he took the prophet Elijah up to heaven at the Jordan.  But most of all God led the Israelites across the Jordan River at the end of their forty-year journey in the desert.  It was through the Jordan that God led his people to the Promised Land.   And now after being washed in the waters of the Jordan John’s followers were reentering the Promised Land with a radical reorientation of their lives.

There are four things we can say about repentance. Repentance is first the recognition that I am infinitely loved by God.  He is always looking upon me.  Repentance is second knowing that I have sometimes failed to live up to that love, that I have sinned, that I have grievously sinned.   Repentance is third, the knowledge, the heartfelt knowledge, that I need his mercy.  And finally Repentance is giving God a free hand to work in my life as he wants, “Do with me as you will Lord.”  And to live this way is supremely freeing.  It means that I don’t have to save myself.  It means that I allow Jesus to enter into my life, and take control.  I give myself to Him.  I trust.  To repent is to ultimately trust in Jesus.

On Monday night I was Christmas shopping and the woman checking me out at the store asked me, “What do you do for a living?”  And I said I’m a Catholic priest.  Her face lit up and she almost shouted, “I love Jesus too!”  Then she said, “Wait here I have something for you.”  She went back to a cabinet to get a small object.  She handed it to me; it was a small red Lego piece.  The kind you step on, that really hurt.  “Did you know,” she said, “That the word Lego is an abbreviation for Let Go and Let God!”  In other words, Trust in the Lord, make Him your Rock foundation, and give yourself to Him.  The woman told me to keep in my pocket as a reminder to Trust, to let go to let God.

Cardinal John O’Connor of New York was consecrated a bishop in 1983 in Rome.  On his way down the aisle after the consecration, he blessed the people gathered in the church. Suddenly he saw a famous face, and went over to greet Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  He gave her a blessing, but was not prepared for what came next.  She grasped one of his hands in both of hers, and said to him: “Give Jesus a free hand! Give him permission!”  “Give yourself to Him.”  “Trust Him.” In other words, Let go and let God.  Cardinal O’Connor never forgot those words, and he said that he tried to make them a watchword for the rest of his life.

How, practically, do we give God permission? To give ourselves to God, to grow in trust, to let go and to let God.  Where do we start?  We’ve already taken the first step by coming to Mass. And did you know that when the gifts are being brought to the altar you too are being brought up to the altar.  The bread, the wine, the monetary gifts represent the whole of our lives being offered to God.  So as the men/women/ushers bring up the gifts to be offered to God the Father, you are there too.  You are offering yourself to the Father in Jesus, with Jesus, and through Jesus.  You are giving to the Father all your labor, all your hard work, all your joys, all your sorrows, all your struggles, all your pains, all yours sins, your everything.  You are asking to be made anew. You are asking to be renewed by grace.  Think about that as the gifts are being brought forward.  You are there too, in the basket of monetary gifts, the fruit of your labor, in the cruet of wine, in the paten of bread, you are there too.  You are giving yourself to God, did you know that?

And then when we receive Jesus Christ himself in the Eucharist; when we say “Amen” before receiving the Eucharist, we give Jesus permission to be the Lord of our Lives, and we affirm that we believe everything that the Catholic Church teaches for our happiness.  But for all of that to take deep root in our souls, we need to know what our Church teaches and why.  We need to know our faith to have a growing and deepening understanding.  So here’s a challenge, a bit of homework. Get a copy of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is a shorter version of the Catechism, made up of short questions and answers. You can find it on Amazon – The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It costs $7.93.

Read a paragraph every day until Christmas, and take a few minutes to reflect on it. If it’s enriching your life, keep going after Christmas.  If we do that, if we study our faith, and we give ourselves to the Lord at Mass, we’re actively giving God permission to work in our lives by cooperating with whatever he wants to inspire in us.  Who knows what he might be asking of you, to find out, let go, let God.

I want to end by reading a hymn the school choir sang on Thursday after Communion.  It’s all about giving ourselves, with Jesus, to the Heavenly Father.  Putting ourselves on the paten, putting ourselves in the chalice.

On the paten with the Host
I offer up my lowly heart:
All my life, my deeds, my thoughts
Thine shall be as mine Thou art.

In the chalice let me be
A drop of water mingled there.
Lost O Jesus in Thy Love
Thy great sacrifice I share.

All today and ev’ry day
O Jesus let me live in thee,
So that I no longer live
But that thou may’st live through me.

When the gifts are presented, give yourself to the Lord, asked to be transformed by His saving Grace.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Our Gospel passage for today is part of a long conversation that St Matthew records in Chapters 24 and 25.  Up until this point in the conversation, Jesus has been explaining what the age of the Church will look like.  The age of the Church is the period of history between Our Lord’s resurrection and His second coming.

He has explained to his Apostles that the age of the Church will be marked by both wonderful growth and painful persecution.  He has explained that Jerusalem, the epicenter of the Old Covenant, will be destroyed to make way for the New Covenant.  He has explained that the world itself will eventually come to an end to make way for the new heavens and the new earth.  And then, by referring to the example of Noah, he explains that although these things definitely will happen, the Apostles can’t know when: “you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”

Why is Jesus telling them these things? Why does the Church remind us about them every year as Advent begins?   I’m glad you asked.

