Feast Day: June 24^th | Patronage: Builders, Tailors, Nurses, Firefighters, Printers, Hermits & Godparents; at Baptisms & Conversions; and for those dealing with Storms, Seizures, & Heart-Conditions | Iconography: Bearded with Robe of Camel Hair (indicates prophet); Holding Staff with Cross & Flag, or Lamb, or pointing (all referencing his calling Jesus the Lamb of God), Head on Platter (depicting his martyrdom), Baptizing Jesus in the Jordan with the Spirit descending.

This past Friday, after all of us priests concluded our annual retreat, I drove North to Rochelle for the wedding of one of my cousins. At the reception after the Wedding Mass, I spent much of the evening carrying and dancing with my 1-year-old niece, Lucy. It let my brother and his wife have some time to dance with each other and allowed me to enjoy Lucy’s wonder at the music and bubbles and lights and antics all around her. 

Couples married for decades were gliding around the room just enjoying being close to their spouses. Young people were showing off an endless variety of different dance moves to each other. The littler kids were leaping and laughing and jigging this way and that … and everything struck me as so right and delightful. Children are supposed to just throw themselves around each other and have fun, but young men and young women are at the age to learn what it looks like to dance with each other, with respect and care and the right balance of joy and an attentiveness to each other. Married couples should give devotion and attention to each other, loving and enjoying and engaging their spouse before anyone else.

Now, all of this leaves the priest in a bit of a conundrum as to how he’s supposed to join the dance … (something that I’m still figuring out!) but, this week it leads me to a realization about St. John the Baptist, who found himself in a similar conundrum. 

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”[Matthew 3:13-14, ESVCE]

Jesus comes down to the Jordan river where His own cousin is baptizing. Their paths have diverged quite a bit since they were little kids when they may have rough-housed and schemed and played with each other on occasions when their families were together. John now knows Jesus’ identity in a fuller way, and so, though he was happy to call everyone else to repentance and baptize those who approached him, when his cousin steps forward that simply won’t do. John cannot interact with Jesus with the same abandon that he did when they were both children, and he cannot engage Him like he did every other penitent. There’s a difference and not just in maturity, but he is now called to a different kind of reverence, respect, and obedience to his boyhood friend. 

This isn’t comfortable or automatic! It’s a tricky enough thing to engage with other people and to feel-out how we are meant to interact with them, to hold in mind both who we are, and who they are, and the proper relationship between us. My newly married cousin had to act differently at her wedding than she did a month earlier at another such reception. She was now married to someone; her identity had changed and so must her actions and interactions. Same for me. I am one of the cousins in that group, but I am also a priest, and so I am called to a different kind of interaction with everyone than 10 years ago … or 20 years ago. The “littles” in the room can carry each other around all night long, but it would be improper and unloving for the teenagers to do so. AND, if we are all called (and challenged, and blessed) to constantly learn what love looks like towards the other people around us, we are even more called to learn what love looks like towards Jesus! 

Jesus approaches each of us too, especially in Holy Communion. Do we routinely consider our disposition towards Him? Our posture and love and respect towards Him? If the greatest of the prophets, and his own cousin, John the Baptist, doesn’t dare to touch Jesus’ Body until directly told to do so, what about me?  In the United States, we are uniquely allowed to receive the Eucharist in our hands, but do we take care to touch Jesus as we ought? Or, is our mindset much the same as when we handle anything else? St. Cyril of Jerusalem reminds us all: “When you approach [the Most Holy Eucharist], take care not to do so with your hand stretched out and your fingers open or apart, but rather place your left hand as a throne beneath your right, as befits one who is about to receive the King. Then receive him, taking care that nothing is lost.”

– Fr. Dominic must take to heart these words as well. How easy it is as a priest to become accustomed to touching God!

One of the occupational hazards of being a priest is the tendency to accumulate books.  It is a practice many men develop during their time in seminary, especially when somebody is giving away free books.  We think: “That might come in handy someday.”  And while it is true that many of the books on my shelves have been useful, many of them are passed by each day without my even giving them a thought.

