St. Paul tells that “Where sin abounds, grace overflows all the more.”  That certainly seems to sum up what we are experiencing from within the Catholic Church today.

Ten years ago, the twin towers fell from the sky, the child abuse scandal broke, and… my class graduated from high school.  Since then, we have continued to see rising societal anxiety and falling Mass attendance.  Music has gotten even more vulgar.  Movies have gotten even more violent and sexually explicit.  Churches are being forced to close, cluster, and serve more people with fewer resources.  The housing market has crumpled and families are working harder just to break even.  Schedules are more demanding.  Schools are more demanding.  Jobs are more demanding.

Six states have severely undermined the health of family life by redefining the meaning of the institution of marriage.  The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued an ultimatum to most Catholic employers and institutions: “Disobey your consciences or face crippling fees and penalties.”

Now, only ten years out of high school, I look back on the challenges and discouragements that my generation has witnessed.  It would not be difficult to despair.  Then, I look to our pope, our bishops, and our priests.  What do I see?

I see men who are stepping out boldly and charitably to speak the truth in all circumstances.  The U.S. Bishops have spoken firmly on why the HHS mandate is so detrimental to our faith.  They have compiled a wealth of easy-to-understand resources so that anyone can grasp what is really happening.  But the bishops refuse to be partisan.  They also continue to oppose immigration laws that incompatible with “humanitarian principles.” I have no doubt that they will continue to speak more firmly in favor of every good and against every evil.

What is more, the Vatican and the U.S. Bishops are taking serious and intentional steps to encourage our continued faithful growth.  Pope Benedict has taken the welfare of the family as his personal intention for the month of May.  He is praying “that initiatives which defend and uphold the role of the family may be promoted within society.” At the end of May, the pope will be meeting in Milan, Italy with families from all over the world to celebrate family life and work to protect its future.  To further encourage and teach us, he has also announced A Year of Faith, which will begin being celebrated on October 11, 2012.

Our U.S. bishops are likewise inviting and encouraging us in multiple ways.  The Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis recently released a document entitled Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization.  It is an inspiring yet surprisingly practical guide for enabling parishes to accomplish the evangelizing mission of our faith.  They are also inviting us all to participate in A Fortnight for Freedom from June 21^st through July 4^th.  These are two weeks of prayer, education, and action to ensure our civil liberties are always protected.

Locally, much is even happening within our own Archdiocese to open wide channels of grace.  Lighting the Way is an initiative seeking to form a unified vision for our Catholic Schools in order that each of them might learn from each other and achieve their potential.  In case you have not heard, Archbishop Schnurr has invited representatives from every parish in the Archdiocese to come together for a Summit in October.  It is entitled Revitalizing the Domestic Church, and it will focus on identifying and better fulfilling the complex needs of our families.

“Where sin abounds, grace overflows all the more.”  Let us all follow the lead of our priests and bishops.  Let us step up our game with more prayers, more fasting, and more intentional efforts to inform ourselves and others.  Thus, we will be more prepared to receive and know Christ, and more prepared to accomplish His mission for us.

Where can we begin?  We might not all be able to travel to Milan for the World Meeting of Families, but we can still participate.  Visit the World Meeting of Families Online Retreat to learn more.

 ”See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are.” (1 Jn 3:1)

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. I have said this before, and I will say it again, because it is foundational to my faith in my God.  I think it is key to our understanding of who we are as God’s people.

If we want to get a glimpse of how much God loves and cares for us just look at the love relationship between a parent and a child. It is a relationship that begins before birth. Our children came into existence as the direct result of the love and affection that a husband and a wife have for each other. Husband and wife are drawn to each other to share the love that God planted in their hearts for each other, and, as a result of that love, just as God planned from the beginning of time, each and every one of us came into our lives.

As a father myself, I loved and had a relationship with my children even before they were born. It seems a bit silly now, but many times, when Colleen would start to show, I would lay in bed next to her and sing songs or tell jokes to my soon to be son or daughter. I remember like it was yesterday when each of my children came into our world, born to us, or come to us through another way.

