Something new

I received an invitation the other day.  It came in the form of an email which was inviting me to consider allowing my name to stand for the position of Honorary Director of the Human Family in Christ. 

My thoughts immediately flashed back to the years spent in Seminary formation.  The Human Family in Christ is a registered charity in Canada which was started by Father Andrew Cuschieri, a Maltese priest who at the time was teaching at the Seminary.  During his travels to Bolivia a number of years previously, he had learned of the plight of the majority of the under-privileged who could not access basic necessities such as medical care and education.

Using his own funds, he began sponsoring the building of a school for the people of Colcapirhua, located just West of the city of Cochabamba and South-East of La Paz.  Spreading the word on his own to friends here in Canada, and with the help of some of the seminarians who lived with him in Sacrborough, the work of the Human Family in Christ began.

While he continued to fulfill his duties in the Archdiocese of Toronto, Father Cuschieri managed to send enough funds to Bolivia for the building of the Hospital Andrew Cuschieri and for the school.  Subsequently, an endowment was created in Canada to provide ongoing funds for the work of and for the poor of Colcapirhua, and today there is also a Catholic Sponsorship programme which provides the opportunity for people with means to make a difference in the lives of some of the poor of Bolivia.

When I called my friend to inquire about the requirements of the position of Honorary Director, he told me that it was a position of recognition for work which has been done over the years for the Society.  As it tuns out, I acted as the treasurer for this Society for a number of years while I was resident at the seminary and therefore was able to learn of its existence and the good work that is still going on.  Father Cuschieri completed his earthly journey a number of years ago, but is surely rejoicing in heaven to know that his simple act of generosity and love for the people of Bolivia continues to bear such fruit.

Pentecost: the gift of the Spirit

Receive the gift

This weekend in our parish, nineteen children will receive the gift of the Eucharist for the very first time.  Over the past few weeks, the children (you) have learned that when we receive this gift, it is Jesus himself that is given to us.  There will be (is) great excitement on these children’s faces.  Their parents and families will all be (are all) here to witness this great day of rejoicing.  After the Mass is complete, there will be celebrations of various kinds to mark this occasion.  Yet, I can’t help thinking that each time we receive the Eucharist, even though we may understand what it is, there’s still a part of us that, like the disciples, doesn’t quite grasp the full depth of this gift.

• Listen to this homily

The gospel today tells of another such moment, when Jesus greeted his friends with the familiar words: Peace be with you.  They didn’t respond as we might respond today: And with your spirit.  In fact, perhaps they had no verbal response at all to such a greeting on that day.  Even today, if we’re really thinking about what happens at the Mass, we too have no words to respond adequately to the great gift of love that God gives in the Eucharist.

Perhaps because the disciples said nothing in response to his greeting, it was Jesus who continued the conversation that day of Pentecost in the Upper Room.  Receive the Holy Spirit he said, and those who were present and who wrote about the experience later said that they didn’t quite understand what happened next.  To their human eyes, there were strange sounds like the rush of a violent wind … Divided tongues as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  Even though they had been told ahead of time that the Spirit would come to them, I think that they were surprised when that moment arrived.

Afterwards, they went out into the community and told others about their experience.  Perhaps they were speaking in their native tongues, but it appears that others who were there also heard their words in other languages.  The readings for Pentecost are often used for the Sacrament of Confirmation, but we’re not going to witness that sacrament here today.  Instead, we celebrate with children who receive the gift of the Eucharist, food for our journey.  This is their (your) FIRST communion, but there will be countless other opportunities to receive this gift again.  Each time, Jesus gives us special food to strengthen us in faith so that we can share the variety of gifts and talents that are ours with Him, with this community of believers, and with others who need us to be living witnesses of compassion, mercy and forgiveness today.

Congratulations to all our children.  Celebrate this day the special gift of God’s love that you receive.  Cherish it, for it Is a gift of great value.  Ponder its significance in your life, for in the Eucharist, God gives us his very self so that he can live in us, strengthen us and enliven us.  Dare to use the gift of love that is given to you today so that you too can tell others about how God is present in your life.  That’s what the disciples have done for generations: In the one Spirit we were all baptised … and we all drink of the one Spirit who was given to the disciples on that first day of Pentecost when Jesus breathed a breath of life into them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.

The journey's over

I heard about it on Monday evening but the details were not made public until Tuesday morning.  After almost 95 years of life spent here on earth, Juliette Plouffe, the mother of Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe has finally completed her journey Home.

I had the pleasure to meet Mme Plouffe a few times during her visits with her son, however that was many years ago now.  In her latter years she was confined by various physical limitations, all of which have lost their control over her now.

May she rejoice now with the angels, reunited with her beloved husband, and awaiting the day when we will see her once again.  May her family, left to mourn, be comforted by the love of our God, and strengthened by the presence of all those who surround them with care and concern.

For the Ascension

Proclaim the good news

The readings we have heard today place us at the end of Jesus’ time among the disciples.  Following his death on the cross, he had appeared to them on numerous occasions and reassured them that what he had said about rising from the dead had indeed come to pass.  Finally, he had to leave them and ascend to the Father.  Before doing this though, he told the disciples to go into all the world and proclaim the good news.

• Listen to this homily

Throughout the generations since that day, the disciples have continued to fulfill this command.  As a result, the Church that we know today: a people of hope, a tradition of faith, and souls committed to loving as he has loved us, continue to flourish throughout our world.  If you’re like me, you might be tempted to think that this was some kind of magical process; that the disciples left the upper room and marched into the streets and new disciples just fell in line behind them.  Not so.

