Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul

 

Acts 12:1-11

Psalm 34

2 Tim 4:6-8, 17

Matt 16:13-19

 

Saints Peter and Paul, whom we celebrate today, are a study in contrasts.

Peter was with Jesus from the beginning. He frequently fumbled, figured things out, forgot what he figured out, and continued to mess up.  He is oftentimes the target of derisive comments, particularly by theologians, who fail to recognize their own limitations, mistakes, and misunderstanding of Jesus. Peter’s brilliant answer to Jesus' question "Who do you say I am?" makes his denials during Jesus’ trial difficult to comprehend until we recall Peter’s humanity, a sinner loved by God to be sure, but a sinner nonetheless. 

Were we to have been in Peter’s position at Gethsemane or at the Transfiguration, we would not have acted any differently. And many of us would have acted much worse and uncomprehendingly.  Like Peter, we are all flawed.  Like Peter, we don’t always get it.  Had the gospel reading been continued two more verses we would have heard Jesus stinging rebuke of Peter “Get thee behind me Satan” when Peter said “Don’t talk like that.”

Peter’s conversion wasn’t a lightening bolt like Paul’s.  True he left his boat almost impulsively, but he only grew into his role gradually to become the rock upon which the Church was to be built, the rock upon whom the Church stands today through Petrine succession.

Unlike Peter, who left his nets to follow Jesus when he first encountered him, Paul was initially hostile toward those who believed the Good News of Jesus.  It is a hostility that continues in many countries today. Before the lightening bolt threw him off his horse, Paul’s goal was to become the chief persecutor of Christians. He was already very good at it by the time he was given letters to become the equivalent of a bounty hunter of Christians, rounding them up for execution. 

Paul’s intensity is fascinating, no matter if we consider it before or after his conversion. I don’t think Paul was capable of thinking in subtle shades of gray.  Black and white seem to have been the limits of his palette.  Once he came to faith his intensity never wavered.

The beginning of the reading from Acts is horrifying.  Things haven’t changed.  When Herod saw that the public spectacle of capitol punishment pleased the crowds he prepared another production number only to have it frustrated by an angel.  Paul’s goodbye to Timothy is heartbreaking.  It is a testimony of strength, consistency, and hope by a man who knew he was going to pay the price for his faith and preaching.  It would be a blessing were the same words to be in our own hearts and on our lips as we faced death.

Today we celebrate two martyrs who, from an obscure corner of the Ancient Near East ignited the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. As we celebrate this solemnity, we can recall and meditate on the words of the psalmist:

“Glorify the Lord with me,

let us together extol his name.

I sought the Lord,

and he answered me

and delivered me

from all my fears”  

____________________________________________________

The photos are from the Carthusian Charterhouse in Pleterje, Slovenia.  Very old house and very large.   

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

 

Gen  14:18-20

Ps 110

1 Cor 11:23-26

Luke 9:11b-17

 

Jesuits are described as contemplatives in action.  Unlike our Carthusian brothers who live in monastic cloister and silence, contemplating the word of God, we move around a lot.  My mom used to carefully erase my old address and phone number before putting the new one in her address book.  After a few years she simply used an old sticky note, knowing that the info wouldn’t apply for too long. Jerome Nadal described a  Jesuit’s cloister is the highway.  Our oftentimes mobile work drives our prayer life and our prayer life, oftentimes entered into while on the move,  drives our work.  Overall, action seems to trump contemplation most of the time.  But, a feast such as the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ reminds us of the contemplative side of our lives.  Not just Jesuit lives.  But the lives of all believers. 

 

The Solemnity of Corpus Christi pulls us into the contemplative because it is an abstract feast that doesn’t recall a specific event.  The Church’s liturgical calendar is crammed with solemnities and feasts—Christmas, Easter, The Ascension, The Annunciation.  They recall specific events in the history of salvation, feasts that recall specific moments in the history of the world.   They are events with a narrative flow.  There is a story that is told and retold. 

