White Thanksgiving

We woke up Thursday morning to a light dusting of snow in the city of Oshkosh.


The two parishes on the East Side celebrated one combined Thanksgiving Day Mass at 9am. My classmate Fr. Andy joined us so we had four priests celebrating and two deacons. We concluded by handing out blessed bread. It was a very beautiful Mass. Afterwards I drove home for the traditional family Thanksgiving feast.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

The other day I heard a homily about the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This is a popular image of Our Lady, and at first glance it looks like any other image of Mary holding the baby Jesus. However, this is image is quite unique. On either side of Mary there are small angels holding the instruments of the crucifixion, the crown of thorns, the lance, and sponge, and the cross. The infant Jesus looks with fear at the angel holding the cross, and clings to his mother. The vision of the cross has apparently frightened the little Savior so badly that he jumped into her arms and one of his sandals is dangling by a single string. Out of the corner of her eye, Mary looks coolly at the angel holding the lance and crown, but she does not do what we would expect a mother to do. She does not hold tightly to her son. In fact, she seems to hold him out, to offer him willingly to whatever God's will is for his life. Her left had looks a little like the left hand of Mary in Michelangelo's Pietá, turned upward towards God.
We like to think that a good mother is one who protects her children from whatever might threaten them in life, but a good mother, like Mary, would never protect her children from God's will. Only by letting ourselves go into God's will are we truly free and truly happy, and only a mother who has let her children go can expect to have them back again in the world to come. A good mother, looking towards the resurrection, urges her children to follow wherever God is calling them, even if it means suffering for them and for their mother.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

New Cardinals in the Church

On Saturday Pope Benedict created 23 new cardinals at a ceremony in St. Peter's. Two of these were from the United States: John Cardinal Foley and Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, who has the distinction of being the first cardinal ever appointed in Texas. The Pope also appointed a few cardinals who were over 80, and therefore are not eligible to elect a Pope but are receiving the nomination as a special honor. The most notable was Patriarch Emanuel III Cardinal Delly, the archbishop of Baghdad and head of the Chaldean Catholics in Iraq. He has seen his people persecuted, threatened, killed, and diminished as they flee to Australia and other places in search of peace. It has been a very difficult few years for Christians in Iraq, and the Pope wanted to acknowledge that church in a special way with this nomination. Of particular interest to me was the appointment of Cardinal Navarette, an old Jesuit and a very respected professor in the area of Canon Law. Normally, those who are named cardinals are also ordained bishops, but he requested a dispensation from that requirement since his nomination is primarily an honor and does not involve any real work of governance in the Church. It was nice to see him smiling in his red cassock, and he even signed my copy of the Code of Canon Law.

Homily for Nov. 25

Long Live Christ the King!
The last Sunday in Ordinary Time celebrates Christ our King. Christ is a king who uses his power and authority to benefit his subjects. He wants to win hearts - let Christ reign in your heart, and he will reign in our city, our nation, our world.

Harry Potter has no Father

If you have read the Harry Potter books you will notice the obvious fact that Harry Potter has no father. Of course Harry was orphaned when the Dark Lord killed his father James. In the course of his adventures, one might expect Harry to meet at least some kind of father figure. However, Joanne Rowling insists on constantly thwarting Harry's desire for a father figure. Take a brief look at the male characters in the book. Dumbledore is a fatherly figure, but in most of the books he is distant or altogether absent. He only steps up to mentor Harry in the sixth book, which ends tragically. And now Rowling says that Dumbledore was gay. As if a heterosexual male cannot be loving and single. I take that personally.

A brief survey of the other male figures reveals the same trend. Harry is thrilled to learn that Sirius is his godfather, but Sirius quickly becomes sullen and withdrawn and ultimately dies. There is the slimy Severus Snape, Hagrid and Mr. Weasley. None is a father to Harry. One might observe that the real male figure in Harry's life is the evil Dark Lord, who scarred him as a baby and now wants him dead. For Rowling, men are distant, unreliable, absent, and tend to disappear or die just when you need them (unless they happen to be evil, in which case you cannot get rid of them). Harry might have been protected from a lot of suffering had some male figure stepped up to protect him.

