FINDING FAITH ON THE EARTH
Two weeks ago the Gospel ended with a question from Jesus, “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” I’d have to admit that we Catholic priests don’t often speak about the end of the world or the need for Christians to watch the signs of the times, though we generally do preach about the Kingdom of God and our ongoing need for conversion as revealed through the word of God. Yet we would be utterly foolish to think that the Second Coming of Christ has been and always will belong to another age far beyond our own. Anyone, even with the faintest semblance of the spiritual, should be able to see that throughout the world storm clouds are gathering. The planet is in trouble and all nature appears to increasingly be in upheaval. While I believe this to be the result of what we humans have done to the planet, God has allowed us through our own choices, often motivated by greed and gross selfishness, to wreak havoc on the earth, and nature is rebelling against us and we against nature and God. And we look around and ask why these things are happening as if they were occurrences apart from ourselves and our own actions. Why is the mammal population beginning more and more to die off, with many species on the verge of extinction? Why is the polar ice melting at such astonishing rates as to baffle even the scientists who have been studying it so closely? Why are things seemingly shutting down? Why, in the midst of technological advances and medical and research break-through’s, are more and more of us getting sick with strange and new diseases and less immunity to them? Of course, the answers lie not within nature itself but in the hearts, minds and souls of human beings – we have been and are doing this. Increasingly, and with such speed as has scarcely been seen before, the world is in rebellion against God. Evil, whose existence has been generally denied by recent generations, no longer has a mock look of a sinister, red face with horns, a beard and a long tail with pitch fork in hand, but is the every day stuff of the evening news if we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Just when you think things could not get worse, they do. Events of the everyday are rife with the preposterous, the indecent, the lewd, the unthinkable, the unimagineable, and all too often, the blood of innocence.
A generation of hypersensitive people who have become so easily offended with everything, have grown insensitive to the needs of others in the poor, the needy, the helpless and most subtly in the unborn, and a people that should take offense at the immoral and the perverse, just don’t. The teachers and catechists of the modern era are no longer the universities and places of higher learning nor are they the Church, whose ancient and time-honoured voice was capable of passing on the fullness of faith and revelation in times past since Her founding by Christ. No, the modern teachers are Dan Brown, Oprah and Dr. Phil. They are the raised voices of those who once had and lost the faith or those who never really had it at all. They are the screen idols whose lives, so often empty and sad, are the envy of their adoring following. Movies, and in particular sitcoms, make light of the spiritual and religion; of God, Christ, and Mary, the Mother of God. One South Park episode featured a blatant and despicable mockery of the Virgin Mary (that sensibility and decency wouldn’t allow a printing in the parish bulletin) while networks and the producers of the program refused to pull its showing in the face of protests from both Catholics and Muslims.
On Good Friday of 2006, Pope Benedict XVI, during his meditation on the Third Station of the Cross, “Jesus Falls the First Time”, stated: “Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication.”
From the wider scope of the world stage to our own place of living, we can see our own problems and lack of faith, perhaps most clearly and on our own doorstep, in the sacramental life of the Church. The loss of a sense of sin is evidenced in few confessions to the ratio of sinners. (As I write this I am only too aware of my own sin and selfishness and the daily temptation to accommodate myself to the world rather than to Christ.) Parents who are either too busy for Church or for God, busy with Sunday shopping, (which has resulted in much of our economy being open on Sunday’s), or too busy to give their children the practice of their faith which they promised both God and the Church on their child’s baptismal day, ultimately approach the Church and the Sacramental life as consumers and not communicants. This is not a condemnation of them but is a visible and growing sign of a great spiritual poverty in those who just do not understand what Christ is offering to them and the children they are responsible for before God. Christ so wants them to know of his love and mercy, and of His desire for them to come home to Him. Yet, the Lord’s voice is drowned out by the murmur, the noise and the busyness and clamour of living and getting God-knows where and for what. And statistically, this is the second generation in history that is largely being raised without religion.