As I was trying to gather some thoughts of this feast day, I pulled a book off my shelf that I had not looked at in several years.  The title of the book is Adoration – Eucharistic Texts and Prayers throughout Church History.  As I thumbed through the book, one of the prayers caught my attention.  It was clear that I had spent time on this page many times as there was a slight bend in the book.  The title of the prayer is “An Act of Adoration and Reparation”, and part of the prayer goes like this:

I adore Thee profoundly, O my Jesus, in Thy sacramental form; I acknowledge Thee to be true God and true Man, and by this act of adoration I intend to atone for the coldness of so many Christians who pass before Thy churches and sometimes before the very Tabernacle in which Thou art pleased to remain at all hours with loving impatience to give Thyself to Thy faithful people, and do not so much as bend the knee before Thee, and who, by their indifference proclaim that they grow weary of this heavenly manna, like the people of Israel in the wilderness.  I offer Thee in reparation for this grievous negligence, the Most Precious Blood which Thou didst shed from Thy five wounds, and especially from Thy sacred side.

As I write these words, I do so from my desk in the Cathedral Rectory, looking out on the traffic that passes along 6^th Street, and I wonder how many thousands of people pass by the front of the Church each day and have no clue that the Lord of all is present here?  How about those who are Catholic and pass by and think nothing of who they are passing as they go down the road?  I say that as one who is likewise guilty of not always being attentive to the presence of Jesus in any Catholic Church I pass.

Even if we do not pause to acknowledge Him, we can be sure that He sees us, that He knows us, and that He longs to let us know how much He loves us.  Every person that passes by, no matter if they are Catholic or not, is an object of His love, for there is not one person He has not willed into existence, and each soul He desires to be with Him for Eternity in Heaven.

To stop and think of how incredibly close Jesus is to us in the Eucharist is almost too much for our minds to comprehend.  But it is the truth!  To humble Himself to come in the form of bread and wine, and to subject Himself to being locked in the Tabernacle, day and night, with the vast majority of His time unheeded by those who pass by.  If that is not love, I don’t know what is.

On this day on which we celebrate Christ’s Real Presence with us in the Eucharist, let us resolve to not just pass Him by.  When we pass any Catholic Church, let us at least make the Sign of the Cross, acknowledging that He is truly present there, looking upon us with love.  And may we even be willing to stop in and spend some time with Him, thanking Him for His presence and love for us.  May it never be said of us that we have become indifferent to His presence among us, especially in the Holy Eucharist.

Feast Day: June 29^th | Peter: Rock, Prince of Apostles, First Pope, Bishop of Rome, Martyr; Paul: Saul, Convert, Apostle to the Gentiles, Teacher, Writer, Martyr| Imagery: Peter: Keys, Rock, Fisherman, Upside-Down Cross, Papal Tiara/Mitre, Rooster, Attired in Gold [symbolizing the divine] and Blue [symbolizing the human]; Paul: Sword [of the Spirit], Scroll or Book [of the missionary], Fire [of Spirit], Quill [of Writer], Broken Chains [of Imprisoned]

“He [Solomon] set up the pillars at the vestibule of the temple. He set up the pillar on the south and called its name Jachin, and he set up the pillar on the north and called its name Boaz. And on the tops of the pillars was lily-work. Thus the work of the pillars was finished.” [1 Kings 7:21-22] 

The Temple of Solomon faced towards the East, thus of these most prominent pillars of the Lord’s Temple, the one entitled “Jachin” was to the right-hand of the altar, and “Boaz” was to the left-hand. Get ready to have your mind blown: “Jachin” literally means “the Lord will establish” [yakîn/יָכִין] whereas “Boaz”, though probably also etymologically recalling strength and stability, is the name of the grandfather of David who married Ruth, one of several pivotal gentiles included in the lineage of Our Lord. To the right is the one grounded, af-firmed, set-up, founded by the Lord; to the left, the one from the gentiles, outside of the ordinary, surprising, yet also chosen by God and essential to His plan.

When Christ constructed His Church, he also chose two pillars, and the same characteristics apply to them: to the right, St. Peter, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” St. Peter, the one established, chosen, dedicated, grounded on Christ. He is the one at the Lord’s right hand, prince of the Apostles, chief of the shepherds, first to enter the empty tomb, first to evangelize, holder of the keys, key-stone of the Church … yet he is also the egotistical Simon who rejects the cross; sinful, arrogant, weak, sleeping, denying, forgetful. The temptation of the one who is chosen and established is to pridefully think they earned it themselves.