 

We can place ourselves in the action and participate in the narrative.   We can close our eyes and, with only a little imagination, see the events unfold on an internal movie screen.  However, on Corpus Christi we have to sit in silence.  There is no script.  There is no “story line.”  We are called to contemplation.  We don’t contemplate an event in the life of Jesus.  We contemplate the gift of Christ truly and substantially present in the Eucharist.  It is almost overwhelming to know that is Christ truly present in the bread and wine that we receive. It is overwhelming to recall Christ present in the Eucharist that we adore on the altar. 

 

The Real Presence is a stumbling block for some.  They can understand symbol. They can understand sign.  They can understand metaphor.  They simply can’t understand, or perhaps refuse to understand real.  The bread of life appears in the three readings and the psalm.

 

Mentioned in the first reading from Genesis Melchizedek is a mysterious figure. There is no history about him, there is no genealogy tracing his descent.  All other references to Melchizedek come from this single mention in Genesis. 

 

The reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians includes the words of consecration; the words, the formula, the action, that bring us here daily.  Elaborating on these words, trying to explain them in greater depth would be gilding the lily. Listen to them carefully at the consecration in a few minutes.They are self-explanatory.   

 

The feeding of the multitude from little is a challenge.  How did it happen?   What were the physics, the chemistry, or the economics of such a miraculous event?  How is not the relevant question. The importance of this gospel narrative is that when we are hungry and thirsting on the journey of our lives, Christ is present to us in the Eucharist.  He is there to restore and refresh us. 

 

We just heard in the Gospel reading, “they all ate until they had enough.”  The feeding of the multitude from very little, reminds us—it was in fact a preview of what was to come—that from the small piece of bread that He broke the night before He died Jesus has nourished—and will continue to nourish—untold billions generously and completely.  The Body and Blood of Christ is an unending source of nourishment, sustenance, and comfort. 

 

The only thing we can do on this feast is to sit in awe and contemplate this great gift.  The only thing we need do is to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord; and then continue on the journey. 

 

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Photos are from the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont.  The superiors have been very generous in allowing me to photograph while up there.  These were taken on the memorable day when the prior asked me to shoot an entire Mass.  Don't know how many hundreds of shots I took but it took a long time to edit.  

 

The vessels from Mass sitting on a shelf between the sacristy and the sanctuary.

The pinnacle of the Mass.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

SOLEMNITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY

 

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. This celebration compels us to contemplate the essential dogma of our faith.  We recall this dogma every time we begin and end Mass. We invoke the Trinity every time we pray.  We recall the Trinity whenever we say the words  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

The Trinitarian formula is NOT the absurd gender-free version in vogue in certain pathetic circles that choose to invoke and pray in the name of a creator, a redeemer, and a sanctifier.  Anyone baptized with that absurd formula, as has been done, is not validly baptized.  The sacrament must be repeatedusing the proper formula.  The same is true of all other sacraments received following the invalid baptism.

 

While linguistically awkward the woke formula is also theologically and philosophically wrong.  A function is not a person  and no person is fully defined by a function. The dogma of the Holy Trinity is One God in Three Divine Persons.  It does not describe a small ‘g’ god defined by and limited to three functions. Using butcher, baker, and candlestick maker, or quarterback, fullback, and water boy would be a similarly function-based formula,  equally bizarre, and invalid. The Trinitarian formula, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is critical to the Church's seven sacraments, from baptism to the anointing of the sick and dying.  The sign of the cross begins and ends everything the Church does. As it should and as it must.

 

We read in The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (#234):  “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in Himself.  It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them.  It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith.”

 

Every time we make the sign of the cross we recall a mystery that remains incomprehensible  despite the many volumes attempting to explain it.  Each book may contain a kernel of insight into the nature of the Trinity.  However the sum of all the books written does not come close to capturing the full essence of the Trinity.  The dogma of the Trinity depends on faith and can only be understood through the eyes of faith. This raises the question: What is faith?

 

A dictionary definition of faith is:  “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”  The Letter to the Hebrews gives a better definition: "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen. . . . By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible."  We must become comfortable with faith at its most mysterious and impenetrable because despite the absence of logical proof, despite the impossibility and futility  of philosophy, science, or theology to explain the Trinity, no one can declare him or herself a Christian if he or she denies the Trinity.