Think now of the world economy and how quickly everything seems to have changed in just a few weeks past few two years ago. The U.S. bail-out of financial institutions and banks at 700 billion dollars should have given us pause to consider just how much money that is. A friend of mine who works for one of the major banks told me that it is generally believed that 180 billion dollars, (roughly ¼ of the amount of the U.S. bail-out), could cure world hunger! We can’t find it in ourselves to bail-out the hungry and starving who die everyday, but we can take care of business.
(To be continued next week…. Fr. Charles)
ENCOUNTER WITH A SAINT
Saint Andre Bessette of Montreal
In April of 2007 a parishioner of St. John Vianney Parish in Barrie Ontario died. He was in his 80’s. I think of him now and still partly because of the kind of man he was but also because of the kind of man he once had an encounter with that saved his life.
The parishioner I knew was Vianney D’Aoust and he told me the story about how he once sat on the knee of a saint, though when Vianney shared the story with me the saint he referred to was “in the making”.
Vianney was raised with his parents, brothers and sisters outside of Montreal and at the age of six he became very sick. In the first part of the last century people who got sick often died due to complications and a general lack of cures for various diseases and ailments of the body. Infant mortality was relatively high.
Vianney remembered that his mother tried all kinds of home remedies and trips to the doctors to find help for her 6-year-old Vianney. The doctor diagnosed that Vianney had double pneumonia which was clearly visible on the x-rays that were taken. His mother tried poultices and hot towels and various rudimentary things to try and pull the sickness out of his little chest, but his health only worsened.
Finally on a hot August day his mother dressed him up, as sick and weak as he was, he recalled, and told him that she was taking him to see “the little saint”.
He told me that he remembered so vividly the long line up in the hot summer sun of people waiting to see a man they knew as Brother Andre. He didn’t know what this was all about or why they were there except that it had something to do with his sickness.
Brother Andre had been sitting in a small wooden building on a hard wooden chair as he, one by one, received each pilgrim who had come to see him and share with him their ills and their need for various favours from God or healing.
Finally, in the stifling heat, it was Vianney’s turn to go into the chapel and see Brother Andre. Speaking in French, Brother Andre invited Vianney to sit on his knee and without even speaking to his mother, he asked Vianney, “Do you like to swim?” Vianney answered positively with a nod. “Well”, Brother Andre stated, “this year I don’t want you to swim but you may go into the water only as far as the top of your ankles, and then next year you may swim all you want.” He gave him a blessing and with that Vianney returned to his mother and they returned home.
Vianney told his mother what the Brother had told him to do and wondered why this had strangely made his mother cry with a smile on her face. That summer he ventured into the cool waters only as the Brother had instructed him under the watchful eye of his mother. The double pneumonia left him and the following summer he was as he had been before the sickness, a healthy young boy full of life and play.
As he grew in age he left the memory of being so sick behind, though he never forgot the man he encountered that day.
During the Second World War, Vianney wanted to join the Air Force with some of his friends from their town. He wanted to help in the war effort and wanted to experience the excitement of flying in a plane. When he went to enlist he was barraged with a series of questions, one of them being, “Have you ever had pneumonia?” When he answered, “Yes, Double Pneumonia”, they stamped his papers with X-RAY. he was sent to have x-rays taken and told that they would call him with the results. when the results were in a doctor asked him, “Who told you had Double Pneumonia?” He told them about his family doctors’ diagnosis and the x-rays that had been taken when he was six years old. “Well”, responded the doctor, “our x-rays show that your lungs are as clear and healthy as a young boy’s.” And with that, Vianney joined the Air Force, flew fighter planes, had many close calls on several missions and survived to tell the tales.
When I met Vianney as a parishioner he walked with a cane but was otherwise in good health. I asked him if he would share his story with they young people from our parish who were preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation and he said he would. When he spoke to the young people gathered in the parish hall he couldn’t tell the part about his brief meeting with Brother Andre without weeping, yet they were tears of joy. He knew that something simple yet extraordinary had happened in that simple meeting with a little man he didn’t know and his simple kind words and blessing. For the rest of his life he would remember that God had reached down and touched him, healed him and restored him through the faith and prayer of a 5-foot man who loved Jesus and St. Joseph. Vianney D’Aoust died in April of 2007, a decorated Canadian war veteran.