God wants us to know that our time is limited, that our lives, and history itself, will someday come to an end.  He wants us to know this, because he wants us to use our limited time wisely, to live as true Christians.  Jesus considers this lesson to be so important that he dedicates four separate parables to it before he finishes the conversation, driving the lesson home.  Jesus knows how easily even the most faithful disciple can become distracted by earthly life, forgetting that earthly life is but the path to the goal of eternal life.

Pope Benedict once said this about our future goal of eternal life in Heaven, “Here too we see as a distinguishing mark of Christians the fact that they have a future: it is not that they know the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness. (Spe salvi, #2)  Human life is a journey. Pope Benedict then asks two questions, he asks, towards what destination? How do we find the way? 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, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. (Spe salvi, #49)  Life on earth is the path, not the goal.

I have a story about a woman who forgot this for a time.  St. Mary of Edessa was born in 4^th century Syria.  Her parents died when she was only 7, but she was adopted by her uncle, St. Abraham Kiduania, and with this new home she began to live a remarkably holy life.

For 20 years, Mary lived as a hermit; following the advice of her hermit-uncle she sought a life of deep prayer and sacrifice.  One day a monk caught sight of Mary as he was visiting Fr. Abraham.  He was not a good monk.  And he made it his goal to steal Mary away from her life of prayer.  He spent a year befriending her becoming more and more friendly and familiar with her.  Eventually Mary gave in, but afterward she was horrified at what she’d done.  She was ashamed and hid from her uncle, the one who loved her, “How can I even try to speak with my holy uncle?”  She asked herself.  “Seeing that I am already dead and have no hope of gaining salvation. I’d better leave here and go to some foreign land where nobody knows me.” And so she left.

Mary of Edessa is one who should have known better.  After falling she should have remembered the infinite mercy of God and plunge herself into it.  To be a Christian, is to know that we are deeply loved by a God who sees us in all of our sin, and loves us anyway.  After falling Mary had only to turn to the Lord and ask for forgiveness; instead she gave into despair.  Her despair convinced her that having fallen once; she could never again be holy.  So Mary ran away from her home and took up residence in and began working in a house of ill-repute.

Meanwhile, Fr. Abraham was oblivious to all that had happened. But that night he had a vision of a dragon consuming a dove; two days later, in another vision he saw the same dragon with its belly torn open. He reached in to pull out the dove, miraculously unharmed. When he called out to his niece to tell her about it but received no answer, Abraham realized that she was the subject of the vision.  She was the dove, the daughter of his soul was gone and all he could do in her absence was to pray for her.

He prayed for two years before a report reached him that his Mary was living and working in a brothel. Fr. Abraham; like the Good Shepherd, was off without a moment’s hesitation, eager to bring his lost lamb home.

Abraham hadn’t left his hermitage in decades, but he disguised himself as a soldier and began his journey. He made an appointment with Mary, who didn’t recognize him until he began to cry, begging her to come home. Moved by his powerful love, Mary returned to her hermitage and began again a life of prayer. Within three years, God testified to her true conversion by giving her the gift of miracles. Through her prayers to God there were many miracles.   More than just being returned to her original state of holiness, Mary was brought through wickedness to greater prayer, greater virtue, and greater power in Christ.

While he spoke to Mary in her brothel, St. Abraham reminded her, “There is nothing new in falling down in the contest; the wicked thing is to keep on lying there.” St. Mary of Edessa is a powerful witness to what God is capable of when we offer him our sin—and what we’re capable of when we don’t.

Life on earth is the path, not the goal.  St. Mary of Edessa forgot the goal of Heaven and she forgot the Mercy of our Good God.  But her uncle was there to remind her and bring her back to the mercy of our Lord.

As Pope Benedict once said, “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.  As St. Paul said, “Put on the armor of Light, put on Christ Jesus!”   In other words, be a light of hope to those around you.

My prayer for us today is that we may be a light of hope, consuming ourselves, like a candle, giving light and warmth to those around us.  Always pointing the way to eternal life.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

On January 17^th 1871 a French family of four was working in their barn.  One of the sons named Eugene wanted to take a break so he went outside to get a breath of fresh air.  Once outside he came upon a vision of a very beautiful lady.  She was dressed in a blue gown covered with gold stars.  She wore a black veil and a crown on top of her head.  Eugene called to his parents and his little brother, Joseph, to come out and take a look.    The parents couldn’t see her but Joseph could.  Dad was very upset with his boys and told them to get back to work, Mom, however, knew her sons were not liars.  So she went and got the teacher, Sr. Vitaline.  Sister came and she brought with her 2 young girls, who immediately saw the lady.  As time passed a crowd gathered and as the hours passed it got bigger and bigger.  But only the children could see our Lady, no adult was able to see her.  Many prayers were prayed that day, and when the priest arrived more prayers were offered.

At that time France was in the midst of the Franco/Prussian war.  And things weren’t going so well for France.  The war was very close to Pontmain and the people of that region thought that they’d soon be overwhelmed by the fighting.  As the prayers continued the children excitedly informed the crowds of the changing appearance of the vision of our Lady.    She increased in size, and more stars were becoming part of her garment.  Our Lady also presented a banner beneath her feet.  It read, “But pray, my children.  God will soon answer you.  My Son allows Himself to be moved.” 

