Feast Day: June 30^th 

Some saints live simple lives growing in prayer or charity; some head off on extraordinary adventures or endure unthinkable challenges to remain faithful to Christ, and some of them simply boggle our minds. Introducing Ramon, or Raymond, Llull.

We start in Mallorca, a little Island then part of the Kingdom of Catalon, sort of halfway between Barcelona, Spain and Algiers, Algeria (actually, that’s not a bad cultural description as well: the island was a crazy mix of Christian and Muslim culture and population). Our man Ramon is  married, with two kids, but is living the life of a troubadour and aspiring poet, singing ballads about love and chivalry instead of living those virtues by being faithful and helpful to his wife. You get the picture: crazy outfits, fancy banquets, wild imagination, tremendous intelligence, flighty, goofy, carefree, empty… 

And then one evening before going to bed while crafting another piece of love poetry, he was carried into a vision of Christ crucified. He saw the suffering, the love, the blood, the gift that Christ gave us all on that afternoon outside of Jerusalem. And then he saw the vision again, and again, and again, and again. Five times he found himself at Golgotha, each time absorbing more deeply than he ever had before, the reality of the crucifixion and the realness of Christ. And as he returned to the waning sunshine and poetic musings of Mallorca, he knew his life could not continue down that same road.

He was 31 years old in the Year of Our Lord 1263 when he committed his life entirely to bringing others to Christ. He sold his possessions, went on the Camino de Santiago, and then began a decade long effort to learn Arabic, and all that he could of the philosophy and tenants of Islam. His goal was to bring them to the Catholic faith, and his prodigious mind was not content with the usual logical arguments or typical appeals to scripture or spirituality. He wanted a system that brought all those things together – poetry, mysticism, philosophy, common sense, saints and stories and symbols – something accessible to sovereign or simpleton. 

Once more it was a divine inspiration that changed everything. He was, as typical of those years, living a hermitical life up on Piug de Randa and had a second vision. All those years of study, all those different languages, all his time in meditation were somehow synthesized and he came away not just with clarity for the continued mission of his life but also a glimpse of the glorious truth of God and how that is available to every single human mind. 

I will start with the missionary efforts because they’re far easier to describe: He began traveling to European Universities and meeting with Popes and Kings to try and establish language schools that would equip missionaries to head into Muslim lands carrying the Gospel. He went himself to Tunis, preached to the Saracens, got himself captured and imprisoned and sent back, only to do so again and again. He wrote books to educate children, and novels to depict the Christian life in story, and mystical works describing the life of prayer and how prayer could win far more souls than any amount of military might. 

But in his mind all these things were threads of a bigger, more glorious, God-grounded tapestry. Again and again over those same years he tried to put into writing the “art”, as he called it that connected all his efforts, but really all truth itself together … and like every other mystic, he struggled to put it into words. He would start with attributes everyone can agree are supreme – goodness, eternity, wisdom, etc. – and would drill into these characteristics, showing that each branched in three directions, or dimensions. The Trinity, the Christian understanding of God, was discoverable in every most fundamental idea!  He would lecture so excitedly on this point: you could begin talking with someone at any of these various points that the human mind naturally approaches, and the truth itself would beautifully grow towards the Triune God. He constructed mechanisms that you could turn to any conceptual starting point and which would link truth to truth to truth pointing the way to God.

He may have been martyred on one of his expeditions to the Muslim world. At the very least, he would be beatified for his conversion and holiness and zeal, not for his philosophical and evangelical creativity. 

BUT, here’s the twist. Llull’s system of summarizing concepts with symbols and then allowing logical and mathematical tools to link and manipulate them is the precursor to how computers communicate and process information today. AND, his concept that all the different realms of human knowledge are interconnected, consistent, and accessible – that all truth is related, and you can approach it from any branch of the whole tree – is the underlying principal behind all those LLM (“Large Language Model”) AI systems making waves these days. 

The difference: his thinking was always directed at discovering God. 

– Fr. Dominic 

Last week, I shared with you the Mission Statement of our diocese, as articulated by our Fourth Diocesan Synod held in 2017.  As a parish in the diocese, and not just any parish, but the Cathedral Parish, I made the case for seeing that mission as our mission as well.  With that I mind, I have decided to include this Mission Statement on the inside cover of our bulletin moving forward.  I would like to spend the next several weeks unpacking this Mission Statement, so that we have some clarity on what we are all about.  If you look to your left in the bulletin (if you are reading the print edition), please re-read the Mission Statement as we begin our reflection today.