The man who touched Vianney’s life that day long ago would go on to become Canada’s first male Saint, whom we now call St. Andre Bessette, canonized a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church last Sunday in Rome along with five others by Pope Benedict XVI.
In his homily, Pope Benedict highlighted the straightforward faith of the man who will now be known as Saint Andre Bessette. “He showed boundless charity and tried to relieve the suffering of those who came to confide in him,” the pontiff said. “He had very little education, yet he understood the essence of faith.” The pope also quoted Brother Andre, who used to tell pilgrims who sought him out that they shouldn’t ask for an end to their suffering, but instead the grace to bear their pain.
A slight man of modest tastes, Brother Andre was born Alfred Bessette on August 9, 1845, in Saint-Gregoire d’Iberville, Que., south of Montreal. His parents both died before his 13th birthday and he was raised by an aunt. For a brief period he lived in the U.S., later moving to Montreal where he worked as a custodian at a private school on Mount Royal. There, Brother Andre often prayed toward the summit across the street, dreaming of one day erecting a shrine to St. Joseph, so great and fervent was his devotion to the foster-father of Jesus.
His dreams began with a modest chapel. In a small office, he would greet people who came to him with various ailments and soon became known as a miracle worker, credited with powers of healing.
Over time, he gathered enough donations to grow the chapel into what became the largest church in Canada. When he died in 1937, almost a million people came to pay him homage. Two million people still visit the Oratory each year.
As Catholics we believe that we can ask the saints to pray for us and to intercede for us before God just as we would ask a friend to pray for us. In the family of God and in the family of the Church we are all one.
(Fr. Charles)
Congratulations…
to the rescued Chilean Miners!
At the time of the writing of our parish bulletin (Wed.)
16 of the 33 miners had been safely rescued.
In thanksgiving to the Lord of Hope,
Jesus Christ!
MINISTRIES
IN OUR PARISH
As I mentioned in the announcements last Sunday our parish and all its ministries are in need of loads more help from parishioners who feel they may have the necessary gifts to serve the good of the parish both at Sunday Mass and in parish related service groups. I have listed below some of our parish ministries and what is required of persons interested in getting involved.
MINISTERS OF HOSPITALITY – (USHERS)
Sometimes this ministry is seen as ushers showing people to their seats, but this is not true at all. Our parish church is seldom “packed” except at Christmas so there is very little to do in the way of seating people. The proper emphasis of this ministry is in assisting parishioners during Sunday liturgies. The ushers select parishioners to bring forward the gifts of bread and wine at the Offertory, they make sure the church and pews are clean and tidy after each Mass by straightening out the hymn books (bindings up) in the book racks in the pews. They assist the pastor in any way that aids the flow of the liturgy and they take up the collection.
LECTORS – (READERS)
Lectors do more than just “read” at Mass, they are to be proclaimers of the Word of God. They should have a love for the word of God and prepare for the readings they will proclaim at home, before Mass. Anyone could just get up and read on Sunday but the Word of God is far too important for that. People actually will hear God speaking to them and their lives through the one who proclaims and, therefore, the lector ought to strive to not get in the way of the power of God by being ill prepared or last minute. The liturgy of the Church must be well prepared as evidence of our respect and great reverence for what God gives us.
CHILDREN’S LITURGY OF THE WORD
Recently started up again in our parish, the Liturgy of the Word for Children seeks to deepen the small children among us in their love for Jesus through the Sunday readings specifically geared for them. This ministry serves children in Jr. and Sr. Kindergarten, Grade One and Grade Two who have not yet received Holy Communion,. Children leave the congregation and go to their own space where they hear the Sunday Gospel and through activities, prayer, song and catechesis learn to appreciate the Word of God and grow into the habit of hearing it each Sunday. The leaders for this ministry do far more than entertain children for they speak the Word of God in the children’s language and at their age level.