The truth of the matter is that disciples don’t grow on trees.  They don’t just appear and join the band.  Human beings are naturally skeptical.  We have far too many questions about the unknown for such things to happen automatically, and Jesus knows the fickle nature of our hearts.  That’s why he told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem right away.  Even though they may have been zealous to proclaim the good news, Jesus knew that they needed to wait.  Perhaps that’s the hardest thing for someone who is chomping at the bit to get a job done: to have to wait, but Jesus knew that Pentecost had to come before the disciples would be fully prepared for their mission.  Only then would the Spirit within them give them the courage to speak their truth in its fullness.

In time, the disciples did go out to the whole world to proclaim the good news.  We see evidence of this in the second reading today.  After his encounter with the believers at Ephesus, Paul wrote of his prayer for them, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.  The work of making disciples starts with the telling of our own story, the story of our own conversion, our own coming to believe.  This is a story of good news: the news of our own realizations that God is with us at every moment of our lives, from the moment of our birth, to the moment of our natural death, and even beyond the grave, as we are then rewarded with the gift of life in all its fullness.

As we come to believe this good news, there are a number of others who accompany us through life, who gather with us in the community of believers, who support us with their prayer and example.  There are also some milestones to mark our progress.  We call these milestones Sacraments.  The journey begins with Baptism, but is also strengthened with the grace of Reconciliation and fed with the Eucharist.  Through the grace of Matrimony, some are called to live in union with their spouses as signs of God’s commitment to us, and the Sacrament of Orders allows others of us to respond to a loving call to nourish the community as it comes to believe the good news.

Each one of us seeks to discover this good news in our lives.  Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we gather to tell our story, to learn from the Scripture and to encounter the Risen Lord Jesus.  In the gathered assembly, and in the quiet of private prayer, Jesus imparts a spirit of wisdom and revelation to those who come to believe.  As witnesses of this truth, we then go out into the whole world to proclaim the good news.

Truths that must be spoken

There's a message that's been circulating for the past year or so.  Some purport it to be the opening address of a newly-arrived principal, but in truth it turns out to be an example of trepenwitz: perfect words for a given event which are never really delivered.  In truth, the message was penned by an American radio talk-show host by the name of Dennis Prager.  Regardless, the wisdom of this passage (altered as it is for more local audiences) is worth reading:

A speech every High School principal should give

I am your new principal, and honoured to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in Canada have worked against you, against your teachers, against your parents, and against our country. Therefore:

First, this school will no longer honour race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow, or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian, or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower, leaky SE Asian refugee ships, or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is Canadian. This is a Canadian public school, and Canadian public schools were created to make better Canadians.

If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial, religious identity through your school, you will have to go to another one. We will end all ethnicity - race - and non-Canadian-nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of Canada.Everyone is equal, coast to coast.

And this school will be guided by Canadian values. That includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes gender, race, language, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness. Your clubs will be based on interests and passions -- not blood, ethnic, tribal, racial or other physically defined ties. Those clubs just cultivate narcissism -- an unhealthy preoccupation with the self -- while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So, we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, sport, debating, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, math, carpentry, and many many more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in, are those based on ethnic or racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you, and that means you don't belong in this school.

Second, I am not interested in whether or not English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united Canadian citizens for more than 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English-language skills, your teachers and I will have been remiss in our duty to ensure that you are prepared to compete successfully in the Canadian employment market. You will learn other languages here -- it is deplorable that most Canadians only speak English. But if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not the school for you.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavour, everything in this school will reflect learning's elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for a meal at a nice restaurant than they do for church or school. Those people have their priorities backwards. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school's property -- whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can't speak without using the "F-word," you can't speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission plus epithets such as the "N-word," even when used by one black student to address another, or "bitch," even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few of your age to distinguish instinctively between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene, the educated and the non-educated.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programmes. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way -- the way people attain it will be by earning it from their fellow students and teachers. One immediate consequence of this is that there will be only one class valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school programme toward academics, scholarship, and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom-wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only, or primarily a health issue. There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual, or not Christian. We will have failed, if any one of you graduates from this school does not consider himself or herself inordinately lucky -- lucky to be alive, lucky to be well educated, and lucky to be a Canadian.

Now, please stand and join me in singing, O' CANADA to the only flag in Canada.

The road to London

Over the past few weeks and months, I've been hearing people make reference to what I shall call 'apparitions'.  The subject of these happenings is my cousin Priscilla who has been preparing arduously for the upcoming London Olympics.  Just recently, the Road to London series has aired a segment featuring this very talented young woman, one of the hopes Canada is (we trust) sending to the Games, and certainly the one with what must be among the largest of family fan bases.

We are so proud of you!

Freedom

This morning's edition of the National Post newspaper listed an article on the front page that caught my attention.  The subject of this article was the recently published Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religion, authored by the Permanent Council of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As it turns out, I was at a meeting today where the subject of freedom of conscience was bantered about, specifically in light of the fact that the world in which we live today seems to be less and less open to such freedom, and chooses rather to effectively persecute those of us who profess such beliefs.

Then, this evening, I discovered the following video clip, put together some years ago.



It is, I believe, by no mere coincidence that all these events, discussions and pieces of wisdom have crossed my path, all in the same 24-hour period.