Our first two Lenten challenges have addressed prayer (praying for our enemies) and fasting (fasting from our Snooze button).  Let us now turn to the third Lenten discipline of almsgiving.  All of our Lenten practices have as their goal making us less focused on ourselves so that we can focus more on loving God and our neighbor.  But our prayer and fasting can sometimes be done with somewhat selfish motives, seeing how they can help us personally in our lives.  I am not saying that it is bad for us to grow personally – Jesus commands us to become holy, as He is holy.  But our holiness will never be complete until it bears the fruit of extending loving mercy to others.  In the judgement scene from St. Matthew’s Gospel (Mt. 25:31-46), Jesus makes it quite clear that our salvation depends in large part on our willingness to serve Him in our brothers and sisters, especially the least among us.  It is from this passage that we get the Corporal Works of Mercy.  The practice of almsgiving that the Church invites us to engage in can be understood in a broad sense as undertaking these Corporal Works of Mercy, not simply giving alms to the poor, though that is in fact important.  

This week’s challenge is going to be a little more abstract, but nevertheless fruitful if you choose to accept it:

Challenge:  Learn about the Corporal Works of Mercy then make a specific resolution to perform one of these works during Lent
Fruit:  Continuing to grow more merciful

A simple Google search will bring up many resources on the Corporal Works of Mercy.  You can also open the Catechism to paragraphs 2544-2547 on Love for the Poor.  The USCCB has a webpage with the works listed along with some suggestions on how to practice those works (just search “USCCB Corporal Works of Mercy” and it should be at the top of the list).

Getting back to the point I was making at the beginning of this article, the Lenten discipline of almsgiving really moves us in the direction of turning away from selfish motives to motives of mercy toward others.  However, even almsgiving can be done for self-centered reasons.  Some people practice generosity for the tax advantages.  Some people practice generosity to feel better about themselves.  Some (sadly) practice generosity so that they can be seen by others as being generous.  All of those things may be true, but they cannot be our primary motive when performing works of mercy.  Jesus’s strong words on Ash Wednesday speak to that:

When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” (Mt 6:2–4)

With that in mind, as you form your resolution to practice some work of mercy, it can be helpful to ask yourself this question: “Am I doing this for me?  Or am I doing it for my neighbor?”

Father Alford     

Last March 17, we celebrated the very famous Saint Patrick’s Day. This feast is traditionally Catholic and still is. But it has become more of a secular and cultural fiesta for many Americans of Irish descent and lovers of everything Irish. Today, wholly Irish Americans may be less than ten percent of the entire United States population. But this feast of St. Patrick has remained one of the most celebrated fiestas in the United States mainly because many people in the United States are Irish in various ways. Some are Irish by ancestral lineage. Others are Irish by marriage or identifications with institutions and organizations that are Irish by foundation and tradition.

Recently, I encountered a gentleman who claimed he is one hundred percent Irish. He not only argued to be fully Irish, but he was also very proud of it. This gentleman, a devout Catholic and a great fan of the Notre Dame football team, the fighting Irish, told me incredible stories about Irish immigrants. Particularly dear to him was how they survived and thrived in the United States amidst the many prejudices they endured as poor immigrants. That was during a protracted period of waves of Irish immigration. I tried to understand what he believed was why the Irish immigrants survived and flourished in their new country and would become a critical part of the making of America.

His answer was simple and clear. “They were Catholic and proud of it.” What got my attention was not the Irish immigrants being Catholics. But that they were proud of it. When ethnic churches existed, Irish immigrants had the highest number and most vibrant churches. Many of their young men and women pursued religious and priestly vocations. They would have enough to make up a more significant percentage of the clergy and religious men and women in the country for a long time. One of her young priests in the early 1880s’ would establish an organization that would help take care of helpless Irish immigrant widows and children. That organization would grow to become the most prominent Catholic lay men’s organization in the world today. It is the Knights of Columbus.