 

The word Trinity does not appear in scripture.  The understanding of the Trinity grew in the earliest years of the Church as she began to consider what Jesus said and did during His time on earth.   Jesus always speaks of His Father as distinct from Himself but He also notes that “I and the Father are One.”  The same is true of the Holy Spirit.  When Jesus refers to His oneness with the Father he is referring to substance and NOT the functions of creation,

redemption, or enlightenment. 

 

The ancient Creeds in Greek used homoousion or substance which was translated as consubstantialem in Latin. It is obvious that the English word consubstantial that we will repeat in the Creed shortly, emerges directly from the Latin.   

 

We are accustomed to persons being distinct rather than the same.  We have a hard time wrapping our minds around three in one. We have a very hard time wrapping our minds around “consubstantial."

 

The Trinity is a mystery that, in the end, compels us to sing with the psalmist:

 

"Blessed are you, O Lord,

the God of our Fathers,
praiseworthy and exalted

above all forever;
And blessed is your holy

and glorious name,
praiseworthy and exalted

above all for all ages."

 

__________________________________

 

A few shots from Central Taiwan and Sun Moon Lake.  

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Pentecost

 

Acts 2:1-11

Ps 104

1 Cor 12:3-7,12-13

Jn 20:19-23

 

The celebration of Pentecost, a name derived  from Greek meaning fiftieth day. is not unique to the Church.  Pentecost is another name for the Jewish feast of Shavuot, the festival that commemorates Moses receiving the Torah fifty days after the Exodus. Shavuot always falls between May 15 and June 14 on the Gregorian calendar. This year it was just a few days ago beginning on the evening of June 1 and ending at nightfall on June 3.  For Catholics, Pentecost always falls between May 10^th and June 13^th fifty days after the Resurrection. Moses received the wisdom and teaching of the Torah fifty days after the Exodus from Egypt. The Church receives the wisdom and teaching of the Holy Spirit on the fiftieth day following Jesus’ exodus from the tomb.

 

Place yourself in the first reading.  Imagine the drama of strong wind, the appearance of fiery tongues, and the shock of hearing a group of Galilean tradesmen speaking multiple languages as they preached the Good News of Jesus to all present from around the world. 

 

Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, is sometimes described as reversing the tower of Babel. That which had been linguistically separated through human pride was rejoined through Jesus’ obedience to the Father.  That which had been shattered by hubris was reassembled after Jesus sent the Holy Spirit as He promised. 

 

Paul wrote to the Corinthians that “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  He listed those gifts in the Letter to the Romans.Today we celebrate the giving of those gifts.  Each of us receives unique ones in unique combinations. No person’s gifts are identical to those given to another.Our task throughout life is to discover and develop our unique gifts and to use them for the greater good.  For some it is fashionable, to deny any kind of differences and distinctions, abilities and inabilities.  This mode of thinking professes that there is no difference between truth and untruth. 

 

The price is high for those who profess the truth. The risk of not hewing to or not teaching or preaching the narratives du jour may result in job loss, demands for public mea culpas, or cancellation, which is the American version of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag.  A few years ago Harrison Butker kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs gave a commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas. He called sin for what it is in regard to abortion, euthanasia, and a number of sexual irregularities. There were demands that he be fired, if not executed, immediately.

 

Denying differences and eliminating the consideration of strengths and weaknesses, is the sort of thinking that underlies DEI nonsense and fuels an artificial sense of specialness causing each individual or faction to insist that his, her, or the group's specialness must be recognized as the most special of all forms of specialness, even to having a day, week, or month dedicated to trumpeting that specialness, no matter how perverse or disordered.  We are currently suffering through one of those “special” months.