On the left is St. Paul, “‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.’” [Acts 26:13-16] This is Saul, persecutor of the Church, the Roman citizen, the outsider, the pharisee, the tent-maker, the inarticulate, afflicted by a thorn in the flesh, the one who got himself on trial, stoned, shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, chief of sinners, least of the apostles … yet this is also St. Paul, he the hand-picked convert, the greatest missionary, first theologian, founder of countless churches, author of much of the New Testament, preacher to the Gentiles, the one who carries the sword of the Word and Spirit of God. 

I would like to invite you to meditate on two scenes today, the first is one that St. Paul describes in Galatians 2: “But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” [Galatians 2:11-14] Here the two pillars, right and left, established and outsider, fall to their respective weaknesses, their vices, their particular faults. Consider where within yourself you can fall into self-reliance and pride, and where you fall into shaming and accusation. Neither are from the Lord, but they are the temptations, respectively, of the “insider” and the “outsider”, and we all have our own places/situations where we can fall to those faults ourselves.

But there is another scene with these two Apostles beloved by the Church that I invite you to contemplate: Peter, in the impoverished Jewish quarter of Rome, and Paul, brought to the Eternal City in chains, are both sentenced to death because they are proclaiming Christ.  On the way to Peter accepting the cross, and Paul kneeling before the sword, they embraced!  The insider and the outsider, the right pillar and the left pillar, the rock and the radical, he who carries the keys and he who carries the sword; apostle to apostle, brother to brother; both chosen by Christ, both dedicated to Christ, both united in Christ. Here, at the end, the best of these two apostles’ calls, characters, and charisms, have been completely united in Christ, and the Church will rest upon them down through all its ages.

– Fr. Dominic often gets frustrated with different parts of his personality, perceived weaknesses, faults, etc. What he often forgets to do is to bring those things to Christ, letting the Lord purify and unite those different parts of myself into something holy, good, and necessary for His particular call for me. The Lord is working on that in all of us, and in all of His Church.

I recently read an article where the author (Elizabeth Scalia) recounted a conversation that she had with a fellow Catholic.  Her friend was a very active Catholic, one who certainly believed in the Real Presence of the Eucharist.  But when the topic of Eucharistic Adoration came up, her friend dismissed the practice.

Here is how she describes it:

Eucharistic Adoration he dismissed as well, calling it a leftover from medieval times, when reception at Mass was deeply limited, and Adoration and “Spiritual Communions” were the best most Catholics could hope for. He declared the modern-day practice of Adoration to be both irrelevant and unnecessary, and added that Jesus “doesn’t need it.”

Later in the article, Scalia offers a very powerful reflection in response to her friend’s objection to adoration, writing:

My friend’s argument against the need for Eucharistic Adoration seemed very earthbound to me, grounded in a worldly considerations of history and utilitarianism—“Christ doesn’t need it.”  Well, maybe not, but he asked for it—“Could you not keep watch with me one hour?” (Matt 26:40)—which suggests that on some level he wants our quiet companionship.

My fear is that when we hear about the practice of holding a 40 Hours Devotion, we can get caught in a sort of utilitarian thinking.  You hear me inviting you to sign up for an hour and you may think my purpose is to ensure that we have all our slots filled, as though we have some sort of quota to fill.  We need all the slots full because I do not want Jesus left alone, with nobody to adore Him while He is exposed in the monstrance on the altar.  Does He need adorers for those slots?  No, but He wants them.

If we speak about need when it comes to Eucharistic Adoration, it is not really at all about what Jesus needs or what the parish needs.  It is each of us who are in need.  We need to spend time with Jesus.  We need to be in His presence, to let ourselves be still enough to let Him gaze upon us with His unconditional love for us.  

As you read this, you might be thinking of how many other things you could be doing during those hours, precious hours which on the weekend are opportunities to get caught up on chores, to enjoy hobbies, to spend time with the family, or to sleep!  All of those are good things, but how much better is taking time to be with the Lord?

Perhaps you might be reading this thinking that spending time in adoration is just a waste of time.  If you are thinking that, or worried about losing out on valuable time to do those other things, then you are the person who most needs to come and spend and hour with the Lord in Eucharistic Adoration, for He desires to reveal to you how real His love is for you, and in revealing that love, to help you to intentionally choose to make Him the priority in your life – not one among many, but the one above all things.

So you can check to see if there are any slots that still need to be filled for our 40 Hours Devotion next weekend, and if you see an empty spot, hear the Lord saying to you – “This is where you need to be, because I want to spend this time with you.” 