The war never made it to Pontmain.  And in a move that still defies military reason today, the Prussian army decided to retreat and go back to Paris. The prayers of Pontmain were answered.   And two months later in March a peace treaty was signed the war was over.   At the apparition site, next to the barn, a large basilica was built. It was consecrated in 1900.

The third statement on the banner, beneath Our Lady of Pontmain, always strikes me, “My Son allows Himself to be moved.” Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King and we have a King who allows Himself to be moved.  To be moved by our prayers.

Our Lady is sent as a Heavenly messenger to encourage and bolster and deepen our relationship with her Son.  To strengthen our dependence on a King who wants to rule our hearts, our minds, and our souls, a King who wants only the best for us.  These Marian apparitions give us a taste of Heaven a taste of our eternal calling.

Now the very first day that we begin to taste heaven is the day of our baptism, and on that day the life of heaven is literally poured into us.  While the water is being poured, the Holy Spirit at the very same time is being poured into our souls and hearts. In Baptism, we are immersed into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are freed from Original Sin and from eternal death. We are made God’s children and, as St. Paul tells us (in Philippians 3:20) we become citizens of heaven.  Heaven is not a prize to be won, but a gift given and received.

To become a citizen of heaven is to know that we are not the king; we are not the king of our lives, or of our destinies. Jesus Christ is our King, and the Sacrament of Baptism comes with a call to live actively as a servant of the one King of the Universe. Sometimes we might treat Jesus as if He were a “member of Congress,” just one voice among many competing in our hearts. But a Christian wants and strives to have Jesus enthroned in his heart as King, ruler of his thoughts, words, and actions. Jesus is God. He is perfect, and unlike any person we might find in Washington DC, He always does what it best for us, what will bring us to heaven with Him.

So what will heaven be like? In heaven we will finally know perfectly what it is to be loved and to love. We will never be bored. Heaven is not about sitting on clouds plucking harps like the chubby cherubs in Renaissance paintings. That is only a symbol of the perfect rest and peace the angels and saints experience in heaven. We will be surrounded by holiness and love, by angels and humans who love God and each other totally. We’ll be living in the midst of the Trinity’s infinite love. There will be no hatred, violence, anger or anxiety. No one will ever sin or even be tempted to sin.

To live in heaven is not just to be “somewhere up in the sky”, but to live in God’s very household, to see Him face-to-face. In the Old Testament, we read that no human can see God’s face and live (Ex 33:20), but in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist we are made more than human. Baptism makes us “other Christs” in the world, and the Holy Eucharist continues to transform us, to make us less and less earthly, and more and more heavenly, if we will just cooperate.  We gotta cooperate.  Salvation is about grace, and grace needs to be received willingly.

The British author C.S. Lewis once wrote that for many of us, the way we currently live, so attached to earthly things, the joys of heaven would be an acquired taste. And so our Christian life is about acquiring a taste for heaven now, about becoming heavenly now, about making sure we never take heaven for granted. As He reigns from the Cross in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the good thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

This good thief, St. Dismas, inherits the Kingdom because he turns to Jesus for mercy and forgiveness. He cooperates with God’s grace. He looks into the face of Jesus and knows forgiveness and love.  As Our Lady of Pontmain presented on that banner beneath her feet, “My Son allows Himself to be moved.”

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher Ankley

Dear Friends,

Today’s gospel gives us an end-of-the-world feeling but Jesus doesn’t give us any specific information as to when it will happen.  He does, however, warn us to be alert and to be on the lookout.  He doesn’t want us to live carelessly or superficially but at the same time he doesn’t want us to get into a panic about the end of the world.

What Jesus announces in today’s Gospel isn’t harmless:  “There will be hardship.” But when it’ll happen we aren’t sure because we aren’t given any dates.  And even if we aren’t visited by earthquakes, famines, or pestilences, smaller things may occur:  our health may fail, marriages may struggle, death will take away our loved ones, businesses may fail, and jobs are sometimes lost.  These are hard and when they happen to us they can feel like the end of the world.  So how do we deal with it?  Jesus gives the answer and his reply is stand firm, trust in me; I will not let you fall.  I will give you the wisdom, I will give you the words I will give you the strength.  “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” 

In our Gospel we heard, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.”  Hearing this reminds us of so many horrific events that have occurred throughout the centuries even up to our own day.  I have a story from a time period of great suffering when the world around many people was ending.   And it’s a story about a woman named Irena Sendler.  And for those whose world was ending she acted as the heart, hands, and voice of Christ.

Irena Sendler was a Catholic social worker at the time of the German invasion of Poland and was a senior administrator in the Welfare Department. In 1942 the German army herded hundreds of thousands of Jews into a 16-block area that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto.  The Ghetto was sealed and all the Jewish families behind its walls awaited a certain death.  Irena was so outraged by what was happening that she wanted to fight back so she joined Zegota, the Council for Aid to Jews, organized by the Polish underground resistance movement.

With her connections in the Welfare Department Irena was able to get a pass in order to gain access into the Ghetto.  She visited everyday bringing food, medicine, and clothing.  But 5,000 people were dying every month from starvation and disease.  She had to do more, she thought, and that’s when she decided to help the children get out.  Irena at first began smuggling the children out one at a time in an ambulance.  But that was too slow so she recruited workmen to help with the smuggling.  Children were taken out in gunnysacks, body bags, toolboxes, potato sacks, and even coffins.  Some entered a church in the Ghetto which had two entrances.  One entrance opened into the Ghetto, the other opened into the Aryan side of Warsaw.  The children entered the church as Jews and exited as Christians.  Irena accomplished much of her incredible deeds with the assistance of the Church.  She once said, “I sent most of the children to religious establishments; I knew I could count on the sisters.”  No one ever refused to take a child from her.