 

The gifts of the Holy Spirit are not equally distributed.  One of the most insidious lies we are told is that "You can be anything you want to be." No one can be anything he or she wants to be simply by wanting to be that thing, or, in current terminology, by identifying as it.  We all have limits determined by genetics, anatomy, physiology, neural development, inherent talents, and intelligence. All strengths are balanced by weaknesses.  Abilities are balanced by inabilities and disabilities. Potential in some areas is countered by a complete lack of potential in others.  The only equality among humans is that we are sinners.

 

Comparing the accounts of Pentecost in Acts and John's Gospel may be confusing. The descent of the Holy Spirit in Acts was clearly fifty days after Jesus' resurrection and ten days after the Ascension, well, at least in some diocese.  John described the descent of the Holy Spirit soon after the Resurrection while Jesus was present among the apostles. “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." 

 

There is no real need to balance the two accounts.  As we heard yesterday, "There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written."

 

We cannot and must not isolate discrete moments, episodes, or descriptions from what is one single event; the event of Jesus' revelation of the Father.  There is no discontinuity from the Incarnation to Pentecost no matter the gospel narratives meant for vastly different peoples. That the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit have been given to us is all we need to know. The logistics and metaphysics are not important.  Our task is to cooperate with those gifts and graces in the manner to which each of us is called. Our mandate is to share the news of Jesus with those whom we meet in whatever language necessary.

 

Life now quiet on the BC campus.  Graduation is over.  There isn't much of a summer session here.  Dorms closed.  The Jesuit community is quite depopulated as some men from outside the U.S. have completed their degrees and have returned home, some are doing research, one or two are beginning sabbaticals, including one friend whom I am going to miss during the coming semester.  

 

The photos are from Sevenhill, South Australia, the location of a retreat house and the place at which we made the long retreat during tertianship.  Extraordinary location.  The church was oriented such that the altar face directly east.  At sunset in the west, the light was beautiful.    Light is very different in Australia.  I noticed soon after arriving that colors were more brilliant.  

 

The stained glass was in crayola primary colors and non-figurative.  I made a point of stopping in whenever possible after dinner to check out the light.  

 

 

The windows into the church as etched glass with a version of the Jesuit insignia on it. 

 

 

The baptismal font at the front of the church. 

 

 

 The crucifix illuminated by the sun coming through the stained glass directly from the west.  

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

Homily for Memorial Day 2025

 

Memorial Day was not meant to be a day for cookouts, road races, traffic jams, and sunburns. Nor is it the first day of summer.  The first observance that became Memorial Day was in Boalsburg, PA in October 1864, when a group of women placed flowers on the graves of the Civil War dead. Memorial Day is meant commemorate those who died in war, from the civil war to today’s wars.

 

My mom always referred to it by its original name: Decoration Day. It was, and should be, a time to visit the graves, place flowers and American flags, and, at least for Catholics, the attend Mass and to light candles in memory of the war dead. It is a time for public services in memory of those who died in the service of our country.

 

We ask why men and women bravely and voluntarily risk their lives to defend that which they and we hold sacred?   There are more reasons than there are men and women in the military.  No matter the reason, the only response we can offer to those who lost their lives defending our country--be it at D-Day or in Afghanistan--is honor, gratitude, prayer for their souls, and prayer for the consolation of their families.

 

Before entering the Jesuits in 1997 I spent four years as a psychiatrist at the VA Hospital in White River Junction, Vermont.  Those years were eye-opening and heart-rending. It was not, is not, and never will be, easy to serve.  It will never be easy to recall those friends who died while the speaker survived. Many men broke down in my office as they spoke of fallen comrades and dealt with what has come to be known as survivor's guilt.  I kept a box of Kleenex Man-Size Tissue on the desk and a spare box in the drawer.  They had to be replenished often. This is not an easy holiday for some of those veterans who returned .

 

When asked to celebrate Mass for Memorial  or Veterans' Day, I invariably choose the reading from Sirach 44 that begins:.

 

"Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations."

 

The ultimate sacrifice that many of those who served in the military made--and will continue to make--can never be ignored or forgotten. 

 

Further along in Sirach we also hear:

 

"There are some of them who have left a name,
    so that men declare their praise.
And there are some who have no memorial,
    who have perished as though they had not lived . . . ,"

 

That is the plight of those who died in battle. Anonymity and hiddenness. 