Feast Day: June 11^th | Apostle, Son of Encouragement, Levite, Missionary | Imagery: Vested in the Stole of Priest, Carrying Book or Scroll symbolizing the Message of the Gospel, Palm Branch of Martyrdom, Bearded like an Apostle, 

I recently opened the famous AI website, Chat GPT for the first time. I was bemused as it churned out a recommended running plan to better my 1-mile speed, but didn’t want to be too easy on the number-crunching-web-bot. So, I asked it “Tell me about St. Barnabas. How can I connect him with the Eucharist?” And … in about 10 seconds it had given me a summary of the life and efforts of St. Barnabas, a catechesis on what Christians believe about the Eucharist, and how St. Barnabas did not himself say, or do, anything directly related to the Blessed Sacrament, but certainly was a primary character in the early Church, whose life was already was centered on the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Writing the same essay would take me 90 minutes if I was undistracted (and good luck sitting at any modern computer and not getting tugged off task by the thousand other things you could be doing!) [Computer: 1. Human: 0]

I was flabbergasted, elated, eclipsed, and shocked all at once. I have spent multiple years of my life researching and writing, and continue to do so for some hours every week, … and today a nondescript website with an intricate network of silicone circuits and a massive database of information can supersede my efforts without even trying. We have to ask ourselves: Does this change the value of a human being? Is my time a waste? The answer is no. But what do we base that on?

I want to base it on St. Barnabas. 

St. Barnabas (thank you Chat GBT), is referenced in the New Testament 9 times. [Correction from the human: Barnabas appears 9 times in the Acts of the Apostles; he also appears in 1^st Corinthians 9:6, where St. Paul asks “Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living?” AND in Galatians 2 and 4, where St. Paul recalls his and Barnabas’ efforts at the Council of Jerusalem. Computer 1. Human: 1.] Throughout those passages, the characteristic that best describes Barnabas is generosity. 

Acts 4:36-37 gives us both Barnabas’s nickname, “Son of Encouragement” [Bar/Βαρ/בֵּן + Nabas/Ναβᾶς/נָבִיא], as well as another of his names, Joseph, described as a Levite from Cyprus. This man, who early tradition says traveled to Jerusalem to study at the feet of Gamaliel, is introduced to us first in Acts 4 as selling his farm and bringing the proceeds to the Apostles.  It should be noted that Gamaliel is the same famous Pharisee and rabbi who taught St. Paul, and who counseled the Sanhedrin regarding the apostles “keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” [Acts 5:39-40].

On top of this, numerous times we see Barnabas offering not just his possessions, but his life, for the good of the Church. Acts 9 tells us how he brought the recently-murderous Saul to the Apostles, a courageous befriending that would change the world. In Acts 11, this saint, called “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” [Acts 11:23], is sent to Antioch to encourage and evangelize, and then onto Tarsus to bring Saul back, together working to relieve those suffering from a famine. By Acts 12, they convene in Jerusalem before being ordained by the Church with fasting and prayer, and setting off on their first missionary journey. These two would continue to travel together for years, on multiple journeys, returning to Jerusalem famously for the Council of Jerusalem where their report of the conversion of the Gentiles would change the course of the Church, committing the followers of Christ to the completion of Christ’s mandate (and promise) that “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” [Acts 1:8] [Scripture passages provided by Chat GPT; Computer: 2. Human: 1.]

Charitable. Encouraging. Good. Faith-ful. Obedient. Persevering. These are how St. Barnabas chose to live out the graces and charisms that he was given. He did not hoard God’s gifts for himself. He did not return to his farm on Cyprus and soak in the sun, enjoying solitarily his encounter with the Lord. He gave himself away; he put his life at the service of that Lord every day for the rest of his life. He risked a friendship with someone as volatile and intense as Saul, and made him into a saint and apostle. Chat GPT may know these facts, but it cannot know the person of St. Barnabas, and it cannot emulate him. You and I can!

– Fr. Dominic offered Mass this morning, conversed with God while admiring the beauty of the sunrise, persevered through a hard 50-minute run, and sacrificed 90 minutes of my life towards this essay… Nothing extraordinary about any of those things, but Chat GPT, even if it could analyze those experiences, cannot devote itself to them, nor choose them out of love. You and I can. [Computer: 2. Human: ∞.]