The Heart of the Matter

Catholic School Teacher: What a Vocation!

Tomorrow (Friday, February 1st) we celebrate the teachers in our Catholic schools at an appreciation banquet.  It's a big banquet for all the teachers in all of the Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Denver.  At this annual event the teachers marking special anniversaries in their careers as Catholic school teachers are celebrated in a special way.  We have 5 teachers who deserve our acclamations and praise:

1. Anna-Marie Berger is celebrating 25 years as our school librarian as well as being a teacher of various subjects.  Kudos to you Mrs. Berger and thank you for giving our children a desire to read. 
2. Susan Zimmer, our middle school mathematics teacher, celebrates 20 years.  Thank you, Mrs. Zimmer for helping hundreds and hundreds of children excel in math.  And thank you for taking extra time with gifted students to help them stretch and achieve way beyond their grade level.
3. Susan Weinzapfel celebrates 20 years as a middle school teacher of religion and social sciences.  Our graduates point to Mrs. Weinzapfel as the one who helped them know more about their faith than anyone else they've run into.
4. Patrice Wilmot, our school's art teacher, marks 10 years as a Catholic school teacher.  That's ten years of helping expand our students perceptions of what they can do with ordinary materials and express themselves artistically.
5. And Janet Montgomery, one of our first grade teachers, celebrates 5 years of teaching in a Catholic school - our school!  A very gentle soul who loves to give our young ones a very big love for a life long learning process.

Congratulations to these 5 teachers and all of our other teachers as well.  What a wonderful vocation they have, of being able to help their students grow academically and in these very important aspects of a good education: character formation and faith development.

The most noble human act is joy

"The most noble human act is joy," so saith St. Thomas Aquinas.  I've also heard, but I know not from where, that "joy is the surest sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit."  What is joy?  Is it a giddy happiness more typified by a passing moment that is truly exhilarating?  Is it not more a state one abides in?  Is it not coming home from a day's work and delighting in life, even with its ups and downs?  Is not joy the relishing of the people in your life, even if they are at times difficult, burdensome and occasions for learning the virtue of patience?  Is not joy connected to faith, hope and love? 

Joy for me is living here in Boulder, Colorado, serving my parishioners whom God has given me.  Joy is seeing some progress in coming to see more clearly the areas of my life where I need the Savior to save me from being my worst self, which every now and then blossoms into some ugly plant, instead of the garden of virtues the Lord ever so gently moves us towards. 

Joy for me is being here for people as they come out of nowhere with the burden of their sins, or sufferings or complex situations, and being some small reflection of love and encouragement and challenge to walk in the presence of the Lord.  Joy for me is the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments.  Joy is finding a way to cope with a life's worth of physical pain so that my joy is not cheated.  Joy is . . . well, simply being grateful to God -- for everything.

Your death is not all about you

One of our wonderful ministers of care to the sick called and asked that I go to the hospital because the man she visited was talking about suicide.  He has had cancer for the last year and a half and is tired of being sick.  So, I went to see him, and as we got into conversation he asked, "What is wrong with suicide?"  He has three children from late teenage to early thirties, so I asked him what impact his suicide would have on them.  He's divorced and his children haven't lived with him until his 17 year old recently came to live with him to "take care of" him. 

I said, "What an act of love that is!"  And so we talked about his need to realize that his son is doing something wonderful for him, but kids that age also need something, like a relationship with Dad.

The more we talked, the more I understood that this man, after baptism, was never reared in the practice of the Catholic faith.  (No wonder he did not have hope.)  The extent of his faith was to believe there there must be a "Higher Power," and he didn't believe in heaven or hell.  So, I said, "What if you're wrong?  What if you die and meet the Lord?  Then you will see the impact your suicidal death would have on all those who know you and love you?  Suicide tends to be contagious, you know, like a mental giving of permission to give up, lose hope, and cave in to despair.  If you're right about there not being a heaven or hell, then who will know if you are right?  But if you are wrong, you'll be meeting a God of love, who will show you yourself through His eyes, eyes of love, but eyes that are not clouded by self-defense, or masks or pretensions.  And that adjustment to seeing our lives as they really have been is what we call purgatory, adjusting to how often we missed the mark.  So don't miss the mark with this 17 year old son of yours who wants to be with you, care for you, and be inspired by you.  Don't give him bad example at the end of your life.  Your upcoming death is not all about you." 

Even though he did not know what "sacraments" are, and God knows what else about our faith he does not know, he did allow me to give him the anointing of the sick.  And if I ever needed proof of the power of the sacraments, his being given the Sacrament of the Sick was a truly moving experience for him.   

Homily for Catholic Schools Week

Parishes that have parochial schools almost always have a sense of division within the parish.  On the one side, there is a segment of the parish population for whom the school isn’t on their radar screen, either because no one in their family is going to the school, or because they don’t see the need for a parish school, or because they send their children to public schools or charter schools or private schools.