EXTRAORDINARY MINISTERS OF THE EUCHARIST
This ministry serves most directly in the distribution of the Body of Christ at Mass during Communion. Priests and Deacons are the “ordinary” ministers of Holy Communion to the faithful, but since there are so few priests and sometimes no deacons at all, parishes need help in giving Communion to the Faithful. This ministry, as does the reception of Communion itself, requires Catholics to believe that the Eucharist we receive during Communion is the “body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus and not some sharing of bread while remembering the Lord. The Eucharistic Minister must have a deep reverence, respect and understanding of this central mystery of our Faith which is the “source and summit” of our Catholic Faith. When there are lots of Eucharistic Ministers then most parishes are able to offer both the Body of Christ and the cup during Mass.
WELCOME COMMITTEE TABLE
This ministry, which is rather new in our parish, seeks to make available any information pertaining to parish life, registration of new members, the distribution of Offertory Envelopes, the PAP system (Pre-Authorized Payment) and is available to welcome new parishioners and help them with any information they may need about our parish. The people who work in this ministry, the faces of those you see standing behind their stand, are the face, voice and welcoming hand to those who are new or need information or assistance.
MUSIC MINISTRIES X 3
Our parish has three different music ministries with each ministry serving at a particular Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning Mass. The styles vary: The 5:00 p.m. Mass features guitar and voice music that is reminiscent of the folk Mass style. John VonZuben has led this group for a number of years now with the small choir and their voice harmonies. The 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning Mass also has guitar instrumentation accompanied by voice and is of a more modern style of music. The 11:00 a.m. Mass is a more traditional form of organ and choir and has undergone some changes recently with a new organist and cantor Trudy Olford. Dave Fernihough along with his wife Janice have served in music ministry at this Mass for many years as have many of the choir members. Dave has moved from the organ to leading the choir. Both of the Sunday morning choirs have a weekly practice at the church. If you have the gift of music and would like to share it with the parish, call the parish office for contact information.
ALTAR SERVERS
Just over a year ago we had only a few altar servers and today we have 17. Altar Servers serve at the altar during the Sunday Masses and receive full training in carrying the processional cross, being an acolyte (candle-bearer) and also may learn to provide incense at funerals and at Christmas and Easter. The servers also serve at Parish Masses celebrated with our two elementary schools according to the school they attend. Altar Servers must have received their First Communion in order to begin serving at the altar. Any parent interested in having their child serve in this ministry can fill out a registration form at the Welcome Table.
“Ministries In Our Parish” to be continued next week
ST. LEO ALTAR SERVER AWARD
RECIPIENTS – 2010
Last Saturday our parish hosted the 2010 Altar Server Awards Mass when servers from around our area, and nominated by their parishes, were presented with awards marking their outstanding contribution, dedication and service at the altar. Our regional bishop, Bp. Vincent Nguyen presided at the Mass and presented the medals to the servers from various parishes.
Our parish nominated six altar servers; some who have served for several years, some who have served for a shorter period of time and some of our newer servers who have shown a commitment to learn and serve in a manner worthy of the altar of the Lord.
The truth is that all of our servers have done a great job of assisting and would be worthy not only of our recognition but our gratitude as well.
Normally a parish would not nominate six servers each year but since our parish has not participated in the Altar Servers Awards over the last few years, it was thought that we should do a bit of catch-up and recognize those young boys and girls who have said “yes” to ministry in the Church.
This six recipients of the 2010 Altar Server Awards for St. Leo Parish are:
X Patrick Mott
X Daniel Munusami
X Nick Chasse
X Sarah Heaney
X Colin Orian
X Liam Hennessey
On behalf of our parish we recognize and congratulate our altar servers who received awards and all the recipients from the many parishes who attended this years awards.
