Last week we reflected on the theological virtue of faith. Today, I would like to reflect on the theological virtue of hope, a virtue by which we desire the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life as our happiness, it is by putting our trust in Christ.  Hope is conceivably the most challenging of the three theological virtues to understand. It can be depicted as an unwavering trust and assurance that the promises of God will be fulfilled. This trust is centered on Christ who through his Death and Resurrection, has brought us the hope of salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the true nature and meaning of the theological virtue of hope.  It states that, “Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. ‘Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.’ ‘The Holy Spirit … he poured upon us richly through Jesus Christ Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.’” (CCC, # 1817).

Living in the hope of resurrection is quite instrumental in the healing process during the bereavement. Without the hope of resurrection there is no belief in life after death. There is no immortality. It is the hope of resurrection that gives meaning to the afterlife. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is defeated, and eternal life is made sure.  By raising Jesus from the death, God promises all the faithful the same resurrection. In death life is distorted, but in resurrection victory is triumphed. The question St. Paul asks,” O’ death where is your victory? O’ death where is your sting? (I Cor 15: 55). As Christians, sometimes we might ask ourselves same questions especially, when someone close to us, when someone whom we loved so much, when someone who meant so much to us dies, we are deeply hurt, and our heart is troubled, and we begin to question everything. What is life? Why is death? Where is God? 

More than all the avenues, the Church provides wonderful opportunities for healing. This does not mean that all the bereaved families run to Church for comfort and encouragement. On the contrary, most grievers shy away from the Church, feeling at the time that God has betrayed or forsaken them. Where there is hope, there is no despair; where there is despair or hopelessness, there is no hope, but hope in the human life cannot be invaded by despair. Despair can be understood as a momentarily psychological feeling that even affects the spiritual dimension of Christian life. Hope has the last word over despair. With hope, Christians participate to the vision of God, who is eternal life. Stories, such as the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, for example, make them feel like God has abandoned them, because if He was able to raise Lazarus why can’t He also raise their own. Some of us can think like this. Christ is the only hope of the human person, and he endured the cross, suffered, died, and was raised. This is our Christian hope.  Without hope, our Christian life would become meaningless. What we hope for is everlasting life. Our deceased brothers and sisters have joined whom they have served in their whole life. Now what we cannot see with our corporeal eye, our brothers and sisters are seeing it. This is what Saint John teaches us, “Beloved we are God’s children now, what we shall be has not yet been revealed. we do not know that when it is revealed to us, we shall see him as he is. everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure as he is pure.” (1 Jn 3:2-3).   Finally, I invite you to pray through the intercession of Saint John Paul II never to give up on Hope as he encourages us: “I plead with you, never ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not Afraid” St. John Paul II pray for us.

Feast Day: September 14^th 

This week I draw our reflection directly from St. John Chrysostom (whom I wrote on last year, and who we celebrate on September 13^th, AND being nicknamed golden-tongues, can do a far better job than I on preaching on the Cross of Christ!). Here is one of his homilies, from the 300s, simply entitled “On the Holy Cross”. 

The Cross of the Lord is unpleasant and sorrowful to the ear, but it consists of joy and gladness. It is the originator not so much of suffering as much as of passionlessness. For Jews the Cross is temptation, for pagans it is madness, but for us believers it reminds us of our salvation. When in church one reads about the Cross and one is reminded of the sufferings on the Cross, the faithful are indignant at the Cross and let out a plaintive wail and murmur not at the Cross but at the crucifiers and unbelievers. For the Cross is the salvation of the Church, the Cross is the praise of those who hope on it. The Cross has released us from the evil that possessed us and is the beginning of the blessings received by us. The Cross is the reconcilement of His enemies with God, the promise of sinners to Christ. For by the Cross we were freed from enmity and through the Cross we have become amiable to God. The Cross delivered us from the authority of the devil, the Cross saved us from death and destruction. The Cross changed human nature to the angelic, having released it from all that is corruptible, and have found lives worthy of immortality.

