SUNDAY REFLECTION: December 17, 2006

May the peace of Jesus Christ be with you this morning.

"What should we do?" The question put before John the Baptist by those he called to repentance is a question that men and women have been asking for centuries. According to Luke’s recollection, John cited the tax collector and the soldier. To the one he said just be honest, do the job you were called to fulfill. To the other he said don’t use your position to gain for yourself.

For the last several weeks, during the hours I have spent with many of you in the adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, particularly in the early morning hours when silence is strong, I have joined the chorus of centuries asking the Son of God the same question. The books I have been reading and the psalms and other scripture readings from the Breviary and the Mass have brought me to question. "What should I do for you, for this parish, for the Archdiocese of Washington and for any who seek to know the Lord in a more intimate way than is the current practice."

Quite frankly, let me tell you this: quiet and prayer before the Lord in the quiet of early morning hours is dangerous. Surely not because of any threat to my well-being but because freed from the ordinary distractions of the day I find it difficult not to listen to God’s voice in my heart.

So what does a Pastor say to God in quiet and what does he think God is saying in return? Well, let me go back to the question: What should I do for our parish?

From the notes that I write during those times of prayer these are the thoughts that seem to have come through loud and clear to me. I heard the words of John ... prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare the way of the Lord. What could this mean?

I felt my heart being tugged ... tugged away from the usual responses that I would have made to the question of what I should do. What I experience one morning was the genuine pain of several conversations with parishioners and non-parishioners who believe they have been hurt by the institutional church, some bishops, some pastors and some fellow Catholics.

What I realized is this: there is a large number of Catholics in our Washington DC community who are alienated from the Church over such issues as homosexuality, Catholics caught in invalid marriages, the role of women in our Church, adults now dealing with childhood abuse by priests. These are major issues. These are the hot button issues of our times. And there are more. All of this in hearts where enmity or indifference has pushed out love, affection and friendship.

Then the "what should we do" question seemed to explode. These are people of God. These area men and women who deep within their hearts and souls feel driven not from God but from their Church. And who is there, where is there in our Archdiocese a genuine reaching out to welcome them? These are men and women who were created by the same God that made me, the same God that made you. And where are they? Why are they not coming to our churches?

For me the answer to the question put before John for myself, and hopefully our parish, is that we have to be what Jesus was to people who seemed to be different. He was welcoming. He dined with those the official religion of his time deemed to be sinners.

As we come nearer to the birth of Jesus Christ, I honestly feel that we, as parishioners have to ask the question "What are to do to live out our baptismal promises?" I know this much for myself. These final days of preparing for the Lord will be a time of examination of my heart. I will be searching my soul to determine what I should do to bring those who are hurt, those who are alienated back to our Church, back to the Church that Jesus Christ gave to all of us. We are, all of us, sinners, are we not? Doesn’t it seem, then, that we have much to share with one another. We all rely on God’s graces, God’s gifts as the power that will allow us to be the source for all the alienated of the same goodness that God showers on us.

Let me close with these words of Zephaniah: The Lord is in your midst, ... in your midst is a mighty savior.... he will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love." If I believe these words, then I know that reaching out to others is what Jesus calls me and all of us to do. As St. Paul writes: Your kindness should be known to all.

DAILY REFLECION: for Saturday, December 16, 2006

Elijah is one of the prophets who had extremely strong "decisive moments" in his lifetime. Sirach's words might bring to mind the decisive moments in your lifetime. For some it is marriage, for others ordination or solemn profession. Then there are the days when a loved one dies, there is the loss of a job, an unwed daughter tells that she is pregnant, a son says the he knows he is gay. These are decisive moments in our lives. Any one of these events surely forces us to confront reality as never before. We cannot walk away without trying to decide how our lives are changed in one of those "decisive moments." The day my mother died was one of those moments: in just a few words "Mom just died" suddenly, along with my siblings, I was now an orphan. Mom and Dad were together again. We were without them. This brought all the Jordan siblings to confront the question: "What is God doing in our lives?"