These giant strides were possible because the Irish immigrants and their children were proud of their catholic faith. This was even as anti-Catholic sentiments and ethnic chauvinisms were the order of the day.

Today, many of us are concerned about our children and grandchildren not practicing the faith. We worry about the fast disappearance of those social, spiritual, and moral values that we hold dear as Catholics. Some of us are even doubting the possibility of Catholicism in our world by the next fifty years. Well, all these are legitimate concerns. But what are we doing to remedy the situation?

Are we still Catholics? If we are, are we proud of it? The faith of our fathers, this holy faith, let us be proud of it. Only in being proud of it are we able to live it out, fight for it, and hand it down like our ancestors in the faith.

Feast Day: March 23^rd 

I wonder if resentment is one of the things that most strongly holds us back from greater, and more Christ-like, charity? Isn’t it easier to chalk our lack of charity up to fears or a lack of courage; or perhaps our busy-ness and a lack of prudence in scheduling things; or the direct attack of the Evil One???  Looking in myself, I find that sometimes this lack is the less-glamorous, less-acceptable, vice of resentment. To respond to someone’s request, or need, or to anticipate how I should love them – to share myself with them – requires me to put their need above my own, to put their life ahead of mine, to put their schedule on my calendar before my own preferences go on there. And I resent it when my needs go second!

As I write this in a coffeeshop, a gentleman just asked if I’d buy him a sandwich.  I procrastinated in my charity towards him, why?  Not because I don’t have money, not because it will cost me time I don’t have, not because he’s going to mis-use a sandwich, not because Satan shook his pitchfork at me …  but because I resented Kenny’s reliance on me, his expectation that I would help, his asking that I would love Him like Jesus loves him.  Whew, that hurts to say that! I want to love, I desire to be more generous, I hope to see in myself Jesus’ kindness and mercy and care … but the ugly tendency to resent holds me back. 

I realized this as I meditated today on the life of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo.  He was a canon lawyer in Spain, in fact the Grand Inquisitor of that country (growing up in his namesake town of Mogrovejo) a studious and intelligent young man, who had been asked by King Philip II to hold that estimable position. The same monarch in 1578 would nominate the pious and productive Turibio as a candidate for the Episcopacy, to fill the See of Lima, Peru, though he was not yet even ordained!  Of course, he protested that he was not ready or desirous of that vocation, but, in the end at the age of 41 or 42, he accepted the King’s request, and Pope’s confirmation, was ordained a deacon, priest, and then bishop, and set sail for the New World.

If I had to slog through mosquito infested, ferociously humid jungles and mountains, I would have resented King Philip … If I had to sleep in the open because nobody had thought to prepare a place for me to stay, I would probably have resented the Pope’s go ahead…  If I was called to prepare, baptize, and confirm 500,000 individuals, I would have certainly resented the lazy and corrupt priests that were already there and not doing diddlysquat… (Remarkable fact: he confirmed three future canonized saints among those: St. Rose of Lima, St. Martin de Porres, and St. Juan Masías). As I caught fever after fever in the horrendous conditions, and knew that it would be the death of me (Turibius was given the knowledge, and grace, of knowing precisely when he would die), especially that last march, dragging myself 50 miles from Pacasmayo to Zaña to receive Extreme Unction and Viaticum, I would have resented even/especially God Who had demanded from me such efforts and such a dismal death.

But Turibius, evidently, did not let resentment corrupt those requests for charity  He endured the hardships of his unexpected vocation, and preached again and again that “Time is not our own and we must give a strict account of it.”  He did not consider his time, energy, love, or life to be his, and so he did not resent when he was asked to share it. His final words, after receiving those final sacraments, on Holy Thursday of 1606, were those of Jesus: “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” May his intercession help us to be similarly generous with our own lives, and defend us against the clutch of resentment!