LIFE CHAIN 2010
I’d be less than truthful if I didn’t admit that I was disappointed with the very low number of parishioners from our parish who attended this year’s LifeChain in Whitby. It wasn’t for a lack of announcements and information I placed in the parish bulletin about abortion’s insidious presence and growing numbers in our society that kept our parishioners away. We have to be wary that we don’t become insensitive to the issues of our time – especially the most important one of life itself. Perhaps to the issue of abortion many Christians have grown apathetic and feel there is nothing that we can do, but the reality is that if I don’t speak for those who have no voice and no rights, who will? All of us who “know” will have to account for our actions or failure to act when we meet the Lord at the end of our lives. As I mentioned in church the weekend of the event, LifeChain is not a protest. It is not shouting slogans or trying to get in the faces of those who are anti-life. It was and is a living witness before others about the issue and the truth about the murder of innocent children in our province, our nation and in the world.
What one generation abhors the next generation passively accepts. When talk in our country began on the issue of abortion it was stated that it would only be for certain extreme cases. While no case can be made to justify any abortion, the numbers of abortions in Canada began to rise. The latest records for the number of abortions performed in Canada date to 2005, but between 1969 and 2005 there have been over 3 million abortions in Canada. In 2005 alone, 96,815 abortions were performed on women removing the chance of life for their children off of the face of the earth. The numbers are likely even higher since the Supreme Court of Canada changed the legislation as to how the number of abortions is now recorded. Since records have been kept on abortion statistics between 1922 and 2010 the earth has seen 863 million reported abortions but it is estimated to be closer to 950 million abortions worldwide!
One single life, as given by Almighty God, is precious to God and should be to us as well. Animals in our society get far more sympathy and concern than we are willing to afford the human child and no word can describe that kind of imbalance that should outrage us all into doing something about it.
For an hour last Sunday people blessed with the gift of life were invited to come and bear silent witness to the atrocity no one sees and few dare even talk about – abortion. This modern day, ongoing holocaust must stop for, as a well known pro-life statement says: if God gives life and we take it, what will God give us? Please think about it and plan to come to LifeChain next year. (Fr. Charles)
MONTH OF THE ROSARY
October is designated as the month of the rosary. More than anything else, this month is intended to raise our awareness of this form of prayer and the ways it can help us to pray in the hectic, day to day living of our lives. Prayer is essential to the Christian disciple and a life without prayer leads to a life without any real sense of God’s presence. Through Jesus we were given the great grace to be able to call on God as “Father” in a strange intimacy between the Creator of all things and the created (us). Perhaps more than ever before, we are a people who need to slow down our breathing and heart rate in order to speak and listen to God.
The rosary slows us down. With the rhythm of prayers and the slow movement of the fingers across the beads, we are stilled and thoughts of the cares of the world drop away as we lift our minds and hearts to God.
We reflect on the 4 sets of mysteries which point to the life, teaching, miracles, suffering, death and resurrection of Christ our Saviour, and in this way we become contemplatives on the life of Jesus.
So, if you’re stressed out, anxious, tired or feel just fine, pick up the rosary and do yourself a favour by praying with Mary, the Mother of God. (Fr. Charles)
A CATHOLIC FUNERAL
The other day I stopped into my favourite watering hole, Starbuck’s, to pick up a coffee-to-go when I overheard two women talking to one another. I thought perhaps that they saw me walk in with my cleric’s on and that led somehow to the topic they began to discuss. What pricked my ears to attention in their conversation was the statement of one of the women: “The other day I attended my first Catholic funeral, and I must say that it was the most beautiful funeral I’ve ever been to in my life.” She said something to her friend about the denomination she attends but went on to say that funerals as she has experienced them in the past couldn’t compare to the meaning and force that the Catholic funeral had for her that day.
This is a truth I have not only heard from so many, many people I have spoken to in my more than seventeen years as a priest, but it is also a truth I know within myself. There is something about a Catholic funeral that carries all who are assembled, be they Catholics, Christians, people of other religions or even those who claim no religion, through a door by way of word and ritual to the edge of the throne of God.
Canadian journalist, writer and commentator, Gordon Sinclair, who died in 1984 having been born a Methodist and even taught a bible class in his youth, in 1969 said he’d had enough of religion and became a strong critic of the church. Yet one day I heard an interview he gave where he said, “Of all the beautiful things I have seen in my life, I think the most beautiful thing is a Catholic funeral”.