I remember especially holding my first son, shortly after his birth. Cradling that small, pink, wrinkled bundle, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones. I remember feeling an overwhelming sense of love, tenderness and an almost fierce protectiveness and realizing that now everything has changed. I began understanding that life is no longer just about me, or just about us. It’s not just about my relationship with my God or others. I was responsible to nurture, protect, care for and to love that new gift from God: our son or our daughter. I was responsible for teaching them to live, to love, what it is to be human, to be a son or a daughter of God.

The love of a parent for a child is not something that can be earned. That kind of love is a given. It is wired into our very being. I am loved by my parents and I love my children no matter what! That love transcends all time, all distance. That love exists whether we are saint or sinner, whether we are wealthy or poor, whether we are school teachers or drug dealers, Because that child is, and, will always be, a part of their very self.

And that’s the love that our God has for us, but a million times more. Just as each one of us were conceived by way of an act of love between our parents, we, as God’s sons and daughters are born out of the creative love of our God. The creative interactive love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Our God could not NOT love us, because we are His. We are wonderfully created in his image and in his likeness.

The moment of our birth, as sons and daughters of God, happens, not in a hospital, or a bed at home. It happens right here at our parish church, in the waters of baptism. That’s what we are reminded of  every time we bless our self with holy water. That’s what we are reminded of on the Sundays of Easter as we are sprinkled with holy water. And that’s what we are reminded of as we celebrate at baptisms within and outside of Mass. We are reminded that we are the children of God, His sons and His daughters.

We are also reminded that our God loves us without limit, so much so that he chose to be born as one of us, to live with us, as one of us. He chose freely to give everything, even his very life, so that we can live. That’s a love that cannot be earned. It cannot be lost. It is freely given out of total love for us. And we are asked to do only one thing in response: To love. To love our God and to love one another as he loves us. Let’s pray that through the grace of our baptism and through the grace that we experience each week at Eucharist that we are able to do just that.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about perfection. For most of us I would be willing to bet that a significant amount of blood, sweat, and tears has been shed in order to bring something in our lives to perfection.

But what is perfection exactly? The definition may be as varied and unique as each individual is from another.  Is perfection a value? Is it a virtue? I would like to think it is a very important thing to subscribe to as long as I don’t get too obsessive or naive about it.

Perfection seems to have a lot of “holy” and or spiritual connotations. I am re-reading a book written by Church historian Roberta Bondi entitled To Love as God Loves: Conversations with the Early Church. I initially had to read this book for one of my Church History courses. It is not so much a history book telling the story of events. It is more of a dialogue with the early Christian mothers and fathers who faced the same questions as us. Questions like… what does it mean to be a Christian? And…what does it mean to radically follow the Gospel?

Bondi says that these early mothers and fathers, as varied and unique as one from another, saw love as the answer. Not the emotional warm and fuzzy kind but the kind that went through a lifetime of learning in the school of true humility. This is the realistic kind of love, the intentional kind, the kind that is done by choice when we least feel like it. For these Christians, this was the way of perfection.

This school of humility would demand, among many things, a letting go of the need to impress others, to look good. It would demand letting go of being obsessive or judgmental of themselves and others. It would demand a considerable amount of forgiveness.

This school was about relationships and required a great deal of inner work and discipline. These early Christians practiced what it meant to live the great commandment  — to love God with all their heart and mind and to love their neighbors as themselves. Bondi says that this first generation of Jesus’ followers understood his words “be perfect” as an imperative to follow this great commandment.

To explain their world-view, she makes the following statement.  “To be a perfect human being, a human being the way God intends human beings to be, is to be a fully loving person, loving God, and every bit as important, loving God’s image, the other people who share the world with us.”

Many of these early monastic Christians lived in a time of persecution and violence. Christianity was not a legally recognized religion. Their answer to this reality was to live a rigorous spiritual life apart from the culture. Theirs was a dying to self. They were spiritual athletes. Their model was the Christ who though he was in the form of God, emptied himself of his divinity in order to become human so that we could become divine. To arrive at this kind of love, one that comes through dying to egos, judgments, dismissiveness toward others, and lack of forgiveness, was the ongoing pursuit and attainment of perfection in their lives.

Our early Christian mothers and fathers have much to teach us. We do not have to become monastics to live this way of perfection. Our everyday lives are the perfect school for practicing this love. It is no less our goal in the Christian way of life.

(picture in public domain)

This Sunday’s Gospel passage from John 15 is one of my favorites as a husband and father.