– Fr. Dominic Rankin, as the Master of Ceremonies for Bishop Paprocki, is assisting currently with our own bishop’s pastoral visits around the diocese, as well as his giving the sacraments of Confirmation and 1^st Communion, here at the Cathedral. With the help and example of St. Turibius, he prays that all these occasions where duty asks him to help in various ways may also be occasions of authentic charity and self-gift.

x

Feast Day: March 23^rd 

I wonder if resentment is one of the things that most strongly holds us back from greater, and more Christ-like, charity? Isn’t it easier to chalk our lack of charity up to fears or a lack of courage; or perhaps our busy-ness and a lack of prudence in scheduling things; or the direct attack of the Evil One???  Looking in myself, I find that sometimes this lack is the less-glamorous, less-acceptable, vice of resentment. To respond to someone’s request, or need, or to anticipate how I should love them – to share myself with them – requires me to put their need above my own, to put their life ahead of mine, to put their schedule on my calendar before my own preferences go on there. And I resent it when my needs go second!

As I write this in a coffeeshop, a gentleman just asked if I’d buy him a sandwich.  I procrastinated in my charity towards him, why?  Not because I don’t have money, not because it will cost me time I don’t have, not because he’s going to mis-use a sandwich, not because Satan shook his pitchfork at me …  but because I resented Kenny’s reliance on me, his expectation that I would help, his asking that I would love Him like Jesus loves him.  Whew, that hurts to say that! I want to love, I desire to be more generous, I hope to see in myself Jesus’ kindness and mercy and care … but the ugly tendency to resent holds me back. 

I realized this as I meditated today on the life of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo.  He was a canon lawyer in Spain, in fact the Grand Inquisitor of that country (growing up in his namesake town of Mogrovejo) a studious and intelligent young man, who had been asked by King Philip II to hold that estimable position. The same monarch in 1578 would nominate the pious and productive Turibio as a candidate for the Episcopacy, to fill the See of Lima, Peru, though he was not yet even ordained!  Of course, he protested that he was not ready or desirous of that vocation, but, in the end at the age of 41 or 42, he accepted the King’s request, and Pope’s confirmation, was ordained a deacon, priest, and then bishop, and set sail for the New World.

If I had to slog through mosquito infested, ferociously humid jungles and mountains, I would have resented King Philip … If I had to sleep in the open because nobody had thought to prepare a place for me to stay, I would probably have resented the Pope’s go ahead…  If I was called to prepare, baptize, and confirm 500,000 individuals, I would have certainly resented the lazy and corrupt priests that were already there and not doing diddlysquat… (Remarkable fact: he confirmed three future canonized saints among those: St. Rose of Lima, St. Martin de Porres, and St. Juan Masías). As I caught fever after fever in the horrendous conditions, and knew that it would be the death of me (Turibius was given the knowledge, and grace, of knowing precisely when he would die), especially that last march, dragging myself 50 miles from Pacasmayo to Zaña to receive Extreme Unction and Viaticum, I would have resented even/especially God Who had demanded from me such efforts and such a dismal death.

But Turibius, evidently, did not let resentment corrupt those requests for charity  He endured the hardships of his unexpected vocation, and preached again and again that “Time is not our own and we must give a strict account of it.”  He did not consider his time, energy, love, or life to be his, and so he did not resent when he was asked to share it. His final words, after receiving those final sacraments, on Holy Thursday of 1606, were those of Jesus: “Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” May his intercession help us to be similarly generous with our own lives, and defend us against the clutch of resentment!

– Fr. Dominic Rankin, as the Master of Ceremonies for Bishop Paprocki, is assisting currently with our own bishop’s pastoral visits around the diocese, as well as his giving the sacraments of Confirmation and 1^st Communion, here at the Cathedral. With the help and example of St. Turibius, he prays that all these occasions where duty asks him to help in various ways may also be occasions of authentic charity and self-gift.