 

One of the our country’s most important monuments is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It preserves the memory of all those who have been forgotten by time.  Perhaps the fame of the veteran is in the hiddenness of his or her service.  The honor of a veteran is doing a job day-by-day knowing that there will be little to no recognition or appreciation. 

 

The sacrifice of those who died must be acknowledged and their memories kept alive. We learn from those memories.  Thus, It is important to visit war memorials and read the names, it is important to visit the graves of those who died in war, and to listen to the stories of those who survive, if they are able to talk about it,  or to sit silently with them in their grief.

 

What went through the minds of those men and women when they were deployed?  What was it like packing before shipping out?  What was it like saying goodbye with the threat of not returning hanging silently over those goodbyes?   What was it like, what is it like, when there is a knock on the door and one knows the message before hearing the feared words: 

"We regret to inform you that . . . ?

 

"Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God." 

 

The reality is that sometimes peace can only be accomplished or maintained through war.  Sometimes the peacemakers are those who must fight.  Ideally swords will be pounded into plowshares and spears will be turned into pruning hooks. But at times plowshares must be reworked into swords and pruning hooks back into spears. 

 

The fundamental human condition is that we are sinners.  Some of those sins

threaten the lives and safety of others.  At times those sins ignite the fuse that leads to war. This has been true since the beginning of time; it will be true until the end of time.  Thus, our gratitude to those who died while serving, and our gratitude to their families who mourn.  As we remember them we pray:

 

Requiem aeternam                                  

dona eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Requiescant in pace.

 

"Eternal rest

grant unto them O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace."

 

 ______________________________________________

The photos are self-explanatory,  The candles were taken in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.  The crucifix overlooks the graves at the Jesuit cemetery in Weston, MA where I will be buried in time.  

 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

 

What's in a Name?: Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easte

 

Acts 14:21-27

Ps 145

Rev 21:1-5a

Jn 13:31a, 34-35

 

The first reading from Acts gives us history  anchored in a specific time and place.  Among other things it suggests that Paul and Barnabas could have benefited from GPS or at least a good travel agent.  They certainly covered a lot of ground in the first missionary efforts of the Church.  At times Acts is a combination travelogue and introductory course in missiology. It describes the difficult work of spreading the message of Jesus crucified and risen from the dead, to the world well-beyond Jerusalem.  Acts describes the challenge of sharing the Good News with those who would not have heard it otherwise. 

 

Much was happening as the community came together, growing in leaps and bounds.  It developed a unique identity such that in the reading on Tuesday we heard  “For a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” 

 

"and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians."

 

As Paul, Barnabas and the others spread out in their missionary efforts what came to be known as the Church was gaining a foothold, and the believers were given a name. That name would serve as a concise description of these people.  It was a name that would accrue more and more associations—both positive and negative—over the ensuing millennia.

 

Associations to the word Christian emerged, and continue to emerge, from observations of how Christians conducted-- and continue to conduct--themselves in the public arena,  even when 'being a good Christian' permits advancing an immoral agenda. There is nothing Christian about the intentional taking of human life at any point from conception to natural death in old age.  

 

That religious belief has a profound effect on behavior was well illustrated in Rodney Stark's book: The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History.  The book considers the period covered by Acts and into the first two or three centuries of the Church, a rather narrow span of time given the two millennia of Church history.

 

Stark described behaviors in the early Church that he contends drew many to embrace Christianity.  One of the most fascinating was the Christian community's response to plague.  From the very beginning Christians acted on the mandate to care for the sick.  Stark suggests that caring for the afflicted diminished the community's incidence of plague as a result of immunity developed from low-level exposure to the infectious agents; a primitive form of vaccination if you will.  In addition; the nascent Christian Church held, even then, absolute prohibitions against the taking of child-brides and against abortion.   Both of these prohibitions increased the life-expectancy of women who were Christian.