What is a funeral in a Catholic church but the same liturgy the Church celebrates each Sunday in the Mass whether it be in a garbage dump in Mexico or a majestic cathedral in any major city the world over. The Catholic funeral is a Mass which begins by greeting the body of the one who has died, remembering that in the white garment covering the casket there is the white garment of the one who died that was worn on the day of their baptism when their life in Christ began. In the funeral rites the Church remembers and reminds her children that we celebrate the full circle of life, whether it may be early or later on in the fullness of years; what began in the Church in a font by an Easter candle is fulfilled in the Church once again by an Easter candle at their funeral. At baptism we are welcomed into life in Christ in the Church and at a Catholic funeral we are sent from this world to Christ Himself.
The readings all speak of our hope in the promises of Christ – that we too will dwell in heaven with God forever. Through the readings we remember not only the one who has died but through our remembering, remember Jesus who is the Resurrection and the Life!
The celebration of the Liturgy of the Eucharist points to and reveals Christ once again as bread and wine offered are changed by the words of the priest through the power of the Holy Spirit into the true body and blood of Jesus. The same Jesus who walked the earth, healed the sick, controlled nature and even raised the dead; the One who died so that we wouldn’t ultimately die, who forgave our sins and was raised from the dead and came back to life, becomes truly visible and present in the host. Saying that Jesus is “with us” takes on a new and present meaning in the celebration of the Mass and our receiving of Him in Communion. In the Mass, therefore, we literally touch the eternal.
Even at the end of the funeral Mass, as we pray the prayer of commendation, we “send” the soul of the one who lived among us back to the One who made it and we remember in prayer all those left behind who mourn and whose hearts ache with sadness and the grief known to those who have lost someone they have known and loved. Yet even our ending of the liturgy with the use of holy water and incense is not void of great meaning as we recall baptism and, as the psalmist says, “let my prayer rise before you like incense, O Lord” as we incense the casket and the body it holds which once held the Holy Spirit given at baptism.
There is a growing trend for many Catholics not to have a funeral Mass in the church when a Catholic family member has died. (Even non-Catholics can have a Catholic funeral in the church if they are married to a Catholic.) Often arrangements will be made with the local funeral home to have a “funeral service” at the funeral home, sometimes inviting the priest to preside at the more “formal and churchy” parts while often mourners come forward one by one to remember the person who died but not so much the One who died to save them. I’ve attended enough funeral home funerals to say that all too often God is not even mentioned by any of the mourners save the “hired gun” (the priest, rabbi, minister) who officially speaks of God and the eternal.
A few weeks back (as I mentioned in a homily a couple of weeks ago) I presided at the funeral of a 23-year-old man, Paul Kokelj, who had died after a year-long battle with cancer. He was raised in going to Mass every Sunday with his mom and dad, brother and sister and, later on as his pastor, I got to know him when both he and his brother became altar servers. Throughout his sickness, Paul received the anointing of the sick and shortly before he died received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. These ancient rites of the Church brought Paul before Christ and Christ to Paul and his illness and through them, empowered Paul to become a source of comfort and peace to all who visited him at Princess Margaret Hospital. When Paul died I was privileged to preside at his funeral Mass at St. John Vianney Parish in Barrie. The church was packed with over 700 people in attendance, many of them young. And to me and to them God walked among us, spoke to us, gave us something to sing about, pray about, and much to think about, as we would surely do in the days that followed.
One woman came up to me at the reception following the funeral and said, “You know, I’ve been to a lot of funerals lately and far too many of them were for young people. And at each funeral I heard basically the same thing: ‘Poor you, who died, and poor you, the family that has lost them.’ When I came to this funeral I was expecting much of the same. But what I experienced was faith, prayer, joy and hope.”
What is truly the marvel of a Catholic funeral, I think, is not so much the ritual but the reality and presence of the One who is the “Summit and Source” of the ritual; the One our ritual points to. He is the resurrection and the life, the beginning and the end of all things. At a Catholic funeral, through song, voice, prayer, silence, sacrament and ritual, yes even with tears, we do all that. (Fr. Charles)