During these days of Advent as we make ready for the re-celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, it is a time for us to look at what God is doing with us in our lives. Each time we have "moments" that are significant, we might be able to say that have experienced "a day of the Lord."

So, with on thea day we begin the nine days (novena) prior to the birthday of Jesus Christ, we have a time to look more intensely at our own days, our own moments with the Lord. Do you know what He has been trying to get through to you in those moments? It pays well to quietly look at those moments ... even days, weeks, months or years later. If we learn how to discern those moments, and can act on those moments we guarantee peace and happiness.

DAILY REFLECTION: December 14, 2006

Today the Church puts before us another announcer of God's presence among. Not John the Baptist but the saint known as John of the Cross. Why that name? This man who felt so connected to God, realizing who he himself was and what it was that God wanted him to do with and in his life, came to see that the light of God shines out to us in so many ways. In the cross, in suffering, John saw and avenue to encounter the love of God. His message was that the love of God for us strips away whatever human failures there might be in us so that God can love us all the more. What this 16th century Carmelite teaches us is that having the love of God within our hearts and being aware of that love is what really matters in our world, in our lives. As we prepare to celebrate the redemptive gift of Jesus Christ and his birth into our world, is not this feast yet another invitation from God to us? An invitation to reconnect to the intention God has for us in our own creation, our own lives. In A Course in Miracles you will find this thought: I am perfect and whole as I was created. If you give some thought to this sentence, you might begin to sense how wonderful is the world we live in, how marvelous are the people in our communities we live and work in regardless of the difference of opinons we carry. Isn't the running around that we believe we have to do during these pre-Christmas days little nothing but a part of our mind and heart trying to separate us from our connection to the creative God who made us perfect and whole as he intended us to be? Isn't all that running around simply allowing distractions to divide us for being in the presence of the God who made us, separating us from something of the divine that is within us because we are created by the divine God? St. John of the Cross would see the running around as our avoiding the love of God, blocking the love of God from stripping away that which really hinders my relationshiop with the God who made me perfect and whole. Let this feast day, let this saint be an announcer to you: be connected, be in alignment with God's intention for you. Be what he wanted you to be.

DAILY REFLECTION: December 13, 2006

Obviously from a dramatization about the life of St. Lucy, the young lady "sports" a crown of candles. This is how St. Lucy is sometimes depicted. The reason for the candles: Lucy's name means "light." Her life was for many a life seemingly wasted because she would not bend from her promise of virginity to Christ. When she refused to allow her body to be violated by some of the soldiers during the later days of the Christian persecutions, she was murdered. The example of her fidelity was considered a light to all Christians.

For us today, we may not be called up to be a light through martyrdom, nonetheless we are lights to others especially during the pre-Christmas days. Today, at Grand Oaks, the assisted living residence associated with Sibley Hospital, I was reminded of the many ways we can be lights to others. Our young third and fourth graders prepared little Christmas stockings for the men and women who come to the weekly Mass celebrated there. How many times during this season are we invited to be a light? Quite a few, I believe.

St. Lucy enlighten our hearts and minds through your intercession for us that, like yourself, we might be faithful to our baptismal vows and that, like Jesus, we might be a light to others, bringing them the love and care that God has enabled us to bring.

Many who attended Georgetown University or made a retreat at the Loyola Retreat House in Southern Maryland may recognize the priest pictured here. Fr. J. Donald Freeze, a native of Baltimore, died on Sunday. I am posting the obituary prepare by the Maryland Province of the Jesuits.

