Genesis 7:11

"...on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth."

Naaman: tough guy, but great skin!

One night, when I was young, my friends and I decided to go to play Bingo at a local Byzantine church. We had nothing to do (and were still under 21, so Atlantic City was out), we figured it'd be fun.

So there we were. In a church hall. Cigarette smoke hanging like a haze in the air. If you've ever been to Bingo (or worked a Bingo as part of a deal to lower your child's Catholic school tuition), you know the rest of the story:

• Upon walking into the room, we lowered the average age of the hall by 15 years.
• We only played like 2 cards each. "Specials? What the heck are specials? You mean they're not included in the price?"
• We sat in seats that "belonged" to other people. Not that they were there. Not that their names were on the chairs. Not that there was any "Reserved" signs on the tables that we ignored. We were "shoo-ed" away from the first three tables we wanted to sit at, because the same people put their same butts in those same chairs for years.
• We didn't have the proper Bingo equipment: some sort of craft show produced carry-all. A collection of pictures of children and grandchildren (heck, they could have just been the pictures that come with a new wallet, for all we knew). Nor did we have Bingo chips to mark the cards.
• We made noise. Evidently you're not supposed to talk to each other during Bingo. To think, we could have gone to the library on a Friday night.
• We didn't join in the attacks on the Bingo caller: "You're calling the numbers too fast, too slow, with too much of an accent, with food in your mouth, etc.
• AND THEN THE WORST OFFENSE POSSIBLE: one of us actually won. We acted like he just hit the game winning home run in game 7 of the World Series, high five-ing each other. But then we saw the looks, the stares, the glares. We're not supposed to win. We just showed up tonight. We only played 2 cards. We didn't have the chachkis that invoke the bingo-gods from on high. In short: we were OUTSIDERS who got something.

Understand that, and you get Jesus bringing up Naaman the Syrian in today's Gospel. They thought God needed them more than they needed God, and Jesus let 'em have it, to the point that they wanted to kill him.

Today's First Reading tells the story of Naaman that Jesus alludes to in the Gospel, the story that everyone in that Synagogue in Nazareth knows. Naaman was a non-Jew and the commander of the King of Aram's army, and a leper. Eventually Elisha the prophet will cure him, and there's some interesting lessons we learn from it:

1. The God of Israel cures a Gentile. God has power over everyone.
2. Naaman brought loads of treasure, presuming a cure would have a price to it. How many people treat God as if He is a commodity they can "buy" (or "rent") as needed?
3. Naaman doesn't have to renounce his former faith before God cures him. Nor does he have to go through a catechumenate before getting cured. Nor does he need a "sponsor certificate".
4. Naaman only finds out about this by a seemingly coincidental chain of events: Naaman's wife's servant girl starts the ball rolling. But then the King of Israel thinks this is just a set-up to provoke a fight between the nations, and his lamenting is what gets Elisha's attention. Naaman then bounces from the King to Elisha. Sometimes the craziest quests bring us the greatest victories.
5. Naaman's retinue goes from a royal palace to Elisha's simple front door. Sometimes the thing we're looking for can be found in the place we least expect to find it.
6. Elisha doesn't talk directly to Naaman. Nor does he see him, touch him, or say magic words. Remember, the prophet is only God's mouthpiece. It's God that is curing Naaman.
7. Naaman is offended that Elisha won't come out to see him, and is ready to go home. If Naaman's servants weren't there to convince him to bathe in the Jordan, he'd still be a leper. How many people don't go to Confession because they don't think God can forgive them?
8. God doesn't just remove the leprosy and restore his skin to what it was: the skin of a middle aged man. His skin is restored above and beyond, to that of a baby. No need to buy Clinique for Naaman on his birthday! When God gives, He gives in abundance.

Three more weeks until Holy Week begins. Get clean in Confession!

*WTF?

Caught this headline scrolling on the bottom of one of the cable news channels, while at the gym this morning:

"Shorter skirts better for the economy"

*WTF = What's This Fashion? - what did you think I meant?

a hypothetical

OK, this one goes out the the Priests:

Today is, on the calendar, the first Friday of the month of March.

On the liturgical calendar, it is Friday of the Second Week of Lent.