 

If the first reading from Acts gives us a history anchored in time and place,  Revelation indicates a point well-beyond the horizon anchored neither in time nor in geography.  It hints at what is to come in veiled language.  The images are strange, but strange is the only way to describe that which we cannot know in this life.  The reading does not tell us the how or the when.  But it assures us that we WILL be transformed in that instant when vital functions cease and everything changes.  We are reminded of this in a preface for the funeral Mass:

“Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. . . . It is a great comfort knowing “there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain for the old order has passed away.”    Pain.  Suffering.  Sorrow. Those experiences that mark our lives on earth will come to an end in that final moment. 

 

The Gospel brings us back to the meaning of Christian and the associations people make upon hearing the word Christian.  Our identity as Catholics, is anchored in Jesus’ mandate.  “I give you a new commandment: love one another.  As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”  Christian identity should be apparent in those who follow Jesus’ command.  But, because we are sinners, that identity is not always visible.

 

Back in the seventies, a time during which some truly awful church songs were foisted upon us, and which, alas, remain firmly implanted in cheap, ugly, disposable "worship aids" and loose-leaf lectionaries, one of the most annoying and wrongheaded featured a thumping marching chorus and the stunningly narcissistic self-aggrandizing lyric:

 

“They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.

They will knoow woooo  we are Christians by our love.”

 

That last know-wo sometimes sounded like the communal passing of a kidney stone.  

 

Musical value:  close to zero

Theology:  little to none.

Narcissistic index:  like American Express, priceless

 

Perhaps if the verse read, 'they SHOULD know we are Christians by how we show our love,' the words would be less grating, the sentiment less condescending, and more descriptive of a goal which we should seek. There is nothing wrong with the conditional sense.  Rather than assuming that we manifest our love so perfectly that others will immediately see us as different is more realistic—and humble—to admit that we have to work at it. Just because we proclaim ourselves Christians it doesn’t mean that the love part derives automatically, without effort, prayer, and self-examination. 

 

“The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and of great kindness.

The Lord is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.”

 

That is a great consolation even when we act in a way that prompted Dr. Rieux,

in Camus' The Plague to observe: "as you know Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it. They're better than they seem."  

 _____________________________________________________

 

The photos are from Sun Moon Lake, one of the more beautiful places I've ever been.  

 

The view from Ci-en Pagoda.  It was quite a walk to get up there.  I could not do it today.

Bikes at the hotel in which we stayed. 

The gate and the small shaft of light refelcted on the pavement drew me to this shot.

A lower level of Ci-en

Fr. Ignatius Hung, SJ in profile. 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

Day of Prayer for Vocations

 

Today is the 62^nd World Day of Prayer for Vocations.  In a message written at the Gemelli Clinic in Rome and dated 19 March 2025, the Solemnity of St. Joseph, the late Pope Francis wrote:

 

“A vocation is a precious gift that God sows in our heart, a call to leave ourselves behind and embark on a journey of love and service. Every vocation in the Church, ordained, consecrated or lay, is a sign of the hope that God has for this world and for his children.”

 

He continues: “For Christians, hope is more than mere human optimism: it is a certainty based on our faith in God, who is at work in each of our lives. Vocations mature through the daily effort to be faithful to the Gospel, and through prayer, discernment and service.” The examples of religious vocations are many.

 

In her autobiography: The Ear of the Heart  Mother Dolores Hart, a Benedictine nun at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Connecticut gives an accurate definition of a religious vocation:  "Many people don't understand the difference between a vocation and your own idea about something.  A vocation is a call—one you don't necessarily want.  The only thing I ever wanted to be was an actress.  But I was called by God."  She might have added that it is never easy as she went on to described her first night in monastery.    “I was consumed with overwhelming loneliness . . . I lay awake on the cot for a long time. . . terrified by the enormity of the step I had taken.  I began praying . . . I cried myself to sleep that night.  I would cry myself to sleep every night for the next three years." She remains at Regina Laudis today now age 86.  Many in religious vows can identify with her feelings of isolation and the enormity of the step one takes upon entering.

