Welcome to all who are joining us today as we begin the holiest week of our Church year. Next Sunday, when we celebrate Easter, is a day when many people feel a longing to come to Church. I hope all of us will do all that we can to make people feel truly welcome. I want to encourage those of us who come to Mass here regularly to think about people who do not do so. Why not invite them to come to Mass with you next Sunday?
Jesuit Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade died on March 6, 1751 at the age of 76. We don’t know much about his life except that he spent his priestly life in a series of somewhat obscure assignments. One of his assignments was to serve as the spiritual director to a convent of Visitation nuns in France. In that capacity he prepared a series of conferences and wrote a series of letters for the benefit of the Visitation Nuns at that convent. Political events in France over the next seventy-five years or so kept things in a state of upheaval. It wasn’t until a century after Father de Caussade’s death that the nuns living at the convent thought to publish de Caussade’s under the title Abandonment to Divine Providence.
On February 15, 2024, the Maryland Catholic Conference picked six issues for their virtual Catholic Advocacy Day. Last week I summarized three of these items as presented on the Maryland Catholic Conference Website. This week I will present the other three items. But before I do that, I want to give you an update on one of the items mentioned last week.
On February 15, 2024, the Maryland Catholic Conference picked six issues for their virtual Catholic Advocacy Day. I am presenting three of these items today as presented on the Maryland Catholic Conference Website
During February we celebrate Black History month in the United States. In honor of this month-long celebration, I thought that I would make use of some publications from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who developed some resources for responding to the Sin of Racism. Specifically, I want to talk about three U.S. Catholics who responded to Racism with Holiness.
During this Black History Month, I want to present three leaders of African descent who are on their way to sainthood. My source for this material can be located on the website for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (ww.usccb.org). The three individuals we are looking at today have been declared Venerable. This means that they have been declared by a proclamation, approved by the pope, to have lived a life that was “heroic in virtue”—specifically the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
On January 21, 2022, the Vatican released a decree stating that Pope Francis ordered that St. Irenaeus of Lyon be given the title “doctor of unity.” Pope Francis stated that the life and teaching of Saint Irenaeus served as a “spiritual and theological bridge between Eastern and Western Christians.” St. Irenaeus is actually the second Doctor of the Church named by Pope Francis. St. Gregory of Narek whom Pope Francis proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 2015 was the first. With the addition of St. Irenaeus to this list, the number of Doctors of the Church is now thirty-seven. Thirty-three are men and four are women.
I want to continue listing some advice on parish etiquette, which I think is a good thing to do at the beginning of the year. These reflections were first presented by Barbara Budde in a pamphlet (which is no longer in print) for the National Pastoral Life Center. Today I want to make some suggestions about our children at Mass.
I want to continue listing some good advice on parish etiquette as we are at the beginning of a New Year. These reflections were first presented by Barbara Budde in a pamphlet (which is no longer in print) for the National Pastoral Life Center. Today I want to make some suggestions about what to do if Mass has already begun or if you need to leave early.
As we begin a new year, I thought that I would devote the next several columns to the topic of parish etiquette at Mass. Barbara Budde, Director of Social Concerns for the Diocese of Austin, Texas, wrote a pamphlet on this topic for the National Pastoral Life Center several years ago. When the National Pastoral Life Center closed in 2009, I contacted Ms Budde to ask if I could use material that she had written in that pamphlet on occasions such as this. With her blessing I am sharing some of her thoughts on the topic of parish etiquette. Today I shall spend the rest of this column talking about some general remarks about cultivating good parish etiquette.
This is a continuation of my column from last week in which I am presenting the Christmas message of Pope Francis to the city of Rome and to the world. (The text is from the Vatican website.)
I have been really struck by the words of the Holy Father in his “Urbi et Orbi” message on Christmas Day. “Urbi et Orbi” is a Latin phrase that means “to the City [of Rome] and to the World. The phrase refers to a papal address and apostolic blessing given on certain solemn occasions (such as Christmas).
I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. I thought that it was wonderful to see so many people attend the Masses on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. After all the Christmas Masses were concluded, I was pleased to have Christmas dinner with my Stehle cousins who live in DC. Today we are celebrating the Feast of the Holy Family--which is celebrated on the Sunday between Christmas and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. I was surprised to find out that the devotion to the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph developed rather recently—in the seventeenth century. Built on the Gospel accounts, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are looked upon as an excellent domestic unit representing the ideal family life. To promote family life and build up devotion to the Holy Family, a feast of the Holy Family was established for the Universal Church in 1921.
In my column today I want to print what is probably the most reprinted editorial in any newspaper in the English language. This has become a Christmas custom for me. I am happy to do it again this year. Enjoy!
A few weeks ago, we listened to the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the bridegroom. Five of them foolishly did not bring oil with them for their lamps. That lesson from that Gospel can be applied today as well. Be patient. Plan ahead because delays can happen. One of the ways we should prepare would be with end-of-life decisions. Several years ago, the Roman Catholic Bishops of Maryland issued a pastoral letter “Comfort and Consolation,” which is well worth reading. I have copies of this pastoral letter available for those who wish to have one. Please feel free to ask me for a copy.
On Sunday, November 12, the Gospel passage that was proclaimed was Matthew 25:1-13. The end of the passage had these sobering word: “Therefore, stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” November is a month when we remember the faithful departed and a time of year when we are reminded that one day we will die. Benjamin Franklin once quipped, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” I thought that it would be good today in light of this to quote from a statement issued several years ago by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Maryland: “Comfort and Consolation Q & A: Questions to Consider Now and at the Hour of Our Death.” Today I want to quote from the preface of that important document.
Isaac Hecker (1819-1888) was born to a family of German immigrants in New York City. When he was five, his father deserted the family. Because of the financial crisis this caused the family, his two older brothers left school and became apprenticed bakers. Young Isaac joined them in the family business. As a young man he had a mystical experience. This led him on a spiritual journey from the Methodist Church to Unitarianism, Mormonism, the Transcendentalist Community at Brook Farm, and finally to Catholicism at the age of twenty-five. This was a very countercultural move on his part as anti-Catholicism in America was at an all-time high. Shortly after becoming a Catholic, he felt a call to the priesthood and entered the Redemptorist Fathers. Isaac Hecker believed that Catholicism and Americanism were complimentary. If the Catholic Church could free itself from its European appearances, he thought, it could fulfill its ultimate mission: the conversion of America to Catholicism.
On March 11, the church celebrated the memorial of St. Martin of Tours (316?-397). Two parishes in the Archdiocese of Washington are named after him: St. Martin’s on North Capitol Street N.W. in Washington, D.C. and St. Martin’s in Gaithersburg. St. Martin was born of pagan parents in modern-day Hungary. His father was in the Roman army and at fifteen Martin followed in the footsteps of his father by joining the army. He became a catechumen a short time later and was baptized when he was eighteen. When he was twenty-three, he refused a bounty from the emperor Julian and said at the time, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ, and it is not lawful for me to fight.” For a while he was imprisoned but eventually discharged and went to be a disciple of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
Eusebio Kino was born in the principality of Trent in 1645. When he was twenty, he entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) hoping to become a missionary in Asia. Instead, he was sent to New Spain where he was assigned to what was considered “the outskirts of Christendom”—an area comprising present day Sonoma in Mexico and southern Arizona. During the next twenty-four years he covered on horseback or on foot this very large territory, which was approximately twenty thousand square miles.