I realize last week’s challenge of not hitting your Snooze button on your alarm might have been a challenge, but I commend you if you were willing to accept the challenge.  I often use the analogy of weight training when considering our growing in virtue.  If you want to build muscle, you need to have resistance.  So to with virtue – we need to encounter resistance in our lives which gives us the opportunity to practice virtue and so be strengthened.

For this week’s challenge, I would like to turn to our March Family of Faith topic:  The New Commandment, the Works of Mercy, and the First through Fourth Beatitudes.  This is a broad topic, so let’s just focus on the Works of Mercy.  The Church offers us two categories when it comes to the Works of Mercy – corporal and spiritual.  I came across a quote the other day which sums up these works well: “Mercy is the form love takes when it encounters misery.”  Lent calls this reality to mind as we consider the mercy of God who sent His Son to die for our sins – the greatest act of mercy to alleviate the misery of our fallen condition due to sin.  The challenge for this week is a combination of a couple of the spiritual works of mercy – bearing wrongs patiently and praying for the living and the dead:

Challenge:  Pray for your enemies
Fruit:  Growing more merciful

We heard in the Gospel a few Sundays ago where Jesus said: “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Lk 6:27-28)  I want you to think of a person that you really find it hard to love.  That could be somebody close to you or just somebody you know about.  Once you have thought of that person, instead of listing off all of the reasons why you do not like / love them, say a prayer for them.  Say something like this: “Lord, you love this person.  You want them to become a saint.  I find it hard to see the good you see in them, but I want, more than anything, for your will to be done.  So I pray for them, that you will bless them, and give them what they need in order to become a saint.”

Say a prayer like that every day.  I realize it might be hard, but it is not impossible, because Jesus does not command the impossible.  There is a big difference between can’t and won’t.  And if we are unwilling to do this, well, then we will have a very hard time trying to make the case that we are a true follower of Jesus Christ.

As an added challenge (I read this from a reflection from Bishop Barron), at the end of the week, list off all of the negative things you can think about that person, then go before the Lord and ask forgiveness for when you yourself have been guilty of those same things.  That gives new weight to the words of Jesus from another recent Gospel: “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” (Lk 6:42)

Speaking of mercy, I would like to also take this opportunity to invite you to another very important spiritual practice that is key to growing in holiness – going to confession to encounter God’s mercy toward us.  If you have not been in a while, Lent is a great time to go.  Nothing (apart from the Eucharist) is more conducive to our growing in holiness than having the misery of our sins lifted.  Let me be so bold to say that if it has been more than a month since your last confession, it would be a good idea to go this Lent.  Let me be even more bold in saying that if this is the only extra thing you do this Lent, it will have been a fruitful Lent.  As a reminder, one of the priests of the Cathedral is waiting to welcome you to the sacrament of God’s mercy every day (note our normal confession times in the bulletin) and we will have extended hours for confession this coming Friday and Saturday.  Confessions on Friday are from 12:30 pm until 7:00 pm, then on Saturday from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm.  As an extra credit bonus challenge – invite a family member of friend to join you when you come to confession!

Father Alford    

Earlier this week, I was out of town giving a parish retreat somewhere in the eastern part of our diocese. During this time, I had the opportunity to visit several homebound parishioners during the day when I had some free time. These visits, like in Springfield, are among the most fulfilling parts of pastoral ministry for me. Because, beyond administering the sacraments to people who truly desire them, those visits are beautiful opportunities to listen to stories and histories that one may never hear elsewhere. Also, such visits provide amazing prospects for encounters with folks who have lived multiple decades of their lives growing with and in the Church they love and serve.

One of my visits was to a lady in her late nineties. For privacy reasons, I will call her Bema here. Bema was sharp and strong mentally and spiritually. Her physical strength is failing and limits her abilities to stand and walk. So she is homebound. But her limited mobility has not stopped Bema from keeping up with political and Church news, with her prayer life and daily Mass attendance online.