How great is the power of the Cross! How great is the change made by it in the human race! How from the deep darkness it has led us to the boundless light, from death it has restored us to eternal life, from corruption it has transferred us to incorruption. What good is not accomplished for us by means of the Cross? Through the Cross we learned piety and learned the properties of the Divine essence. Through the Cross we learn the truth about God, through the Cross we who were far from Him are united to Christ, and we become worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through the Cross we learn the power of love and we are taught to die for others. Through the Cross we are scorned and all what we do is not temporal, we search the blessings of the future and we accept the invisible as if seen. The Cross is preached, and the faith in God is confessed, His truth is spread throughout the universe. The Cross is preached, and the faith in the resurrection, the life and the kingdom of heaven is made without a doubt. What is more precious than the Cross and what is more saving for the soul? The Cross is the triumph over demons, the armor against sin and the sword with which the Lord has struck the snake. The Cross is the will of the Father, the glory of the Only-begotten, the joy of the Holy Spirit, the ornament of angels, the protection of the Church, the praise of St. Paul, the protection of the Saints, the lamp of all the world.

See, however desired and deservedly amiable the Cross is made today, it was the most terrible and shameful sign of the cruelest execution in antiquity! And the Cross makes the best ornament on the imperial crown, the most precious in all the world. The image of the Cross is now found on you, both masters and servants, both wives and husbands, both maidens and married, both slaves and free. All place the sign of the Cross on the noblest part of their body, daily carrying this sign on their forehead, as on a depicted pillar. It shines on a sacred meal, on the clothes of the priest and together with the Lord’s body at the mystical supper. You see it lifted everywhere: on houses, in market-places, in the deserts, on the paths, on mountains and hills, on the sea, on ships, on islands, on boxes, on clothes, on armor, in the halls, on golden and silver vessels, in pictures, on the bodies of sick animals, on the bodies of the demon-possessed, in war, in the world, in the afternoon, at night, in festal assemblies and in the cells of the ascetics. Already no one is ashamed and does not blush at the thought that the Cross is a sign of a shameful death. To the contrary, all of us honor this as an adornment for ourselves, which has surpassed crowns and diadems and precious stones. Let us not run, let us not be frightened, but let us kiss and honor it as an invaluable treasure.

– Fr. Dominic Rankin has been reminded, by this feast and homily, and many other recent moments, that he really needs to get the chain fixed for the cross he wore around his neck. It seems a little thing, but we are either marked with Christ’s cross, or something else, and if it’s anything else, it’s not going to carry us to God.

Last week, I promised that I would continue our reflections on the second Precept of the Church:  Confession of serious sin at least once a year.  I am humbly asking that you wait another week as another topic has come up that I think deserves our attention.  It has to do with three of our previous Parochial Vicars here at the Cathedral and some confusion about what was recently listed in the Catholic Times regarding the assignments of Father Michael Friedel, Father Peter Chineke, and Father Wayne Stock.

Let’s start with our most recent Parochial Vicar – Father Peter Chineke.  As you are aware, the plan we had in place was to have Father Peter begin full-time Canon Law studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  As we were preparing for this transition, it was brought to our attention that his current immigration status does not really allow us to assign him to full-time studies at this time.  The details are a bit confusing, and if you do not deal with immigration law, I won’t bore you with the details.  We still hope to have Father Peter study Canon Law full-time in the future, but for now, for the purposes of immigration, he needs to be in a parish assignment, thus his being appointed Parochial Administrator at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Decatur, as well as Chaplain of St. Teresa High School and Millikin University, both in Decatur.

If you read Father Peter’s appointment carefully, you will see that it includes information about Father Michael Friedel, and this is where many have been confused.  Due to some unforeseen challenges with another assignment (see below) in Decatur, it became no longer possible for Father Friedel to serve both of his parishes by himself (Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Thomas the Apostle).  Up until July 1, Father Friedel had a second priest to assist him, but after July 1, he was left by himself, as I will explain below.   The solution was for Father Friedel to request a Leave of Absence from his role as Pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle so as to focus his efforts on Our Lady of Lourdes, thus making room for the diocese to assign a priest to take care of the pastoral care of St. Thomas the Apostle temporarily.  The diocese therefore assigned a priest for a month at St. Thomas, then when the situation with Father Peter arose, it made good sense for him to take care of St. Thomas.  Where people have grown concerned with Father Friedel is the mention in the appointment for Father Peter that Father Friedel’s Leave of Absence was necessitated by his Parochial Vicar’s Medical Leave of Absence.  Several people saw “Medical Leave of Absence” and the closest name to that phrase was Father Friedel, so many assumed he was on a Medical Leave of Absence, when in reality, it was his Parochial Vicar.