The same goes for a lot of boys today. The world needs men. I do not mean today's strong, single, butt-kicking serial dater. Any jerk can look out for himself. By "man" I mean someone who uses his strength for others -- a male whose blood, sweat and tears are shed for others. In a word, I mean a Father. The true ideal of manhood is a reliable man, a protective, strong father. I am happy that the priesthood in the Catholic Church is reserved to men. Yes, priests, like any father, sometimes abuse there position. But we are not a fatherless church. We do not live in a fatherless universe. Saints preserve us from a fatherless world.

The world needs men.
Not wimps or pimps,
Not hunks or punks,
Not shirks or jerks,
Men.
Who serve and protect,
Live and give,
Fight and die for another.
Soldier, General,
Priest, Martyr,
Father.

Homily for Nov. 18

TPA33 Jesus stands with Us
Jesus predicts the end of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. But he promises something better - his own presence accompanying every Christian. We can stand up to persecution because Jesus stands with us.

Homily for Nov. 11

TPA32 Eternal Life is Better
A recent experience with a funeral reminds me that all of us will one day be buried. For Christians this is good news -- we are all called to Eternal Life with God himself. Life is good, but Eternal life is Better.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus

Last night I was out in Rome. Fall has begun to settle on the city and once the sun sets at about 5pm the streets take on a somber tone. Even the people who stroll through the city are dressed in blacks and dark blue and seem to match the mood of the season. I was heading to the church of Santa Trinitá di Monte by the Spanish steps. The relics of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, also known as the Little Flower, had come to the church for the evening. They were enclosed in a large case the looked like plexi glass. Inside was a chest, beautifully made of wood with inlays. At first I was disappointed that I could not see the relics, but in the end it only mattered that they were there, a concrete connection with a woman who had lived for Christ.
The church of Santa Trinitá di Monte is home to a French order called the Community of Jerusalem, which sings the morning and evening prayers in beautiful melodies. They hosted an evening prayer vigil, with prayers and songs and a period of adoration. The pews of the baroque style church were full of young people who had come to pray. St. Therese is one of the most popular and inspiring saints in recent times, especially through her spiritual writings which talk of her own "little way "of holiness through living the small challenges of her life with great love for God and for the people around her. I could witness her popularity in the people who had come to pray and ask for the intercession of the saint. Many people brought little candles to set in front of the relics, each one like a small prayer, and their glow lit up the church after the lights were dimmed.. The life of a saint, I think, is like a candle that lights up a dark evening, and shows us the path to follow.

Homily: Nov. 4

TPA31 If you want to see Jesus, Climb a Tree
Zaccheus wanted to see Jesus so badly he was willing to climb a tree. If we want to see Jesus in everyday life, we have to be willing to put some effort in as well.

Venice on the water

I recently visited the marvelous city that the Italians call "La Serenissima," the most serene Venice. It is amazing that the Venetians not only built a city in the lagoons, but built their tiny lagoon into a major trading empire throughout the middle ages and the Renaissance. The city is laid out with open squares and wells, streets and alleys and an abundance of canals that bind the city forever to the sea. The sea, from which this beauty came, seems determined to take her back one day, but then, nothing we make lasts forever, or rather, almost nothing. In honor of La Serenissima, I thought a little poem would be fitting.

O city most serene
Upon the water resting
Formed firm on filmy mud
And sunshine lightly blessing

O city most renowed
Your children once shook nations
Filled boats with silk and woolens
Brought back in kind oblations

O city most sublime
To God a single snowflake
Cut stone trimmed neat as lace
Melting slowly back to lake
Poor pity, bright city, maternal
Beauty of your eyes now fading
Glory of your days so fleeting
But each child born in you, eternal

O city most serene

-Fr. Benjamin