According to the rules, one must celebrate the Lenten weekday (which takes precedence over any celebration of a Votive Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart, which is an option during Ordinary Time).

Are ya' with me so far?

On First Fridays (theoretically in honor of the First Friday devotion), myself and the Deacons of the parish make Communion calls to homebound parishioners.

But, if there is no First Friday liturgical devotion today, could a pastor, hypothetically, intentionally NOT make Communion calls?

[I know, I know: "But, Father, these people wait for you each week".]

I know what the answer is on the emotional level. I'm asking on the catechetical level. Could this be a "teaching moment" in a penitential season, to show that Lent is different from the rest of the year? Is asking the homebound to make a "Spiritual Communion" as a Lenten sacrifice "over the top"?

For those who have not had a Priest come to your home to bring Holy Communion to a loved one who is either sick or unable to get to Mass, realize that they days seem to be long gone when the house would have a reverential silence from the time the Priest entered the door with the pyx containing Our Lord. Gone are the days of someone in the family meeting you at the door with a lit candle, and a table laid out with a white cloth and candles and a crucifix.

So, anyway, all you clergy out there, ponder my question and let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, I'm off to do my Communion Calls.

Whoops!

From this morning's Gospel:

"There was a ... man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen"

Always a great exercise in self-awareness at 8am as I'm standing in the sanctuary dressed in a linen alb and a purple chasuble. Too bad he ends up dead and in Hell.

2nd Sunday of Lent

Church of the Transfiguration, Israel

Friday night

The view tonight just before Stations and Adoration. Myself and my two Deacons rotate who presides; it's nice to be able to just sit in a pew and pray.

Madagascar

From today's bulletin of the Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 26 FEB 2010 (VIS) - The Holy Father:- Erected the new ecclesiastical province of Toamasina, Madagascar, raising the current diocese of Toamasina to the status of metropolitan church and assigning it the suffragan dioceses of Ambatondrazaka, Moramanga and Fenoarivo-Atsinana.

Hmmmm, Madagascar? new province? Anyone want to be a bishop? I know four guys.

Mount Media

In response to someone who asked about where they can get the Abp. Dolan talks, here is a LINK to a website for a guy who records all the retreats. He also has some fine photos of the Mount, the grotto, and the Emmitsburg area.

Ode to the Church

In my trips to the gym, lately I've been listening to talks given by Abp. Dolan at a retreat he gave at Mount St. Mary's Seminary back in 2008. In the talk I listened to this morning, he read a poem by the Italian poet Carlo Carretto, entitled, "Ode to the Church":

Now much I criticize you, my church,

and yet how much I love you!

You have made my suffer more than anyone

and yet I owe more to you than to anyone.

I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal

and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.

Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised,

more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure,

more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face -

and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you,

even if not completely you.

Then too - where would I go? To build another church?

But I could not build one without the same defects,

for they are my defects.

And again, if I were to build another church,

it would be my church, not Christ's church.

No, I am old enough, I know better.

Lent: Day 7

It's been a bit quiet here when it comes to blog entries. I mean, here we are at the start of Lent; you'd think I would have profound things to say?

So Ash Wednesday (for Priests, "Dirty Thumb Day") came and went, and so the Lenten season has begun. Like most other people, I began with great resolutions: spiritual, person, professional.

How's it been going for me? Nothing so stellar, yet.

But that's the thing with Lent: You can always start again. Lots of people make resolutions that, if they fall, have no intention of going back to it. Sort of a "Zero Tolerance Policy". Lent's not the Olympics: it's not about in what place you finish; it's about the fact that you finish.

Some things have already made me nuts (and these come from south of my locale - across the boundary line in another diocese, lest I be accused of "ratting out" my own diocesan brethren).

I hear a neighboring parish regularly has a Lenten parish penance service at which they give general absolution, and that many Catholics (amongst my parishioners) flock there to avoid individual confessions.