With her connections in the Welfare Department Irena was able to give each child a forged identity document.  They were placed in homes, orphanages, and convents and Irena carefully noted, in coded form, the child’s original name and his or her new identity.  She kept the only record of their true identities in jars buried beneath an apple tree in a neighbor’s back yard.

Eventually the Nazis became aware of Irena’s activities and in October of ’43 she was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured.  Her legs and feet were broken but they couldn’t break her spirit.  She trusted.  Irena was hated for doing the work of our Lord.  Yet she trusted our Lord knowing He would help her through it all.  He would not let her fall.    Sentenced to death Irena was saved at the last moment when members of the underground resistance bribed one of the Gestapo agents to halt the execution.  She escaped from prison but for the rest of the war she was pursued by the Nazis.

After the war she dug up the jars and used the notes to track down the 2,500 children she had saved and tried to reunite them with their families.  However, most of their families were dead.    Irena never considered herself a hero and always said, “I could have done more.”

Because of our Baptism we can say along with St.  Paul as he writes to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me.”  And for those children whose worlds were ending Irena was Christ’s heart, hands, and voice.  Our Lord will help us through any difficulty, any hardship giving us his wisdom and strength, maybe even using you in the process to help another.

Let us imitate Irena, probably not on the same grand scale, but let us trust in our Lord when someone’s world seems to be ending and let us be as Christ forgetting about ourselves and acting the way Christ himself would act, because maybe God is using you to be as his heart, hands, and voice.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

The word martyr is Greek in origin and it means witness.  The Jewish family of our first reading, the seven brothers and their mother were witnesses to the future resurrection of life, willing to go to their deaths proclaiming this truth.   As Christians, we too are called to be witnesses to the Resurrection of life, of Jesus, to witness to the rest of the world that God is real, that he’s good, that we are made in His image and likeness, and that we were made for eternal life in Heaven.

I have the story of a witness who brought the love of God into the midst of great hate.  This true story takes place during the time of World War II.   A German by the name of Hans Frank was Hitler’s personal attorney and during the war he was put in charge of Poland.  He was the General in charge of all of Poland.  And under his rule he was responsible for the deaths of over 3 million people.  He was a barbaric and godless man.  His goal was to erase God from the face of Poland.  After the war Hans Frank was captured and put on trial at Nuremburg.  He was found guilty and sentenced to be hung for his crimes.

However, months later moments before his death Frank’s very last words were, “Jesus, have mercy on me!” During his time on death row he had repented and received baptism.  He was 46 years old and had never been baptized.

We know that it’s our Lord’s desire that all would be saved, that none would perish, that all would turn from their wickedness.  Is that my desire too?  Is it yours?

How could a man so barbaric repent?   How did he come to repentance?  It was the witness of one man, an American who grew up in New York State.  Fr. Sixtus O’Connor was a Franciscan who gave a strong witness to the mercy, power, and glory of Jesus to this man on death row.

Fr. Sixtus was the youngest of 7 children.  His mom was from Germany and she taught all of her children to speak and write in German.  Fr. Sixtus even studied for a time in Germany but when World War II broke out he came back home to the states.  And once back he enlisted as an Army Chaplain.  He ended up serving with General Patton.  He was on the front line, he liberated at least one concentration camp and he won the Silver Star.

Fr. Sixtus saw first-hand what Hans Frank had done yet his heart was not hardened, he still had a heart touched by Jesus.  After the war because of his ability to speak German General Patton asked Fr. Sixtus to minister to the German prisoners as they awaited their trials at Nuremberg and to continue ministering to them as they awaited execution.

At Nuremberg there was plenty of hatred.  Fr. Sixtus was a Franciscan and that line from the Song of St. Francis, “Where there is hatred let me sow love,” was something he lived and suffered.  He spent his time proclaiming the Gospel, “Jesus is a just judge but he is also merciful.”  He showed Frank the way to repentance so that his very last words could be, “Jesus have mercy on me!”

Why do we need to witness to Jesus?  He tells us to, and because only he can turn hostility and disunity into unity and brotherhood.  Jesus is our peace.  Now most of us are not called to give our lives as a witness to the faith like the Jewish family of the first reading or to witness like Fr. Sixtus in a prison setting.  But we do, however, have many, many, many opportunities each day to witness.  Do not be afraid to tell others what a difference our Lord has made in your life.  You never know what the impact could be.  The poet William Blake once wrote that every good work, every good word, and every simple witness to our Lord is a little martyrdom.  Maybe we can even make this our homework, every morning we might say to ourselves, “Today I will give a witness to my faith at least 5 times.”  Maybe you do it through a good kind word to someone or a good work for someone, or maybe even telling someone about Jesus and the Catholic Faith.   If we commit to this every day, who knows how God will use us in His plan of salvation.