Then on the other side, there is another segment made up of people who are highly invested in the school and think everything in the parish should revolve around the school.  This segment is made up of parents or grandparents whose kids or grandkids are in the school. 

In our parish, however, there is actually a great deal of support for our school from families that never had, or no longer have, children in our parish school. We found that out when we went through our parish survey a year and a half ago. So, in that context we listen well to the words of St. Paul: I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.

We are entering into a new era in our parish.  We spent some years developing a Master Plan, we took a serious look at whether or not we could measure up to the tasks before us; and we decided to recommit ourselves to each other and to the Lord and to this site in Boulder.  That’s why we entered upon our effort to re-register everyone in the parish. 

We are presently 836 families, with more registrations still coming in.  And we will by God’s grace become more and more “united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”

So, what exactly is our purpose?  Why do we exist here?  What is the purpose of our school and our parish?  I’ll put it in your own words.  When we went through our parish survey project 18 months ago, one respondent after another said that it is very, very important to the people of our parish that we be a vibrant presence of the Catholic Church in Boulder.  That, then, is our purpose: to be a vibrant presence of the Catholic Church in Boulder.

As a Catholic Church, with a Catholic school, what do we have to offer?  What we offer to each other and to anyone who is open, is: God!  In fact, our parish motto could be the question: Got God?  Come and take another look at our parish, and at our school.

Here is where we find membership in a worldwide communion of people who know Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.  Here is where we are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ in the most intimate union with our God in Holy Communion, an intimate union not to be found in other kinds of worship.  Here is where our sins are forgiven.  Here is where marriages are made sacred.  Here is where our hope for the future is stoked into flame.  Here is where the future lies open for us, even through death into eternity itself.

And in a Catholic school, in our Catholic school, we can talk about God and His great love for us and for all of humanity.  We can talk about God - and how He gives us a dignity that no one can take away from us.  We can talk about his plan for our future where we not only excel in academics and other skills, we can drive home the imperative to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty and clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger, and take care of the sick and visit the imprisoned.  Here in our school, we can encourage each other to grow in grace, as well as in our intellectual capacity.  Here we can encourage each other to live up to our abilities and to our high calling as baptized members of the Body of Christ, called to transform the world into a more just society.

Got God?  Let that be the rallying call for all of us.  People are starving for what we have: God!  They just don’t know that God is to be found here at 14^th and Mapleton.  Let’s not keep it a secret!  Let’s tell everyone we know: come and take another look! Take another look at our school.  And take another look at our parish!

First Confessions: what a trip!

Last night we had First Confessions of our second graders who are also preparing for their First Holy Communion, which will take place after Easter.  There were six of us priests hearing the confessions of these second graders, and their parents as well.  Parents who have prepared their youngsters for this sacrament know that at 7 years of age the conscience begins to kick in.  It's actually quite moving to hear of second graders' repentance for doing something they know was wrong. 

In this era of so many adults going to see therapists to discuss the deep dark secrets of their lives, a brighter light should shine on the value of the Sacrament of Penance, also known as Reconciliation and Confession.   Just think, in the 10 steps of an alcoholic's recovery according to "the Big Book" of A. A., steps 4 and 5 involve telling another person the destructive things that one has done and then making amends for them.  This is where the blame game stops. 

If that's true with addictions, it's even more true with coming to realize that making sinful choices is where we limit our freedom.  Anyone who has taken advantage of this sacrament in a purposeful manner knows the freedom that comes from confessing our sins to a priest who stands in for the Lord and absolves us. And, making a firm purpose of amendment to avoid the near occasions of sin, the grace of this sacrament enables us to experience a whole new start on life.  We stop blaming our parents, our boss, our church and God, and we take ownership over our lives by admiting our guilt, and then, newly forgiven, we become free from carrying around the burden of the bad choices we made.

Why don't more people take advantage of the Sacrament of Penance?

Accepting what you cannot change: a key to happiness

I had a funeral today for an 89 year old lady whom I did not know until I gave her Last Rites last week.  She had suffered a life's worth of tragedy.  When she was 8 years old, a child threw a lit cigarette at her back.  Her taffeta dress erupted into flames; and instead of smothering the flames, water was used to put out the fire.  This made the burn even worse than the original burn because the result was that her back and internal organs were cooked.  To eliminate the possibility of her being made fun of, she was kept home.  She never learned how to read or write; she never dated and never married. 

If this had happened to you, do you think you might have become embittered?  Or self-pitying?  Instead of becoming bitter, she accepted what she could not change and became a loving, favorite aunt in her very large extended family and became known as the one who could be counted on to care for the little children in the family.  As her eulogist, a nephew, said in his eulogy, "She was dealt lemons in life, and she turned them into lemonade."

Imagine the joy God is having as He welcomes her into Paradise where there will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more scars, no more crying out in pain.  Imagine what joy God has whenever He gives the reward of Eternal Life to anyone who has suffered from the actions of others.  Oh, the joy in heaven tonight! 