Let me start with reflection on the first word: mission.  According to Father John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary, mission is defined as follows: “The term literally denotes ‘sending’ and covers a variety of meanings, all somehow expressing the idea of a going forth from one person to others in order to effect some beneficial change in their favor.”

As I mentioned in my previous article, it makes sense for the mission of our parish to be

in alignment with that of the diocese.  And since the diocese is one part of the larger body of the Church, it is important to ensure that our mission is in alignment with that of the Universal Church.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers a good section on the mission of the Church in paragraphs 811-870.  But the Catechism sums up the mission with these words: “The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in their Spirit of love.” (CCC 850)

Communion with the Blessed Trinity is the purpose of the mission, and everything that the Church teaches and does is in service of that communion.  Through prayer and the sacraments, we draw closer to God, which commits us to a life of charity toward our brothers and sisters.  When he does pastor installations throughout the diocese, Bishop Paprocki always likes to quote the words of Pope St. John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, “On entering the New Millennium.”  The Holy Father wrote: “all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness.” (n. 30)  This is another way of summarizing the mission of the Church, and thus our diocese and our parish.  Everything that we do should, in some way, be set in relation to holiness, which is nothing more than sharing the life of communion with the Trinity.

Mission therefore is not first are foremost about going out and performing works of evangelization and charity, important as those tasks are to the life of the Church.  Our starting point is with God, from whom we draw the grace and strength to then share His love with the world around us, which in turn is at the service of our brothers and sisters seeking to love the Lord more in their lives and to one day become saints.  The mission therefore begins with God and ends with God.  That is a key aspect of mission that we should never forget.

One striking example of this is St. Teresa of Kolkata, better known as Mother Teresa.  The works of charity that she and her sisters have undertaken are heroic in many ways, serving the poorest of the poor.  But she knew that to carry out this demanding work, prayer always had to be their priority.  She demanded that the sisters spent time in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament each morning, then receiving Christ in the Eucharist, before going out.  For it was only by spending time looking open Christ in prayer and receiving Him in their hearts that they would then be able to see Christ in His most distressing disguise in the poor.

By our spending time in prayer before the Lord and receiving Him in the Eucharist, we will better be able to see Christ in every person we encounter, hidden as He may seem, and we will be motivated share in the mission of bringing the love of Christ to them so that we may all one day be united together with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Heaven.

Father Alford  

Feast Day: June 23^rd

Our current culture puts a high value on the go-getter’s, self-starters, the self-made-man. Unfortunately, taken to an extreme, this way of operating runs up against the heart of our faith. Just consider Jesus’ words before His Passion: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” [John 15:5] But we could also look to Jesus’ example: He, God, still called men to follow after Him, called them to do the work of building His Kingdom and preaching the Gospel, and He still depends on His Church to continue that work!

But I suspect each of us could learn the same lesson without even reading the Gospel, by just looking into our own lives. Consider the places where you find yourself struggling. Perhaps it is with some project or responsibility. Perhaps it is in your life of prayer, or finding joy in your vocation. Perhaps it is in the face of a cross, a sickness, a burden, a loss. Just notice something that is currently causing you worry or unease, and I suspect that somewhere underneath that struggle is a sense of loneliness. Maybe we chose in some way to “go it alone”, to try and get through some part of our lives without relying on anyone else or without displaying weakness. But often there is no choice on our part to rely on our own effort or abilities, we just find ourselves trying to figure it out – desperate for help, wishing for a guide, hoping someone would come along a notice that we’re struggling … and support seems far away.

St. Joseph Cafasso, born in 1811 in the same village where St. John Bosco would be born a few years later, would become a support and guide not only for Bosco, but for countless others throughout his ministry as a priest. Bl. Pope Pius IX, chose to canonize St. John Vianney and beatify St. Joseph Cafasso together, placing these two priests side-by-side “one, the parish priest of Ars, as small and humble, poor and simple as he was glorious; and the other, a beautiful, great, complex and rich figure of a priest, the educator and formation teacher of priests, Venerable Joseph Cafasso.” It was a ministry of mentoring, of taking others under his wing, supporting and helping them, a beautiful ministry in an age already facing the alone-ness that has become rampant in ours.

Only four months after his ordination as a priest, in 1833, Fr. Cafasso began to work at the Convitto Ecclesiastico di S. Francesco d’Assisi [College-Residence for Clerics of St Francis of Assisi]. There he taught priests how to be spiritual fathers for their flocks. Perhaps they should have learned that in seminary, but the effects of Napoleon’s rampage through Europe a generation before had left those training-grounds for priests with limited faculty and impoverished formation, and now those priests were facing the continued social turmoil and challenges of a changing world as well as a rampant spirit of Jansenism infecting their people, and often themselves. (What is Jansenism? Combine a strong sense of human depravity with double-predestination as well as moral-rigidity and you’re not far from it.) It was a natural response to a world that was already at that time losing sight of God, rejecting the moral principles that had governed society for centuries, and growing worldliness. But the Church is not called to fight human sinfulness with human effort, and Fr. Cafasso knew it from experience.