Maryland) Rev. James Donald Freeze, SJ, 74, died on Sunday, December 10, 2006, at Manresa Hall, Merion Station, Pa. He was a Jesuit for 56 years and a priest for 43 years.
Father Freeze was born in Baltimore, Md., on September 15, 1932. Following graduation from Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Md., he entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues, Wernersville, Pa. on July 30, 1950. After taking his First Vows on July 31, 1952, he pursued junior college studies at Wernersville, Pa., from 1952 to 1954 and then was sent to pursue a master’s degree in philosophy at Weston College, Weston, Mass. from 1954 to 1957.
From 1957 to 1960, Father Freeze taught Latin and French at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School, Philadelphia, Pa. After three years teaching, he studied theology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria from 1960 to 1964 and was ordained at Innsbruck in Holy Trinity Church by Bishop Paul Rusch on July 25, 1963. Father Freeze has a special year of spiritual enrichment at Maison la Columbiere, Paray-le-Monial, France from 1964 to 1965 and made his Final Profession in the Society of Jesus at Wheeling College, Wheeling, WV. on February 2, 1968.
Father Freeze began his priestly ministry at Wheeling College, where he taught metaphysics and psychology (1965 to 1969) and was chairman of the Philosophy Department while pursuing graduate studies in philosophy at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pa. (1969-1970). Residing in the Jesuit Community at Georgetown University, Father Freeze spent his sabbatical year (1970-1971) preparing his dissertation in philosophy at Duquesne University. He remained at Georgetown University until 1991, where he served as assistant academic dean (1971-1974), assistant executive vice-president for academic affairs (1974-1991) and executive vice president for academic affairs and provost of the university (1979-1991). He then became director of the Georgetown University Program in Florence, Italy until 1992.
On his return to the United States, Father Freeze was appointed superior and director of the Loyola Retreat House in Faulkner, Md. (1992-1997) and then assigned treasurer of the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus (1997-2002) and superior of the Colombiere Jesuit Community, Baltimore, Md. (1999 to 2002). Following a sabbatical year at Old St. Joseph’s Church, Philadelphia, Pa., where he also served as vocation promoter, Father Freeze, due to failing health, was transferred to Manresa Hall, Merion Station, Pa. in 2003, where he died.
Considered a visionary administrator, Father Freeze served on numerous councils, boards and committees, especially during his time at Georgetown University. He was committed to excellence and to always seeking how things could be improved.
Leo O’Donovan, SJ, former Georgetown president who worked closely with Father Freeze, said he was admired by students, faculty and colleagues on the campus.
“Among the many achievements in Don's life, surely his outstanding service as Executive Vice President of the Main Campus at Georgetown University hold a special place,” says Father O’Donovan. “For many years under Tim Healy and then most generously during my own first years at the university, Don was a model of efficiency, dedication and generosity. He worked long, hard, happy hours and was contagiously enthusiastic about everything he did. Beautiful stories can also be told about his love for Villa Le Balze in Florence, where he spent an immensely well-deserved sabbatical after leaving the university.”

Saints of God, come to his aid!
Hasten to meet him angels of the Lord!
Receive his soul and present him to God the Most High.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon him.
May he rest in peace. Amen.

DAILY REFLECTION: Guadalupe

Today Mexico celebrates --- this is their feast day. We hear about it often. Do you know the story? It makes the day more meaningful. The year is 1531. An Indian, Juan Diego, was making his way to Saturday devotions in a nearby town. He nears a hill, Tepeyac Hill. He hears his name being called: "Juanito, Juan Dieguito." He climbed the hill. It was the virgin Mary. "Go to the Bishop of Mexico and make known what I greatly desire." She had told him: a church on this place. Juan met with Bishop Juan de Zumarraga, a Franciscan. "Come another time, and I will listen at leisure." A first failure to "hear." So Juan returned to Tepeyac and met the Lady again. He told her he could not convince the Bishop. Mary should ask someone more intelligent to meet the Bishop.

Mary asked him to go again, the next day, Sunday, and tell the Bishop that "I, the every virgin holy Mary, Mother of God, am the one who personally sent you." Episcopal disbelief continued, asking Juan to come back with a "sign." A second failure to trust Mary's message.

The next day, Monday: Juan did not go to Tepeyac. Word came Monday evening that an uncle, Juan Bernardino, was seriously ill and had asked Juan to go to Mexico City to bring a priest to hear his confession.

Tuesday morning: Juan heads to Mexico City, going around the other side of the Tepeyac Hill. He did not want to be detained by the Heavenly Lady. But like all mothers, she was there to meet him. Mary reaffirmed her care and concern for Juan. Furthermore, she told him "Do not let your uncle's illness distress you. It is certain that he has already been cured." She directed him to the top of Tepeyac Hill where he would find a variety of flowers. He was to cut some and bring them to her. You can imagine that this was one maternal chore that was not ignored but done swiftly. At the top, despite the seasonal frosts that had ruined flowers, many Castilian roses were abloom. Juan cut a collection of roses, placed them in his tilma (mantle) and brought them to Mary. She told him to take the flowers to the Bishop. These would be the sign that the Franciscan sought.

Juan went to the Bishop and presented the roses with an account of what had happened. As he opened the tilma, the roses fell to the ground and immediately an image of Mary appeared on the material ... just as it is today in the shrine of Tepeyac. Obviously the Bishop listened.

Empress of the Americas!

Ready for tomorrow's major Mexican feast ... Our Lady of Guadalupe ... or the Empress of the Americas ... as she is called in Mexico? Check out my friend's good article ... in Whispers in the Loggia.

Turkey: The Pope's Visit

Father Raymond J. deSouza reprinted a very interesting article that appeared at the time of the recent papal visit to Turkey. I am reproducing the article here because it may help us understand further the complicated world that seems so far away from us.

Originally Published in the National Post on Thursday, November 30, 2006Pope Benedict XVI planned his visit to Turkey as an ecumenical Christian encounter with Patriarch Bartholomew I, the titular head of Orthodoxy. The inflamed reaction to his Regensburg lecture in September turned the trip into an encounter with the world of Islam. And there is a third dimension – the encounter of religious faith with the aggressive secularism of the Turkish state.
The primary purpose of the trip is the least remarkable. Like Pope Paul VI in 1967 and John Paul II in 1979, Benedict visits the Patriarch of Constantinople to work toward Christian unity. John Paul sincerely believed that unity between Catholics and Orthodox was imminent; that turned out not to be case, but relations between Rome and Constantinople are so warm that such visits, once historic, are now routine.Anything but routine is the Islamic dimension of the trip. Tuesday, the Pope’s first day in Turkey, was devoted to the Turkish state and the question of Islam. Benedict reversed his earlier opposition to Turkey entering the European Union, granting a (weak) endorsement. The irony is that it is unlikely that Turkey will join the EU anytime soon. Despite all protestations to the contrary, after the bombings in Madrid and London, violence in the Netherlands and frequent rioting in France, there is little enthusiasm in Europe for including 70 million poor Muslims in the EU. That may not be fair to the Turks, but nevertheless it is widely expected that any timetable for joining will soon be set aside.As for the encounter between Christianity and Islam, Benedict reiterated the main point he made in Regensburg, namely that violence in the name of religion can never be justified. Yesterday he mentioned by name Andrea Santoro, the Catholic priest killed in Trabzon, Turkey, by an Islamist terrorist during the Danish cartoon crisis last February. His many words of esteem for Muslims likely made more clear the argument he advanced at Regensburg – namely that all believers, Christian or Muslim, need recourse to reason to purify faith of the corruption that can lead to violence. It is an argument that should be welcome in Turkey, where Muslims themselves have suffered Islamist violence.Surely one of the most curious meetings in the modern history of the papacy took place Tuesday, when Benedict met with Ali Bardakoglu, president of the state-run religious affairs department. Dr. Bardakoglu, a government official speaking on behalf of Islam in an officially secular state, instructed the Pope on the virtues of Islam, and further admonished him not to waste time in discussing the “theology of religions.” Ignoring the incongruity of the state religious bureaucracy instructing religious leaders to stay out of religious questions, Benedict gently insisted upon “freedom of religion, institutionally guaranteed and effectively respected in practice, both for individuals and communities.”Such broad religious liberty the Turkish state does not offer, as it pursues a rigid secularism that limits both Islamic and Christian activities.Bartholomew himself faces limitations upon his ministry, and the Pope’s visit is in part an act of solidarity with a fellow Christian pastor under duress. Benedict’s argument is that not only is religious freedom a human right, but that suppression of religion altogether can only pose a long-term problem for the development of Turkish society. Anti-religious ideas and policies often produce a reactionary religious extremism. Turkish politics is dealing precisely with such potential problems today.Today, Benedict will visit the great Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. For over 1,000 years, the great Byzantine Church of Holy Wisdom stood as the seat of the Christendom’s second city – Constantinople. Even today, Bartholomew’s official title is Archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome. Constantinople was a great Christian city until the Ottoman conquest of 1453, at which time the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque – an act equal to the conversion of St. Peter’s in Rome or St. Paul’s in London to a mosque. Then in 1935, in an act of cultural violence against a millennium and a half of history, the Turkish state secularized the Hagia Sophia, turning it into a museum. Pope Paul VI prayed on his knees in the Hagia Sophia in 1967, causing discomfort to his secular hosts. John Paul refrained from any act of worship in 1979.When I visited the Hagia Sophia some years ago, I of course prayed – a small, and likely unnoticed act of defiance against state-enforced secularism in a place devoted for 1,600 years to the worship of God. Benedict will likely not do so today, lest he inflame the perpetually flammable, but he will carefully make the argument that bad religious ideas cannot be answered by anti-religious ideas; bad religious ideas must be answered by good religious ideas.Turkey today is wresting with great questions of cultural identity, brought to the surface by the European question, and the role of religion, as explicitly Islamic parties demand a greater role in Turkish public life. The vagaries of history have also entrusted to Turkish custody the second great city of Christendom, and the enduring, tiny Christian communities that keep that reality alive. All of this belongs to Turkey’s noble history, argues Benedict, and cannot be addressed justly without acknowledging the rich cultural patrimony of the Turks, marked by both Christianity and Islam.It’s an argument that needs to be heard, and strangely enough, it is an argument that perhaps can be made more explicitly by Benedict than others. That is the service he intends his Turkish trip to provide.