"Debate" is better than "hate"

Is there any topic more guaranteed to raise a ruckus than the topic of abortion?  Perhaps there is such venom over this topic because the citizens of our country never had a say in what should be done on this most thorny matter.  It was the courts, not elected people, who got us going down this path that has left our nation divided, even to the point of hating people of opposing views.  Judicial fiat allows neither faith nor reason their proper voice.

Well, an exciting new page in engaging faith and reason took place here in Boulder last Friday evening.  In anticipation of yesterday's anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, at an auditorium on the C.U. campus, a debate was held between Boston College professor Dr. Peter Kreeft and Colorado University professor Dr. David Boonin, each defending their opposing views on the ethics of abortion. 

If you'd like to read about this debate click here.  This event was sponsored by the Thomas Aquinas Institute for Catholic Thought, part of the effort of our neighboring parish, the university parish here in Boulder, affectionately called "St. Thom's" by Boulderites.  The pastor is Father Kevin Augustyn who is engaging academia and the world of faith.  Kudos to him and the Institute.

A Martin Luther King, Jr. Salute

I'm about a day late, but this video is a treat:

Some things that need to be avoided at all costs

Last summer while I was sitting on my front porch I met a lady who was deeply troubled.  The word that came to my mind was "possessed."  Today I was visited by the very same lady who told me what happened to her since we met last summer.  She is now very well, and the priest I had encouraged her to go see was very helpful to her.  Without going into the details, I can say the following:

Be aware that there are certain doorways to danger that should be avoided at all costs.  These doorways allow evil spirits into one's soul and can create havoc that can be avoided.  How?  By steering clear of such things as: Seances, Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards, Fortune Tellers, and the like.

Do you remember the story in the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament about King Saul going to see the witch of Endor, asking her to conjure up the dead prophet Samuel?  It's one of the saddest stories of the Old Testament.  But the very fact that the witch of Endor was able to conjure up Samuel tells us that there are things we should not get into.  It wound up being the death of Saul.  So, steer clear of these kinds of things; and if you have gotten into any of them go to confession.

Homily for Sunday, January 20, 2008

I wonder if we are aware of the pivotal time we are living through, a time of competing ideologies in a mighty battle that is coming to a head.

            For 300 years the world has been battling between 2 seemingly different world views.  On the one side is the conviction that truth is determined by what is verifiable, what can be demonstrated to be true.  This is the realm of reason: rationally thinking through issues and problems to find solutions and discovering new insights through the power of scientific study.  Thanks to this kind of reasoned thinking, the world, particularly the West, has experienced a tremendous increase of progress and development that now all the world seems to desire.

            The other world view is the conviction that there are deeper truths that cannot be arrived at by scientific study.  These truths are derived from the faculty of faith, a faith that knows that even though some things can be done, they ought not be done, the kind of faith that makes a husband be faithful to his wife; faith that is a matter of the heart, with the ability to know a truth that defies the kind of verification our reason would look for.  This is the kind of faith that produces the of wisdom that would give someone, or a whole people, the capacity to suffer with others or for others, to suffer for the sake of truth and justice, to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves.

            Sometimes this battle has been described as a battle between science and religion, but that is only the tip of the iceberg, and seeing it that way is a badly formed understanding of the problem that has been taking 300 years to process.

            The real issue is happiness.  What is the cause of our happiness?  In the reason-focused world-view the way of framing the answer is “progress;” while in the faith-focused world-view the way of framing the answer is “salvation.” 

            All of this is coming to a head in our lifetime.  Extremists on the one side are rejecting the insights of the extremists of the other side.  And now, because the two differing ways of looking at reality have been pushed to the extreme, we have a war.  If reason will not heed the call of faith to know that there is more to truth than what can be verified by the scientific method, and if faith rejects the progress brought about by rational thought, then neither faith nor reason will win the day.  Instead it will be war. 

            You and I, as Catholics, belong to a Church that knows we need both faith and reason.  We know that faith by itself produces fundamentalism and intolerance.  And reason by itself shuts out profound wisdom on how to be truly human.

            This tension is held in the biblical notion that in the Messiah both justice and peace shall kiss.  When God, speaking through Isaiah, foretold that in the days of the Messiah “salvation may reach to the ends of the earth,” God was giving us the hope that there will be peace between religious faith and human progress.

            As we progress, as we learn more and more about the cosmos and the new possibilities science is bringing us to, and as we develop ever new means of technology and communication, we are still called to realize that happiness, in this life and in the next, comes from knowing that we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, and that we are called to be holy.  Only holiness will bring us happiness.  Only holiness will lead us to know how to use the newest and latest advancements of progress in our time.

            When John the Baptist said: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” he called us to realize that our happiness, our salvation, our progress as human beings requires that we come to the point of realizing:

·         That we can really, terribly mess up our own lives and the lives of the people in our lives,

·         That we can by our own selfish choices spoil the environment and consume the world’s resources for our own selfish pleasure,

·         and that we need a savior who can free us from these tendencies to spoil our own lives and maybe even the life of our planet.  “Lamb of God, … have mercy on us, grant us peace.”