He would visit the poorest homes he could find, calling the lice crawling over the walls “living silver and moving riches”. He would make his way to the dankest dungeons and work tirelessly to bring condemned prisoners to confession and the final sacraments before they went to the gallows. And, he spent hours every day in prayer, beginning day with Mass at 4:30, and lovingly teaching his weary brother priests a Christlike gentleness from the wisdom of St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Alphonsus Ligouri. “When we hear confessions, our Lord wants us to be loving and compassionate, to be fatherly towards all who come to us, without reference to who they are or what they have done … If we repel anybody, if any soul is lost through our fault, we shall be held to account—their blood will be upon our hands.” He would be a spiritual director for Don Bosco, and many others – guiding, encouraging, mentoring, fathering each of them, fathering the places in their hearts that were desperate for a father – especially those of his brother priests.

The Heavenly Father was very pleased with him!

– Fr. Dominic finds in St. Joseph Cafasso an exemplar of priestly fatherhood. On the one hand, his example challenges me: I want to support and guide people like him! But then I run smack-dab into the places where I still feel so insufficient, where I know I need help myself …  and then I recall his being the first in the chapel in the morning and last there each night. He needed to be fathered too, and turned constantly to his Heavenly Father for that guidance. But also, he went out of his way to ask others to guide him in his own weaknesses, like the saints mentioned above, as well as his own priests and teachers.

When the National Eucharistic Revival was launched, the plan called for three distinct phases:  1. Year of Diocesan Renewal, 2. Year of Parish Renewal,  and 3. Year of Mission.  Having just two weeks ago celebrated Corpus Christi Sunday, we have embarked on this third phase focusing on Mission.  Key events that will kickstart this year will be the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage (currently taking place) and the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis next month.

Although I do not plan to do an entire year-long series on mission, I do want to take some time reflecting on mission as our country focuses on this final phase of the Eucharistic Revival.  The first question that might be asked is:  What is our mission?  Many churches and organizations go through the process of crafting a mission statement to summarize what they are all about as an organization.  The work of preparing this statement can be a fruitful exercise.  Perhaps you may wonder:  Does the Cathedral have a mission statement?  As a matter of fact, we do!  It was not the fruit, however, of a long period of discernment among parishioners and our pastoral council.  Rather, our mission statement has, in a sense, been handed to us, wrapped up as a nice gift.  What I am talking about is the Mission Statement that was decided on as a result of our Fourth Diocesan Synod in 2017.  Here is what the Synod came up with:

The mission of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in Illinois is to
build a fervent community of intentional and dedicated missionary
disciples of the Risen Lord and steadfast stewards of God’s creation who
seek to become saints. Accordingly, the community of Catholic faithful in
this Diocese is committed to the discipleship and stewardship way of life
as commanded by Christ Our Savior and as revealed by Sacred Scripture
and Tradition. 

(Synod Declaration 1a)

One might read this and think, “That’s the mission statement for the diocese, but what about the Cathedral Parish?”  My response is that it is one and the same.  As a parish in the Diocese of Springfield (incidentally also the mother parish of the diocese) it seems unnecessary to think of our mission as different than what has been given for the entire diocese as our mission.  So I have no problem simply accepting this overarching mission for the diocese as our mission for this parish.  To be sure, how that mission is put into practice will look different in each parish, but I think it is important to be clear on what our starting point is as we move forward.

Therefore, in this Year of Mission, we will be praying about and discerning how the Eucharist will be the “source and summit” of our mission, fueling us with God’s grace to live as His missionary disciples, then returning to the Eucharist each Sunday to give thanks for His many blessings which we offer to Him for the work of building His Kingdom.

As I said, I do not necessarily intend to spend the entire year just on this topic, but it is a theme I would like to give a significant amount of time to in my articles and in our efforts here over the next year.

Now seems to be a fitting time to remind everybody of the invitation that I made a couple of years ago, to pray three Hail Mary’s a day for the following intentions:  the parish, the clergy of the parish, and ourselves individually.  All of us play a role in this mission, so it is good for us to ask Mary’s intercession each day to help all of us in embracing this Year of Mission with faith, hope, and love.

Father Alford