 

The word vocation derives from the Latin root:  Voco, vocare, vocatus.  To call.  To name.  To summon. To invite.  To challenge. The various meanings overlap but also stand apart,  each with shades of meaning.  that explain the uniqueness of each vocation. After 28 years as a Jesuit (in August) and 18 as a priest (next month) I've heard many vocation stories and have shared mine more than a few times. Some of the stories proceeded smoothly whereas others were marked by agonizing doubts, fits and starts, paralyzing uncertainty, and, in a few cases, false starts. 

 

Mother Dolores' yes garnered headlines in the magazines of the time.  Very few people knew she was going to enter until she walked through the monastery gate and took her place behind the grille.  Most vocations do not attract the kind of attention Mother Dolores’ did, except perhaps from family and friends. Not all are pleased or supportive but it seems the majority are. 

 

About three years ago there was quite a buzz over the movie "Father Stu" starring Dorchester's own Mark Wahlberg.  The movie tells the story of the late Father Stuart Long who is described in one review as: an "unbaptized boxer from Montana with a foul mouth and a troubled relationship with his parents.” To the consternation of many, he entered the seminary.

 

The script writers played fast and loose with some of the facts of his life but on the whole those who knew Fr. Stu  deem the movie accurate. A few are put off by the language, but . . . he was a boxer.  Most of them don't say gee whillikers, drat, or you so and so, when angry.  When he was ordained in 2007, six months as I was, Fr. Stu was already terminally ill with inclusion body myositis, an autoimmune neuromuscular disease for which there is no treatment, dying seven years following his ordination in June 2014.

 

A religious vocation takes time to reveal itself.  It also take a long time after entering before a man or woman is to ready to make a solemn commitment.  Thus formation and preparation are more than a year or two.  I don't know any order in which anyone can count the number of years from entry to final vows using the fingers of just one hand. Only after years of prayer, testing, self-examination, and observing, while being observed and tested, can one be ready for that final commitment.  The course is not always easy. 

 

Sister Deirdre Byrne, aka Sister Dede, is the blood sister of Bishop William Byrne, Bishop of Springfield, MA.  She is a retired full-bird army colonel, a solemnly professed sister in the Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and a physician who is board-certified in both family practice and surgery. Her journey into the Little Workers was anything but smooth, not so much on her question of a vocation but the logistics of entering a congregation. That journey included rejection by one congregation.

 

Fr. Chase Hilgenbrinck, was a professional soccer player, who played briefly in Boston for  the New England Revolution before he retired and entered Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary.

He is now a priest of the Diocese of Peoria.

 

Despite the drawbacks, the losses and 'give ups' that accompany the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, many of us who have lived religious life for years can imagine no other life. 

 

Two elements are crucial for vocations. The first is prayer, prayer for vocations, prayer for those discerning vocations,  and prayer for those who are living their vocations.  The second is simply asking and listening. Toward the end of his message, the late pope wrote, “The discovery of our vocation comes about as the result of a journey of discernment. That journey is never solitary, but develops within a Christian community and as a part of that community.”

 

It is important that someone ask and listen to the response.  That someone may be a parent or grandparent who sees something, a friend who recognizes a spark, or a vowed religious with a certain intuition.  Someone needs to ask the simple question,

"Are you thinking of entering religious life or seminary?"  Then they need to continue to listen and respond. Ask, "what brought you to this decision?"  "have you begun the process?" Listen to the answers.  But . . .  never ever answer the question,  "What should I do?". That is between the individual and God.  No one else dare interfere with that dialog.  And pray that the young—or not so young—man or women will say with Mary,

 

"Fiat mihi secundum tuum." 

 

May it be done to me according to your will.   

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Photos are from LJubljana, specifically a restaurant "Pop's Place" a short walk from the SJ community in which I lived located on the river.  Once I discovered it, met the owner, a Slovenian who was raised in the US and graduated from UCLA, it became a regular destination, particularly every other Wednesday night when I returned by train from Pleterje in Northeastern Slovenia.  I stopped for a beer.  Burgers were fantastic, this from a man whose final meal would be a cheeseburger (rare) and fries should he have to face a firing squad.   

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD