From the great basilicas to small convents tucked away in cobbled alleys, Rome is filled with houses of prayer. In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds people that churches are for prayer and for the work of his father. Pilgrims have to make a choice today among some of the most beautiful houses of prayer in the churches of Santa Maria in Trastevere, San Clemente, Sant’Agnese, San Clemente and Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. A second outing will be to the Benedictine Monastery of Subiaco, where St. Benedict, founder of Western monasticism established his first monastery and nearby, his sister, Scholastica, a convent. It was Benedict and the life he established for his monks that has given us the great prayer of Lectio Divina. A third group will explore a very different place of prayer, the Roman catacombs, where families would gather at the burial spots of loved ones for prayer and to share a meal.
Read: Luke 19: 45-48
Reflect Pope Benedict XVI in reflecting on the place of pilgrimage in the life of a Christian said “it is also true that faith, according to its essence, is being a pilgrim…Faith is being a pilgrim above all interiorly, but it must also express itself exteriorly….
Although an interior spirit of pilgrimage is appropriate at all times, the Pope described how actually traveling to a holy site can draw out and enhance that interior spirit.”
He teaches us that by “leaving behind the everyday, the world of the useful, of practical goals […] to be truly on the path to transcendence”, the faithful can find “a new freedom, a time of interior rethinking, of identifying oneself” that enables us to see God more clearly.
Respond: Join our school children who will be wearing red today in honor of Cardinal-designate Wuerl and make a visit to our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament at your parish or another that is on your route today.
The heart of a Roman pilgrimage is a tour of the four great basilicas. In the Jubilee year 1300, Pope Boniface designated the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul as pilgrim churches to commemorate the two great founders of the Church of Rome. In subsequent years, the basilicas of St. John Lantern and St. Mary Major were added and today they offer a journey through the story of salvation and the spread of the Gospel in art, architecture and monuments. In A Pilgrims Guide to Rome and the Holy Land, we learn “the wealth of [this] deposit of the faith is made present and available to the pilgrim who journeys through the streets, squares, churches, and catacombs of Rome in search of deeper faith, hope, charity and conversion of life.” (A Pilgrims Guide to Rome and the Holy Land, pg. 173). The Archdiocese of Washington pilgrims are celebrating this liturgical memorial by visiting these four churches.
Read: Matthew 14:22-33
Reflect: Cardinal-designate Wuerl challenged pilgrims to think about thier responsibilities as evangelizers. In his homily at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, he said all of us should have the the evangelical zeal of Paul to bring the faith to all. Eeach of us is called to be an evangelist for the faith in these times–inviting others (family, friends, co-workers, neighbors) to or back to the faith with the same zeal as Paul.
Respond: Pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of faith and the Roman Catholic Church in your life and the life of the world.
A few days ago, I was out with a couple of friends. We shared a pizza and the usual, “what’s happening in our lives.” We found ourselves talking about the freedom that is found when we begin to practice living the presence of God – the kind of living that begs us to let go of the past and to hand over everything we fear about the future. The kind of living that calls out to us and asks us to live in this very moment. Ironically, or perhaps beautifully, it’s the kind of living that heals our past wounds and gives us the grace to overcome the fears we face.
When we practice living in the present moment something miraculous happens. We begin to open ourselves to receiving the gift of Jesus Himself – fully present, active and alive in our hearts. It’s easy in this world, especially as a young adult to become overwhelmed by what the future holds. We are continuously faced with questions like: Is this the right career for me? Is God EVER going to send me a husband or wife? Am I doing enough to care for and protect my family? Will these wounds from my past ruin my current relationship? Am I living God’s will for me? These questions often burden and sometimes even paralyze us. The questions in themselves are not bad – for God gave us the Holy Spirit to help us discern His will and dream (and dream big I might add). However, sometimes the questions block our minds and hearts from hearing the answers we are seeking. The good news – Jesus is fully present within us and waits for us with great joy and patience. He invites us to live with Him in the now, to be present with Him at this very moment and receive gifts beyond imagination. Sometimes He leaves us with answers we might not want, but we must trust in the fact that He always wants the best for us. Today let us ask for the grace to mindfully live with Jesus. Maybe we’ll be surprised at what He reveals to us!
Today, Pope Benedict XVI greeted pilgrims at the weekly audience. What a grand way to begin the Consistory pilgrimage! Read more about the audience. Following the audience, pilgrims left St. Peter’s to travel to the Church of St. Peter in Chains. Here we remember that Peter was imprisoned in Jerusalem and the chains at the base of the altar are said to be the chains that imprisoned him. While at the church, the pilgrims will also see Michelangelo’s famous statue of Moses with “horns.” These horns were popular among artists in Medieval time as a symbol of holiness because in Hebrew, the word for “beams of light” and “horns” is similar. The exterior horns are a sign of the interior radiance of the Lord.
Read: Luke 19:11-18
Reflect: Fr. Justin Huber was the celebrant of the Pilgrmage Mass and asked pilgrims to conside what our checkbooks and our calendars say about the outward expression of our interior lives.
“…the Lord uses this parable to speak to us about the perennial truths of the spiritual life. It is interesting to note that money is the tool that is able to store and transport material or worldly value. It acts as a neutral intermediary between good ands services, which can be converted into nearly anything. But, one could ask: could a carrier of material value be converted into something of spiritual value? Is there something that stands at this interface between the material and the spiritual?
It has been said that if you want to know what a person truly values in life, then look at their calendar and their checkbook. Time and money are the two resources that we use to acquire the things that we value. In our Gospel today, Christ is inviting each of us to invest what we value most. Beyond just time and money, he is asked each of us to offer over to him our entire life; this includes our gifts and our talents and all that we are. For, it is none other than Christ who stands at the interface between the material and the spiritual. Union with God is both the origin and the final goal of humanity and it is Christ who leads us back to the father. It is in Christ’s will, in the offering of our lives over to his will, that we find the opportunities that will lead to our own growth and that of the Kingdom of God. Anything less is not merely standing still, but it is moving backward.
On Wednesday, October 20th, shortly before announcing the Consistory, which will create 24 new cardinals, Pope Benedict XVI remembered the life of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. She offered over her life, the life of a noblewoman, to the service of the poor. As providence would have it, we celebrate her feast today, 779 years after this humble woman’s death.
Saint Peter also offered over his life. The humble fisherman, who became the Prince of the Apostles, placed his entire life, the good and the bad, in Christ’s hands and it was transformed. The chains beneath this altar, which are said to have bound him as he lie in prison in Jerusalem, were miraculously unfastened by an Angel, as accounted in the Acts of the Apostles. Today, we still venerate them as a sign of the transformative power of God. The place of his burial has now been transformed into the largest Basilica on Earth and has become a place of spiritual pilgrimage, a place were we will go to pray on Saturday morning as Cardinal-designate Wuerl will receive the red biretta and become Donald Cardinal Wuerl.
Indeed, even Rome stands as a visible witness to the transformative power of God. The art and architecture, which has transformed the city, dot the paths of the saints, who were transformed by God and who themselves transformed the Church. As we follow these paths on our pilgrim journey, we offer our lives anew to the Lord, who alone has the power to bring extraordinary growth from the ordinary offering of our daily lives.”
Respond
Take a look at your checkbook and calendar for the past month…what is it saying?
In my school, we have a small display board dedicated to Black Catholic history. One of the items on the board is the biography of the Pope Victor I. Pope Victor I was the 14th Bishop of Rome and the first from Africa. In fact, there are three popes who are African, the other two being Pope Militiades who reigned from 311 to 314 A.D. and Pope Gelasius who reigned from 492 until 496 A.D. Out of all of the facts on this board, the fact that there have been Black Pontiffs seems to gain the most interest – and sometimes, disbelief.
Black Catholic History in the Archdiocese of Washington
I was blessed to grow up in the Archdiocese of Washington. We have had a strong and vibrant Black Catholic culture here for generations and thus, the ethnicity of Pope Victor I is not incredible to me. We have parishes dating back to before the Civil War such as St. Augustine Roman Catholic Parish, which was founded in 1858. We have the examples of pioneering Black priests such as Rev. Patrick Healy, SJ (pictured above) who served as the president of Georgetown University from 1874 until 1882. Even the first Black permanent deacons where ordained for the Archdiocese of Washington as part of the inaugural class in early 1970’s. Growing up here, I knew that there had been Popes of African decent, parishes where our culture and style of worship is integrated into the Mass and priests, deacons and religious that continue to serve our community with passion and love.
More to come
For the next few posts, I hope to share some of these facts and stories with you. I may also share how these stories have helped me to celebrate the diversity of the Roman Catholic Church.
The video at the bottom is of Archbishop Timothy Dolan speaking on Dorothy Day. It is a clip of a longer sermon you can see here: Archbishop Dolan on Dorothy Day
In the Sermon the Archbishop speaks of Dorothy Day’s love for the Church. He remarks that there are many people today who want Christ without the Church. For Dorothy Day and for us: No can do. Christ is found with his Church: warts and all, sinners and saints, even me, Oh Lord! Jesus Christ was found among sinners, such that it scandalized many. He was crucified between two thieves. He was found in very questionable company. Do you get it? You won’t find Christ by walking away from the company he keeps.
The hatred of the Church is growing in our culture and many of the ring leaders claim to know Christ and think they can find him only in purer air, a room of their own choosing. But Christ is found where he is found. The Pharisees expected to find the Messiah on their terms. But Jesus was found where he was found. He was not from the educated in Jerusalem, but of the peasants in Galilee. He spoke with a Galilean “hick” accent and walked among the poor, the nobodies, the sinners, the uninformed and unenlightened.
Today, the menu is a little different. In Jesus’ time it was a religious aristocracy that sneered at his followers. Today, the world is secular and those who sneer see believers as simple-minded, unscientific, unenlightened and intolerant. And we are sinners to be sure. Some of the charges against us are true. Actual sinners are we. The Church is a hospital for sick people who need a doctor. Some of the other charges of our sinfulness are less deserved: that we are collectively intolerant, hateful, bigoted, etc.
But despite all this, I know by faith that this is where Christ is found. Those who want Jesus without his Church not only seek him in vain, they risk reinventing him altogether. He is found where he is found.
Dorothy Day’s Witness and help – But what of the Church’s imperfections? In the video Archbishop Dolan reminds us: Ecclesia semper reformanda (The Church is always reforming). It’s people like Dorothy Day (and many of you) through whom God works this work. Dorothy Day was very sober about the Church’s imperfections and spoke of them often. She was a prophet and true prophets know how to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable (and we are all in both categories from time to time).
What I most like about Dorothy Day is that I knew she loved the Church and because of that I trust her. I have found that, in order to stretch my boundaries and be truly challenged, I need to trust my teachers and leaders. It’s people I can trust who lead me to stretch my horizons. Knowing that Dorothy Day so loved the Church, the liturgy and the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament makes be trust her judgment. She, like Jesus, was not easily categorized. She will not simply conform to earthly categories for she had heard from heaven.
I’d like to say a little more of Dorothy in weeks to come on the blog for I think she is one who can help get both wings of the Church flying together. There is a tendency for the Church to divide out between the moral issues, and the social issues. But it takes two wings to fly, and Dorothy Day is one of those who show how it can be done. Allow me a little time to get a few thoughts together. And some of you might also point me in the right direction with suggestions.
For today simply this reflection: Dorothy Day loved the Church. And any true reformer of the Church must love her and her Lord and Spouse, Jesus.
Some of my favorite Dorothy Day quotes are:
Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.
I firmly believe that our salvation depends on the poor.
Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man [who is] alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.
Together with the Works of Mercy, feeding, clothing and sheltering our brothers, we must indoctrinate.
We are eating while there is famine in the world.
We cannot build up the idea of the apostolate of the laity without the foundation of the liturgy.
Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity….
I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least
You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know.
Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair.
We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.
My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the psalms.
Don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.
Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.
Once a priest told us that no one gets up in the pulpit without promulgating a heresy. He was joking, of course, but what I suppose he meant was the truth was so pure, so holy, that it was hard to emphasize one aspect of the truth without underestimating another, that we did not see things as a whole, but through a glass darkly, as St. Paul said.
On this glorious fall day, runners and walkers from all over the archdiocese are winding their way across the National Mall, through the streets of D.C. ,over the bridge and into Virginia as they compete in the Marine Corps Marathon and Marine Corps 10 K race.
ON A MISSION
Not only did they make the commitment more than six months ago to train for one of the two races, the 10K folks promised to raise $250.00 each and the marathoners $450.00 each to support vocations work in the archdiocese. Runners hosted benefit nights at Five Guys Burgers, bake sales at their places of work and parishes, and practiced the age-old monastic art of begging family, friends, co-workers and neighbors. More importantly, they committed some of their time to pray for vocations. They have prayed for our men at every stage of formation for priesthood. They have prayed for men considering priesthood to be open to God’s calling and to make the commitment to explore the possibility. I know when I trained for the 10 k last year, when the running got tough, I prayed a rosary–on-the–run for vocations and for many other intentions!
IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO PARTICIPATE
This year, I am on cheering duty, I will be out on the mall to give encouragement and offer a few prayers for our competitors. We can’t be more proud and more grateful for their support. Whether they have the race of their lives or a really tough run, they have succeeded in helping our Vocation Office continue to expand its work–so as St. Paul’s exhorts, “they have competed well for the faith!” And you too can participate! Please take some time today to pray for our racers, to pray for vocations and to pray for our priests who serve our archdiocese so well.
The Gospel today is of the familiar and endearing story of Zacchaeus, a man too short to see Jesus, who climbs a tree, encounters Jesus, and is changed. The danger with familiar stories is that they are familiar and we can miss remarkable qualities. Perhaps it is well that we look afresh and search for the symbolic in the ordinary details.
1. Shortsighted Sinner – Zacchaeus was physically short, and so, could not see the Lord. But let me ask you, do you think that Luke has told us this merely to indicate his physical stature? Well, I’m a preacher and I’m counting on the fact that there is more at work here than a physical description. I suspect it is also a moral description. Zacchaeus cannot see the Lord because of the blindness sin brings. It is his moral stature that is the real cause of his inability to see the Lord. Consider some of the following texts from scripture that link sin to a kind of blindness:
My iniquities have overtaken me, till I cannot see. (Ps 40:12)
I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD (Zeph 1:17)
They know not, nor do they discern; for God has shut their eyes; so that they cannot see, and their minds so that they cannot understand (Is 44:18)
Because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous, now they grope through the streets like men who are blind (Lam 4:13)
Unless one is born again by water and the Spirit, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. (John 3:5)
Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God. (Matt 5:8)
So sin brings blindness, an inability to see the Lord. Now Zacchaeus has fallen short through sin and hence he cannot see Jesus. “How has he sinned?” You might say. Well, he is the chief tax collector of Jericho. Tax collectors were wicked men, I tell you no lie. The Romans recruited the mobsters of that day to collect taxes. These were bad guys. They ruffed people up and extorted money from them. The Romans permitted them to charge beyond the tax as their “cut” of the deal. They were corrupt, they exploited the poor and schmoozed the powerful. These were men who were both feared and hated, and for good reason. They were, to a man, wicked and unjust. Zacchaeus was not just any Tax Collector, he was Chief Tax collector. He was a mafia boss, a Don, a “Godfather.” Got the picture? Zacchaeus isn’t just physically short. He’s the lowest of the low, he doesn’t measure up morally, he comes up short in terms of justice, he’s a financial giant, but a moral midget. Zacchaeus is a shrimp, well short of a full moral deck. That he cannot see the Lord is not just a physical problem, it is a moral one.
Now I am not picking on Zacchaeus. For the truth be told we are all Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus is us. You say, “Wait a minute, I’m not that bad.” Maybe not but you’re not that good either. In fact we’re a lot closer to being like Zacchaeus that to being like Jesus. The fact that we are not yet ready to look on the face of the Lord is demonstrable by the fact that we’re still here. We’re not ready and not righteous enough to look upon the unveiled face of God. How will Zacchaeus ever hope to see the Lord? How will we? Let’s read on.
2. Saving Sycamore– Zacchaeus climbs a tree to see Jesus. So must we. And the only tree that can really help us to see the Lord is the tree of the Cross. Zacchaeus has to cling to the wood of that old sycamore to climb it, and we too must cling to the wood of the old rugged cross. Only by the wood of cross and power of Jesus’ blood can we ever hope to climb high enough to see the Lord. There is an old Latin chant that says, Dulce lignum, dulce clavos, dulce pondus sustinet (sweet the wood, sweet the nails, sweet the weight (that is) sustained). So Zacchaeus foreshadows for us the righteous that comes from the cross by climbing a tree and being able to get a glimpse of Jesus.
3. Sanctifying Savior– Jesus stops by that tree, for we always meet Jesus at the cross. And there at that tree, that cross, he invites Zacchaeus into a saving and transformative relationship. It is not a surprise that Jesus invites himself for what amounts to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house. Though dinner is not mentioned here, it was just a basic aspect of Jewish hospitality. But remember, it is Jesus who ultimately serves the meal. Consider these texts:
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20)
And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom (Luke 22:29).
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. (Luke 24:28-30)
Yes, Zacchaeus has now begun to see the Lord, and the Lord invites him into a Holy Communion, a relationship and a liturgy that will begin to transform him. And Zacchaeus is us. We too have begun to see the Lord through the power of the Cross to cast out our blindness and the Lord draws us to sacred Communion with him. The liturgy and Holy Communion are essential for this, as the Lord invites himself to our house, that is to say, our soul and our parishes.
4. Started Surrender – Zacchaeus is experiencing the start of a transformative relationship. But this is just the start. Note that Zacchaeus promises to return four-fold the money he has extorted and also to give half his money to the poor. Now there’s an old song that says, “I surrender all….” but Zacchaeus isn’t quite there yet, and, probably most of us aren’t either. Eventually Zacchaeus will surrender all, and so will we. But in time. For now he needs to stay near the cross to see and continue to allow Jesus to have communion with him. One day all will be surrendered.
So here is the start for Zacchaeus and us. The best is yet to come. You might say, that the Gospel ends here to make a long story short 🙂
This song says, “I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my desparing cry and from the waters lifted me, now safe am I. Love lifted me! When nothing else could help, love lifted me!”
Houses of Prayer