Some parishioners were telling me about a repast they attended after a funeral this past Friday (a Friday of Lent). They encountered a Deacon who was proudly consuming some chicken. When they asked him if a dispensation allowed them to eat meat on a Lenten Friday, this clergyman told them he could do it because he was "over the age" when he didn't have to follow the rules of abstaining from meat, and (checking them out) so could they. Someone needs to tell the Deacon that Canon Law says that being older than 59 can get you out of Lenten fasting, but that's all it gets you. Abstinence from meat, in Canon Law, is something for every Catholic 14 years and above. How long has he thought this way? How many people watched him eat meat and presumed, if a Deacon is doing it, they can do it as well? Would you accept your doctor or lawyer not knowing the rules? I don't know if he doesn't know the rules, or if he knows the rules and chose not to follow them. But either way, not good.

On another front: new bishops for Scranton and Ogdensburg today. I went to seminary with a few Ogdensburg guys, and the Scranton diocese borders part of my own diocese. God bless and sustain both bishops-elect.

That's all for now.

Ash Wednesday, from a Priest's perspective

A pretty decent analogy. Just substitute ashes for bullets or words like "ammunition".

1 Cor 9:25

In a story related to the recent announcement about baseball player Grant Desme's pursuit of the Priestly studies, Yahoo sports has a STORY about Sr. Catherine of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, formerly olympic speedskater Kirstin Holum, and her journey from the life of a world-class athlete to religious life.

Video of Dominican Sisters on Oprah

Click here for all four segments from the recent Oprah Winfrey show in which she interviewed religious from the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. It was phenomenally positive.

Video of Dominican Sisters on Oprah

Snow in Rome

Anyone who has visited any of Rome's ristorantes, trattorias, osterias, or pizzerias, has seen it: the obligatory picture on the wall of the eatery after one of the rare snowstorms that occur in Rome. The other day one of those such "photo op" snowfalls took place, and Rome Reports has a story about it.

B16 today

From today's Ad Limina address to the Bishops of Scotland:

"Hand in hand with a proper appreciation of the priest’s role is a correct understanding of the specific vocation of the laity. Sometimes a tendency to confuse lay apostolate with lay ministry has led to an inward-looking concept of their ecclesial role. Yet the Second Vatican Council’s vision is that wherever the lay faithful live out their baptismal vocation – in the family, at home, at work – they are actively participating in the Church’s mission to sanctify the world. A renewed focus on lay apostolate will help to clarify the roles of clergy and laity and so give a strong impetus to the task of evangelizing society."

In the end, it's not what we do, but who we are.

WARNING - *P.O.D. pics to follow

* P.O.D. = "Piously Over-Devotional"

Today I spent part of my day off up in Newark, visiting St. Lucy's Church on 7th Street (in the shadow of the Cathedral Basilica), a gem of the Archdiocese as well as the State, in my humble opinion. When I was in the seminary, I learned the "POD" term as something used by enlightened liturgists who wrote articles about how "worship spaces" that were filled with such cluttering distractions were not really conducive to worship in a post Vatican II community. The great church historian, Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, used to say something like, "There are no new heresies in the Church; just old ones with new names." The movement in the 70s and 80s to make Catholic churches look like Quaker meeting halls was simply the iconoclast controversy with new window dressing.

Here are some pics I took which show a very POD church. If loving this is so wrong, then I don't wanna be right.

God love you, Blase, but...

... I can't get figure out what the attraction is to this very simple sacramental. I mean, there are your "regulars", and them being there I can understand. But add to the mix the Catholics (albeit bad ones) who don't think they have to go to Mass each Sunday, or go to Confession on a regular basis. Is it superstition? Should we capitalize on people wanting a blessing on certain feast days all year round (just imagine what we would bless on St. Agatha's feast day)?

Here in my little corner of the Lord's vineyard, I blessed throats three times today: once at the daily Mass at 8am, then when CCD was about to end at 5pm (a Liturgy of the Word service), and then for the commuter crowd coming home at 7pm (again a Liturgy of the Word). Morning Mass was more full than usual. The 5pm service had about 75 people (of which 40 were CCD students), and there were about 25 at the 7pm service. Not bad.

PS - poor St. Ansgar. Same feast day. Rarely celebrated.

"Cast your nets [for a 3 pointer]"

This is Bishop John Barres of Allentown conducting a basketball clinic, I'm assuming, during Catholic Schools Week. Talk about creative "Thinking outside the box"!