As we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we ask our Lord to expose any hardness in our heart, and disunity in our heart, and to burn it up in the Divine love of the Eucharist.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

From a book on the death of his brother Satyrus, by St Ambrose, bishop

Let us die with Christ, to live with Christ

We see that death is gain, life is loss. Paul says: “For me life is Christ, and death a gain.” What does “Christ” mean but to die in the body, and receive the breath of life? Let us then die with Christ, to live with Christ. We should have a daily familiarity with death, a daily desire for death. By this kind of detachment our soul must learn to free itself from the desires of the body. It must soar above earthly lusts to a place where they cannot come near, to hold it fast. It must take on the likeness of death, to avoid the punishment of death. The law of our fallen nature is at war with the law of our reason and subjects the law of reason to the law of error. What is the remedy? “Who will set me free from this body of death? The grace of God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

We have a doctor to heal us; let us use the remedy he prescribes. The remedy is the grace of Christ, the dead body our own. Let us then be exiles from our body, so as not to be exiles from Christ. Though we are still in the body, let us not give ourselves to the things of the body. We must not reject the natural rights of the body, but we must desire before all else the gifts of grace.

What more need be said? It was by the death of one man that the world was redeemed. Christ did not need to die if he did not want to, but he did not look on death as something to be despised, something to be avoided, and he could have found no better means to save us than by dying. Thus his death is life for all. We are sealed with the sign of his death; when we pray we preach his death; when we offer sacrifice we proclaim his death. His death is victory; his death is a sacred sign; each year his death is celebrated with solemnity by the whole world.

What more should we say about his death since we use this divine example to prove that it was death alone that won freedom from death, and death itself was its own redeemer? Death is then no cause for mourning, for it is the cause of mankind’s salvation. Death is not something to be avoided, for the Son of God did not think it beneath his dignity, nor did he seek to escape it.

Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labor and unbearable sorrow and so began to experience the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing.

The soul has to turn away from the aimless paths of this life, from the defilement of an earthly body; it must reach out to those assemblies in heaven (though it is given only to the saints to be admitted to them) to sing the praises of God. We learn from Scripture how God’s praise is sung to the music of the harp: “Great and wonderful are your deeds, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not revere and glorify your nature? You alone are holy; all nations will come and worship before you.” The soul must also desire to witness your nuptials, Jesus, and to see your bride escorted from earthly to heavenly realities, as all rejoice and sing: All flesh will come before you. No longer will the bride be held in subjection to this passing world but will be made one with the spirit.

Above all else, holy David prayed that he might see and gaze on this: “One thing I have asked of the Lord, this I shall pray for: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, and to see how gracious is the Lord.”

Dear Friends,

Not long ago on PBS there was a show on Masterpiece theatre.  It was about an older woman in London who owned an antique shop.  Her store was filled with many beautiful and expensive items.  This woman longed for retirement.  She’d been selling antiques for decades and she was tired.  In her shop she had this expensive table, kings once dined on it.  It was regal, and perfect, there wasn’t a scratch on it, and it shined so much that you could see your reflection.  It was worth thousands of pounds.  And the woman would think, “If only I could sell that table then I can retire.”  But it never sold.

Now every Sunday afternoon this woman did a bit of charity work.  She would bring a meat pie to a home bound woman.  This woman was very old and confined to her bed.  Now the antique dealer had an ulterior motive because the older woman was all alone in a huge mansion and this mansion was filled with beautiful antiques.  And every time the woman visited with her meat pie she’d spy the different things in the mansion and think, “Oh that mirror is worth 1000 pounds,” or “That chair I could sell in a day!”

And so it went week after week, month after month year after year.  Meat pie after meat pie and all the while that table would not sell. That table where kings once dined would not sell.  “I’ll never be able to retire,” thought the antique dealer.

Eventually the old woman in the mansion dies and she leaves everything to a niece in America, everything to a niece in America, a niece that no one knew about.  Except for one thing, one thing did not go to America.  The antique dealer received a small drawing of a finger, a pencil sketch of a finger, more of a doodle than anything.  It was in a crummy frame with a cracked piece of glass covering it.  The antique dealer didn’t even want to keep it, a crummy picture for all those visits with meat pies, she thought.  She put a price on the finger and put it up for sale in her shop.

A week later a tourist from Canada enters her shop and he’s very interested in the table.  He comes back three times to look at it.  He doesn’t even quibble about how expensive it is.  The Canadian on his last trip to the store spies the finger drawing in its crummy frame and asks, “How much?”  The antique dealer replies, “Oh that’s nothing, 20 pounds,” the Canadian buys the drawing and leaves.  He doesn’t even buy the table.  The woman is disappointed.

Another week passes the woman opens the newspaper and turns to the Arts section and the headline grabs her attention, “Canadian finds long lost sketch of Michelangelo’s Finger of God, and sells it for two million pounds.”  That doodle of a finger was sketched by Michelangelo in preparation for his Sistine Chapel Masterpiece, “God creates Adam” where the finger of God reaches out to the finger of Adam.  The old lady in the mansion had left the antique dealer a fortune, enough to retire many times over.  She was not forgotten.

In that doodle of a finger there was more there than what the eye saw.  The eye saw a crummy frame a pane of cracked glass, and the sketch of a finger that looked like an afterthought.  But in reality it was the work of a master.  There was more there than the eye saw.

Every time we celebrate Mass there is more than meets the eye.  We have been left a spiritual fortune in the Eucharist; we have been left a spiritual fortune in the Mass.  We have not been forgotten.  A little piece of what looks to be bread and a little drop of what looks to be wine is the wealth of God.  There is more here than what meets the eye.