That brings us to our final priest – Father Wayne Stock, and his situation brings clarity to the last point.  Father Wayne Stock was initially scheduled to take a new assignment on July 1 as Parochial Vicar of Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Thomas the Apostle in Decatur, as well as Chaplain of St. Teresa High School.  Unfortunately, Father Wayne has requested and received a Medical Leave of Absence for the time being.  Since this happened after all of the assignments had been made, we needed to pivot to address the situation in Decatur while trying to avoid upsetting other assignments that were already set.

I hope this explanation helps to clear things up.  I know that Father Friedel has been pretty surprised at how many people have been asking about him, if he is okay.  I assure you, Father Friedel is doing great in Decatur.  Nevertheless, I am sure he still very much appreciates your prayers!  The same goes for Father Peter as he settles into his new assignment.  Finally, I invite you to keep Father Wayne in your daily prayers.  Many of you came to know and love him during his time here, and I know he will very much appreciate your prayers during this time in which he is attending to his well-being.

Father Alford

Feast Day: September 9^th | Patron of Slaves, Race Relations, Seafarers, Colombia

Pere Claver i Corberó had just finished his bachelor’s degree in humanities at the University of Barcelona. The 22-year-old had done his father, Pedro (the mayor of his hometown) proud, getting good grades and becoming a leader of his peers. Peter had lost his mother just before going to the university, but he now fondly recalled her injunction that “nothing should come between him and the love of God.” She had prayed constantly for her son’s vocation, asking Hannah and our Mother Mary to lead and protect him. Now her, and their, prayers were being answered because as Pere thought of his future, the thought of becoming a priest continued to flicker through his soul. He had met priests of the new religious order calling itself the Society of Jesus, a gutsy title that fired the heart of the young man.  He had finally written to the Order, putting words on his deep desire to “become a saint, and … save many souls.” God loved that prayer.

The superior general of the Jesuits, Cludio Aquaviva, accepted Pere into the novitiate and he was sent to Tarragona for two years of learning about the order and giving time for God’s grace to deeply enter his heart. As a novice, he kept a notebook with meditations from the various times of prayer, many of them rather ordinary, some too sublime to describe, and some articulating desires that he had not placed in the depths of his heart. On one occasion he penned this line: “I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave, wholly occupied in the service of his master and in the endeavor to please and content him in all and in every way with his whole soul, body, and mind.” The year was 1602. He returned often to those words in the years to come.

Brother Peter did his philosophical studies at the College of Montesión on the lovely island of Majorca. There he became friends with the lay brother who manned the door to the college, Alphonsus Rodríguez. Rodríguez did not know it, but he was one of the many holy porters that the Church would produce in the years to come. This humble man would be canonized along with St. Nuno de Braganza of Portugal (+1431), St. John Masias (+1645) and St. Martin de Porres (+1639) of Peru, St. Padre Pio in Italy (+1968), and their group now includes Bl. André Bessette of Montreal (+1937) and Bl. Solanus Casey (+1957) of Michigan as well. The 80-year-old Alphonsus would entrust to Peter much of the spiritual wisdom he had received in the simple work of meeting and greeting, passing onto him a profound love for those who need it the most, and encouraging him to go as a missionary to the New World. 