A Catholic's View on Yoga: Georgetown Grad

Reading through the Catholic World News, I discovered an interesting article from the Orlando, Florida newpaper. The article features an interview with a prominent young Catholic man, graduate of Georgetown and Harvard, who became a yoga student while studying "just up the road" from our parish. The gentleman, Richard Galentino, is the director of Catholic Volunteers of Florida, has even written a book about how he was able to incorporate the rosary into his yoga! If you care to read the interesting article, the website is http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/lifestyle/orl-galentino06dec11,0,6042323.story?coll=orl-home-lifestyle Enjoy the read! The picture is enlarged a little, causing some distortion, but allowing you to see the title of Galentino's book.

EXCOMMUNICATION: Call to Action, Nebraska

We do not hear too often about an excommunication. Well, recently the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, apparently speaking on behalf of the Holy See, has confirmed an American Bishop's decision to excommunicate members of the dissident group Call to Action.

The group, according to Cardinal Re, is "causing damage to the Church of Christ. This group and its membership were, in March, 1996, excommunicated by Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska. He took the action because he described the group as "totally incompatible with the Catholic faith." In a recent letter to the Bishop, Cardinal Re indicated that the findings of the Holy See were that the actions taken were "properly taken." The Cardinal indicated that the views of the groups were unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint. The Cardinal wrote: "Thus to be a member of this Association or to support it, is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic faith."

Perhaps a response now could be, "Let the healing begin," in the Diocese of Lincoln where the excommunication is in force ... but in no other place at this time.

From its website, Call to Action's mission statement includes the following phrase which, no doubt, caused great concern for the Ordinary in Lincoln as well as the authorities in Rome. "An independent national organization of over 25,000 people and 53 local chapters, CTA believes that the Spirit of God is at work in the whole Church, not just in appointed leaders."

The Nebraska Chapter published an official document on December 8, 2006. It stated that the Chapter would appeal the decision to the Holy See. Among the efforts of the Chapter, according to the press release, are advocating for women's rights in the Church, allowing young girls to be altar servers, and working to assist children who are victims of abuse.

Again, "Let the healing begin, folks and Church authorities."