When we think of the Sistine Chapel, the first thing we think of is that famous work of art where the finger of God reaches out to the finger of Adam.  Some writers will say that the Mass occupies the gap between their fingers.  At every Mass Heaven meets Earth, the Mass occupies that space between the finger of God and the finger of Adam.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!”  In other words, “Jesus be my Savior!”  This is a prayer that was prayed often by St. Ralph Sherwin.  He’s one of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales canonized in 1970.

Young Ralph Sherwin was a very intelligent boy.  And his natural talents gained him a spot at Oxford’s Exeter College.  He earned his degree in 1574 with high honors.  He could have done anything he wanted, law, medicine, politics, even priesthood in the Church of England.  Instead, however, he had a major reversion to the Catholic faith.  But this was a problem because this was the time of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, and it was illegal to be a Catholic, no priests were allowed to live out in the open.  They had to hide.

So Ralph went to France to study for the priesthood, and there he was ordained in 1577.  He then went on to Rome to finish his studies.  In 1580 he was part of the first convoy of Missionary priests sent to England.  He came dressed undercover as a French businessman.  Fr. Ralph began to work in various parts of the country and he was very successful.  His work was brief; however, and he was captured after three months and sent to the Tower of London.  There he was kept in iron chains and tortured on the rack.  That’s the device that stretches you until you scream. In the midst of all the tortures he was offered the title of Bishop and a prestigious post in the Church of England, if he would deny the Pope.  He didn’t.

After a year of torture he was put on trial on a trumped-up charge that he had conspired to start a rebellion.  At the trial he shouted out that, “The plain reason of my standing here is religion, not treason.”  He was sentenced to be hung with drawing and quartering to follow.  He prayed to God to forgive his persecutors and, if God so willed, to bring them into the Catholic faith, he even prayed for the queen.  And his last words before dying were these, the prayer of his entire life, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!”  In other words, “Jesus be my Savior!”

I think this is one of the most beautiful prayers of petition.  Prayers of petition, prayers that ask God for something, these are the most basic and most practical of prayers.  Million upon millions of petitions are storming heaven at every minute of every day.  Everyone prays them, even non-believers pray them in some way and that’s because we are naturally wired for God, and this is a prayer born of profound instinct, prayer of the human heart for God.  Now as we know there are different types of prayers, adoration, mediation, contemplation, lectio divina, but Pope St. John Paul II once said that, “Every prayer is a prayer of petition, so don’t be afraid to ask for the simplest things.”  Our Lord listens.

In our first reading from Exodus we get an example of petitionary prayer in the spiritual life.  We meet the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land.  They’ve left the slavery of Egypt and they are making the difficult journey to the Promised Land.  This journey symbolizes our own spiritual life, where we move from slavery to sin to the fullness of life in Heaven.  We are on this journey, right now, from sin to heaven.

Now on this journey through the desert the Israelites meet Amalek, an ancient tribe and a symbol of evil.  We face Amalek on our spiritual journey too, sin, hate, depression, discouragement, temptation, any resistance to our spiritual life is Amalek.  The Israelites fight against Amalek, and we do too.  We are in a spiritual battle; we don’t stay on the sidelines we fight.  And prayer is our weapon.  We all have a God given mission and Amalek will rise against us all, but don’t surrender.  And the necessary thing in this struggle against Amalek is prayer.  When Moses prays (arms lifted) all goes well, but when he tires and his arms drop, he stops praying, Amalek get the best of the Israelites.  Nothing great in this world is accomplished apart from prayer.  No victory in the spiritual struggle is done or accomplished without prayer.

As we are often reminded prayer is a rising of the mind and heart to God.  It keeps us in relationship, aligning our mind and will to His.  And blessings will follow.  But persistence is important/necessary, keeping us open to Him.  So pray and pray and pray with persistence.  Don’t give up; always ready to receive what our Lord wants to give.  Maybe we can even make St. Ralph Sherwin’s prayer our own.  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, be to me a Jesus!  And we know He will.

Peace and all good,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Just outside of Toulouse France in 1579 a young girl was born.  This particular girl was born with a crippled and paralyzed right arm and she was born with a form of tuberculosis that affected her neck, she couldn’t easily move her head.    Her name was Germaine and eventually she would be known as the Saint of the Unwanted.  No one knows for sure who her parents were, as a baby; she was left on the doorstep of a farming family.  They took her in but they treated her terribly.  When she was old enough they moved her out into the barn, away from everyone else.  Food was left out on the porch for her to come and get.  Germaine lived in ragged hand-me-downs and she never had any shoes.  She was regularly beaten, neighbors would often see welts and bruises on her hands and face.  Life was very hard for this little unwanted girl.

There was, however, one bright spot for Germaine.  She was allowed go to Mass every Sunday.  It was the weekly highlight.  It was at Mass where our Lord spoke to her heart.  He showed her how her life could be; he gave her an understanding of the sacraments.  He gave her an understanding of His great love.  With time she developed a hunger for the Mass.  During the week, however, Germaine had to shepherd her sheep up in the hills above town.  She couldn’t go to Mass. She wanted so badly to be there, but she couldn’t.  But she could hear the church bells ring marking the beginning of Mass.  So she would face into the direction of the church and make a spiritual communion.