God, in his providence, placed another person in Peter’s life to guide his steps into the future. This was Fr. Alonso de Sandoval, himself a missionary in Colombia who had spent 40 years ministering on the plantations there. Slavery had been made legal there some 70 years before, and ever since that wretched day, the number of Africans being bought, imported, and forced to work had kept growing. Once again, Peter, now a newly ordained Jesuit priest, found his heart fired by the love at work in this man. Fr. Claver had felt that interior-fire in Barcelona after the death of his mother, in Tarragona in the silence of prayer, on Majorca chatting with Br. Alphonsus, and now in Cartagena, assisting Fr. Sandoval to publish his rich knowledge of the customs, languages, and religions he had come to know working with those enslaved in Colombia. He would need that fire every day on the docks of Cartegena. Here are his own words describing the scene:

Yesterday, May 30, 1627, numerous blacks … disembarked from a large ship. Carrying two baskets of oranges, lemons, sweet biscuits, and I know not what else, we hurried toward them. … We had to force our way through the crowd until we reached the sick. Large numbers of the sick were lying on the wet ground or rather in puddles of mud. … they were naked, without any clothing to protect them. There were two blacks, nearer death than life, already cold, whose pulse could scarcely be detected. With the help of a tile we pulled some live coals together and placed them in the middle near the dying men. … they seemed to recover their warmth and the breath of life. The joy in their eyes as they looked at us was something to see. This was how we spoke to them, not with words but with our hands and our actions. And in fact, convinced as they were that they had been brought here to be eaten, any other language would have proved utterly useless. Then we sat, or rather knelt, beside them and bathed their faces and bodies with wine. We made every effort to encourage them with friendly gestures and displayed in their presence the emotions which somehow naturally tend to hearten the sick. … we declared to them the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Passion. Showing them Christ fastened to the cross, as he is depicted on the baptismal font on which streams of blood flow down from his wounds, we led them in reciting an act of contrition in their own language.

Peter went into those ships almost every day for four decades. He saw almost a million slaves arrive on those docks. He baptized a third of them. One spark of divine love can carry you far.

– Fr. Dominic Rankin has never been given the assignment of porter, but it might be a great way to become a saint!

Last Sunday the Lord Jesus reminded us about the virtue of humility and in order to understand all this is for us to turn our eyes to the Lord himself. Today let us turn on the theological virtues, the virtues of faith, hope, and charity have God as their direct object. By faith we know God, by Hope we trust His promises and goodness, and by Charity, we love Him. Many times, in our prayer, we ask for many things, both for ourselves and others. This week we begin reflecting on the theological virtue of faith and how the Catechism of Catholic Church defines it.  Faith is foundational in our Christian life, because it helps us believe, hope, and love God. As I was reflecting on the theological virtue of faith. I remembered my early years attending Catechetical classes and the teaching was based on Baltimore Catechism; I do recall answering this question why God created us? God created us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and at the end we return back to Him. God is our ultimate end. The definition of faith does matter. What matters is the place that faith hold in our daily life. Faith is a gift to see the presence of God in everything; it a new way of looking at myself, others, the event of life. Therefore, the Catechism of Catholic Church state: “The theological virtue of faith is a virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he us truth itself. By faith man freely commits his entire self to God, for this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will” (CCC, 1814).  The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes further to defines Faith as the supernatural virtue, which is necessary for salvation. The Catechism adds that Faith is a divine gift and human act; God moves this act to the contemplation of his very truth (CCC, #. 153-184).  

Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council describes Faith as a personal response to God’s revelation of love. God comes toward humanity and condescends to open up to human beings the secrets of his intimate life, looking for a reciprocal love. Human beings, for their part, turn to God through Faith and open up to him in friendship. The council says explicitly that by faith “man entrusts his whole self freely to God, offering ‘the full submission of intellect and will to God who reveals,’ and freely assenting to the truth revealed by him” (Dei Verbum, 5).

Our Faith comes true through the visible God in Christ. The whole Trinity has been revealed in the Person of Christ. We cannot claim, as Christians, that we have Faith in God when we reject whom he has sent to us. Whoever sees me (Christ) sees the one who sent me (God the Father) (Jn 12:45). This is one of the foundational acts of the Christian faith. So as Christians faithful we need to: “turn to the witnesses of faith: to Abraham, who in hope …believed against hope; to the virgin Mary, who, in her pilgrimage of faith, walked into the night of faith in sharing the darkness of hers son’s suffering and death; and to so many others: ‘ therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”(CCC, Paragraph 165 on profession of faith). As we reflected on theological virtue of faith. Are we ready, like the Apostles, to ask for the gift of faith?  “Lord increase our faith” (Lk 17:5).