When I asked Bema what her secret was for being so sharp even with her vision and hearing, she laughed and said she loves her whiskey. She strongly believes that her glass of whisky every morning for way more than half a century is responsible for her good health. She went ahead to convince me that it works and that I should try it. We both laughed as I asked her what she was doing for Lent.

The question of what Bema is doing for Lent brought an answer that provoked a deeper understanding of the word “sacrifice” in me. First, she told me she gives up her daily glass of whisky every Lent. According to Bema, giving up her daily glass of whisky is the most significant sacrifice for her. That nothing else can cause her enough anguish than giving up something she treasures the most, which she can still do without.

Also, Bema said something else that I have been talking about in my homilies since the beginning of Lent. She explained that she donates the cost of a bottle of her choicest whisky to her favorite charity at the end of Lent every year. Again, I asked why she thinks it is important to do such. Bema told me that if she only gives up her daily glass of whiskey every Lent without making that donation, she would just be saving her whiskey. THAT IS TRUE!

Two lessons from my visit with Bema

1. If we must journey with Christ in the wilderness this Lent by fasting from something, it must be something we truly cherish. We must fast from something that doing without it is capable of causing us some real distress.
2. We must allow our fasting to benefit someone else. For example, suppose I must fast from meat this lent. In that case, I have to check the average cost of my monthly meat consumption and donate it to a person or organization that needs it.

May our Lenten sacrifices bring us closer to Jesus Christ. Amen.

Many years ago, I heard some advice about Lent that has always stuck with me.  The advice was that the best sacrifices to offer up are those we do not choose for ourselves.  If we are honest with ourselves, don’t we sometimes choose things to do or give up for Lent that we are pretty confident we can be successful at?  I am not saying that is necessarily bad, but a true sign of our willingness to make sacrifices is to accept something we have not chosen.

With that though in mind, I tried something with the parish where I served as Pastor before coming to the Cathedral.  Each week during Lent, I would offer a challenge for the parish to consider undertaking.  I was very encouraged with the response from the parish as they appreciated the challenge.  I think there was something else that made the practice successful – we were all trying to undertake the challenge together.  With that in mind, I would like to introduce these weekly Lenten challenges as a way for all of us to be in union with one another this Lent.  This will also give us a chance to offer something up which we have not specifically chosen, providing variety to our spiritual lives as well as an opportunity to practice different virtues which will help us to grow in holiness.  Each week, I’ll provide the challenge, list one of the fruits of undertaking that challenge, and some commentary on the challenge.  So, are you up for the challenge(s)?  Here we go, then…

Challenge:  Give up hitting the snooze button
Fruit:  Conquering your will

For full transparency here – this is a repeat challenge that I offered to my previous parish.  A lot of people spoke about how hard it was, so I thought it would be a good place to start!  One of the great promoters of this practice is a fairly modern saint, Saint Josemaría Escrivá.  He calls this practice “the Heroic Minute” and describes it with these words:

Conquer yourself each day from the very first moment, getting up on the dot, at a fixed time, without yielding a single minute to laziness. If, with God’s help, you conquer yourself, you will be well ahead for the rest of the day. (The Way, 191) … The heroic minute. It is the time fixed for getting up. Without hesitation: a supernatural reflection and… up! The heroic minute: here you have a mortification that strengthens your will and does no harm to your body. (The Way, 206)

Give it a shot, and feel free to share your experience with me next Sunday as you walk out of Mass.  And don’t worry, see these challenges as opportunities, not obligations.  I’m not requiring anybody to do anything, just inviting.  And if you stumble in the challenge, don’t beat yourself up.  Get back up, ask for God’s help, and try again!

Also, this could be a good opportunity to recommit (or begin) the challenge we offered at the beginning of the year to pray Three Hail Mary’s each day for our parish – one for the clergy of the parish, one for yourself, and one for the entire parish.

Finally, if you have an ideas for a challenge that I can invite the parish to consider for a week, I am open to suggestions!

Father Alford