But a time came when even that was not enough for her.  She had this great hunger for the Eucharist.  One day our Lord gave her an inspiration.  She took her shepherd’s cane and she jammed it into the ground, she then huddled her flock around the cane and told them to, “Stay put.”  And they did; well-trained sheep.  She could now go to Mass every day, she could now meet our Lord in the Eucharist every day.  And her sheep never strayed.  They were always there when she got back.

Germaine’s time at Mass was not only the high point of her day; it became the driving force in her life.  She would gladly suffer all that her family and the weather in the fields and her illness and deformity handed out to her.  But she could not do without Jesus in the Eucharist.

Eventually Germaine’s illnesses caught up with her.  And she died in 1601 at the age of 22.  Today her body is incorrupt and many miracles have been attributed to her intercession.

St. Germaine understood the Mass and she understood the great Communion of Love to which she was called. To which we are called.  God Himself is an eternal exchange of Love, Father, son, and Holy Spirit.  So, for all eternity, the Father pours Himself out in a total gift of self-giving love to the son, and the son returns that gift with the same self-giving love and the love between them is the Holy Spirit.  And amazingly God had destined each one of us to share in that Divine exchange of ecstatic love.  And the way we do it is by becoming a member of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.  Baptism does that for us.

Before the birth, life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus there was a gap between us, fallen humanity, and the love of the Trinity.  And there was nothing we could do on our own to bridge that gap.  But God in his unfathomable mercy, reached out to us with His Trinitarian love, and bridged the gap.  And every time we come to Mass the drama of this bridging of the gap is made present to us.

God the Father gave his son to fallen humanity, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  And who is the Son?  He’s everything that the Father is.  So, God truly reached out to us with the eternal action of his own Trinitarian love.  In the Incarnation of the Word, the conceptions and birth of Jesus, he gave himself to us in an act of total self-giving love.  With the Incarnation the bridging of the gap begins.  Self-giving divine love is extended to sinful, selfish humanity. And not only is this love extended to us, this loves goes on to show us the way of return to the Father.  On the Cross Jesus poured himself out in a total gift of self-giving love to the Father.  That’s our return.

1^st God the Father gives himself in love to the world by giving his dearly beloved son, and then 2^nd the Son gives himself back to the Father on the Cross, completing the two-part, eternal exchange of love with the Holy Spirit himself being the love.  So the eternal action of the Trinity’s exchange of love becomes visible in the Incarnation and the Passion of Jesus.

But what does that have to do with us?  If we are baptized and attend Mass, then it has everything to do with us, because the Mass contains the whole drama of the bridging of the gap and we in the pews and at the altar are right there in the midst of the drama!

It works like this:  The first part of the Trinity’s love is extended to us at the moment of consecration, the moment when the priest takes the bread and says, “This is my Body,” and then takes the wine and says, “This is my Blood.”  At that moment of consecration, God so loves the world that he gives us his only son.  At that moment, God the Father pours himself out in a gift of self-giving love to us by giving us his dearly beloved Son.

So where does Jesus complete the Trinitarian action of love by giving himself back to the Father.  Giving himself as a gift of total self-giving love?  Jesus does it when the priest at altar, who acts “in persona Christi”  takes the Body and Blood of Christ into his hands and offers it back to the Father saying, “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, forever and ever.”

And at that moment, as we say, “Amen,” Jesus returns to the Father, completing the Trinitarian action of love.  But there is something different this time at the celebration of the Mass.  When the Father reaches down to “pick up” and embrace his Son, he notices that his Son is much heavier than before.  When the Father receives the self-giving love of his Son, he receives not only Jesus Christ the Head of the Mystical body but he also receives all the members of his body.  The Father receives the gift of self-giving love of the “Full Christ.”  Which is all of us in Christ who are uniting ourselves with Christ at the moment of his self-offering to the Father at Mass.

The Eucharistic Sacrifice is the source and summit of the Christian life, we not only offer the divine victim to God, but we also offer ourselves along with him.  Truly the Mass is Heaven on Earth.  It is the visible, sacramental enactment of the invisible, eternal exchange of self-giving love of the Father to the Son and the son to the Father in the Holy Spirit.  And we get in on the action.  At least we’re supposed to.  The Second Vatican Council calls us to a fully conscious and active participation in the Mass, and this offering of the Victim (Jesus) and the offering of ourselves along with him gets to the heart of this active participation.

Do we give to the Heavenly Father with Jesus all of our praise, our worries, our joys, our sufferings, our whole selves?  Do we put them right into the chalice to be offered to the Father?  St. Germaine did.  St Germaine is known as the Saint of the unwanted and she was certainly shunned by her family.  But to her Heavenly Father she was certainly wanted and loved.  And she experienced that love at every Mass she attended.  She couldn’t stay away.

We are called to live for all eternity in the great Divine Communion of Love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bliss beyond anything we could ever imagine.  And it begins here at Mass.  If we are Catholic, healthy, and able why would we ever stay away from the Mass.

Let us be great Saints,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley

Dear Friends,

Today is Respect Life Sunday and on this day we look toward bringing about more and more a culture of life to a country and a world, that seem to be mired in a culture of death.  This culture of death includes many wrongs and sins against the human person.  Unjust war, the human trafficking of young women, the euthanasia of the aged, the separation of families due to immigration policies, the death penalty for prisoners, IVF, artificial contraceptives, embryonic stem cell research, and of course abortion.  This is a long list and a wide range of issues and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something.  But our faith reassures us that, “Every human being, at every stage and condition is willed and loved by God.  For this reason, every human life is sacred.  To deprive someone of life is a grave wrong and a grave dishonor to God.  And because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love.  Pope Benedict has called this the key to our entire existence.”   Love is the key to our entire existence.

As a people called to love I think it can sometimes be frustrating to see a world that’s not more a culture of life.  Instead we see a landscape where there is still suffering where there is still such a culture of death.    The prophet Habakkuk, from our first reading, expresses what we may sometimes feel at some point in our lives; we might say to ourselves, how can God be so indifferent to suffering?  Habakkuk wrote at a time, about 600 B.C., when Babylon was rising in power and at that time Habakkuk was scared and worried for the future.  He says in our first reading, “How long, O Lord?  I cry out to you… but you do not intervene.  Why must I look at misery?”   Have we ever expressed words like these of Habakkuk’s?  Habakkuk seems to be saying, Lord if you are who you say you are why do you allow evil to occur, why do you allow this dark evil to happen?  We’ve probably all experienced these thoughts at some point when the topic of child abuse, war, disease, or the death of the innocent is put before our eyes.  With Habakkuk we say, “Why Lord, How long Lord?”

And the Lord answers, he answers Habakkuk and says in the first reading, “Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.  For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  This vision is God’s vision of the world its God’s providence over his creation.  God knows what he’s doing.  Our universe is not just a series of random arbitrary events.  God knows what the Universe is all about.  And if it seems that progress is slow we remind ourselves that God’s time is not our time.  And we can see this in our own lives.  Think back to when you were a child and think how long a month or a year seemed to be.  That length of time just seemed to drag on forever.  But now as an adult a month or even a year just seems to fly by as if they were nothing.  And in the same way what we consider to be a delay by God is but the blink of an eye for him.   His time is not our time.  He will bring good.

Our faith tells us that because we are created in the image of God, who is Love, our identity and our vocation is to love.  As Pope Benedict said, “To love is the very key to our entire existence.”  Saturday was the feast day of Saint Therese of Lisieux and she wrote about this very thing this vocation to love.   She once said, “I knew that the Church had a heart and that such a heart appeared to be aflame with love.  I knew that one love drove all the members of the Church to action…I saw and realized that love sets off the bounds of all vocations, that love is everything, that this same love embraced every time and every place.  In one word, that love is everlasting.”

There is a story from St. Thérèse’s diary in which she prayed for a notorious murderer.  On July 13, 1887 a notorious murderer by the name of Henri Pranzini was sentenced to death for the murder of three women.  It was a robbery that had gone terribly wrong.  It was in all the newspapers across the whole country of France. It was all they talked about that summer, even the young St. Thérèse still living a sheltered life at home, had heard about it.  Thérèse, a very sensitive soul, feared that Pranzini would be lost for all eternity. To avert that “irreparable calamity” she decided to employ “all the spiritual means” she could. And so she began to offer the “infinite merits of Our Savior and the treasures of the Holy Church” for his salvation.  She prayed for Pranzini’s conversion.

The newspapers reported that at 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 31, 1887, the door to Pranzini’s cell was opened and inside there were two prison guards and a chaplain. At this, it is said the prisoner turned pale. Pranzini’s step became noticeably less firm as he made his way to the prison gates. These gates opened to reveal a public square, and at its center a scaffold.

In her diary St. Thérèse wrote, “My God, I am quite sure that Thou wilt pardon this unhappy Pranzini. I should still think so if he did not confess his sins or give any sign of sorrow, because I have such confidence in Thy unbounded Mercy; but this is my first sinner, and therefore I beg for just one sign of repentance to reassure me.”  She wanted a sign that Pranzini had repented of his sins.

Again the newspapers wrote, Declining assistance, and feigning bravado, Pranzini started to walk forward to the executioner.  At the foot of the scaffold, however, he began to totter. Turning to the chaplain, Pranzini asked for the crucifix, which he took and kissed. He mounted the scaffold but then broke down. After a pathetic struggle, he was strapped down upon the apparatus. At two minutes past five, the blade of the guillotine was loosed, at first descending slowly, its pace soon quickening.

In her diary St. Thérèse wrote, “The day after his execution I hastily opened the paper… and what did I see? Tears betrayed my emotion; I was obliged to run out of the room. Pranzini had mounted the scaffold without confessing or receiving absolution, but … turned round, seized the crucifix which the priest was offering to him, and kissed Our Lord’s Sacred Wounds three times … I had obtained the sign I asked for, and to me it was especially sweet. Was it not when I saw the Precious Blood flowing from the Wounds of Jesus that the thirst for souls first took possession of me?

“My prayer was granted to the letter.”  Pranzini had repented.

St. Thérèse’s motto was a phrase she had borrowed from St. John of the Cross, “Love is repaid by love alone.”

The next time we’re frustrated or despairing over the many evils in our world and like the prophet Habakkuk we’re tempted to think or to ask ourselves, “What’s God waiting for?”  The answer may be that He’s giving us the time, waiting for us to act and to deepen and to broaden our own vocation to love.

Pax et Bonum,

Fr. Christopher J. Ankley