The reminder that my life is not about me – that it must be laid down for my wife and children – is something I can’t hear enough.  But how perfect it is that we’ll hear this awesome Gospel on Mother’s Day?  This passage, it seems to me, is the very definition of motherhood.  Love.  Not syrupy sweet, mushy, “I love pizza” kind of love.  Not the counterfeits that pass for love on TV.

No, I mean real, sacrificial, don’t-count–the–cost  love.  I was blessed to grow up with a mother who truly lived out these words of Christ (and still does), and I was lucky enough (I still don’t know what she was thinking)  to marry a woman who lays down her life every day for me, for our children, and for the young people she teaches.

Take last Sunday for example:  After Mass her day included doing our filthy laundry, a couple hours working in her classroom, taking the girls on a shopping trip, making dinner, and grading countless papers.  And it’s not like that was an aberration; that’s her life every day.

I don’t know how she does it, but I do know why.  Love.  The kind of love Jesus talks about in John’s Gospel.

Now I know I’m not the only person out there with an awesome mother and/or an amazing wife.  So let’s fill up the comments section with some shout-outs to the great mothers in our lives.  Guys – here’s your chance to do some bragging on your wives – go for it!

And ladies – thanks for showing us men what love is all about!

Our 8-year old son made his First Communion this weekend.  At the beginning of Mass, Father Geoff prayed an opening prayer that caught me off-guard.

“These children who come to the table of the Lord for the first time receive in Holy Communion the pledge of salvation offered on the day of their baptism.”

My eyes flew wide-open.  I looked down at my son; looked over at Kate; looked back to the baptismal font in the back of church where Father was still standing . . . and uneasiness gripped me.

My son was baptized at that very font.  I remembered holding him in my arms during the rite, standing about where Father was now.  I remembered the great promises I made on that cold afternoon.  I remembered looking at my infant son and then over at his 2-year old sister and being cocksure of the awesomeness of the fatherly talents that I possessed.

Of course, what I hadn’t seen was the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph to the left and right of me laughing with that quiet chuckle that experienced parents get when listening to the blustering of the newbies.

Fast forward eight years.  I’m no longer a newbie, but there are days that I feel like one.  I’ve been so humbled in how hard it is to get my children to want to build their divine relationship.  The struggles over Mass, bedtime prayers, and right behavior often leave me frustrated and demoralized.  I just don’t know if they are getting it.

These struggles came to mind at Mass as the time came for Holy Communion.  I stood and looked at the altar.  I silently said to Christ, “hey, we got him here; he’s coming to receive you.  I don’t know how, but he’s here.  And he’s excited.  I’ll let you take it from here.”

This Holy Communion was especially grace-filled.  My son was very reverent.  He got it.  I don’t know how, but he got it.

As I knelt in prayer, looking down at him; it dawned on me.  Kate and I were not the ones who had gotten him to this point.  God did.  I’ve lost sight of how God calls our son each and every day to grow closer to him.  Obviously, our son has been listening, even if we didn’t realize it.  He is getting it.

We parents are just the conduit for God’s grace into our children’s lives.  He doesn’t want us to go it alone; he doesn’t want us to take charge.  He wants us to act as his conduit for his will, not our own.   Everything we do for our children, we do on behalf of God.  It is the blessing of our vocation.

Our son’s pilgrimage has just begun.  From here on out, Kate and I have a special charge to make sure that he is listening and growing closer to God the Father through Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Mother; and to do so always in uniformity with His will.

My neighbor Paul is an independent, cantankerous eighty-five-year old German Baptist farmer.   It’s hard to believe that I’ve known him and his wife Mary for our entire adult lives, and that when we moved to our place thirty years ago they weren’t much older than we are now!

Last week, however, his beloved Mary unexpectedly went into cardiac arrest and became nonresponsive.  She had already been suffering the effects of Alzheimer’s, so the family made the difficult decision to call Hospice in.

When I later stopped by the farm to see the family, Paul was working on some books in his shop.  The minute I walked in the door he held out his hands and burst into tears.   “I’m sorry,” he kept telling me, “I’m feeling pretty emotional.”  “Well, yes!” I thought.  Hands clasped hand in a moment that transcended time, as hands have touched, and arms have enfolded through the ages in times of agony.

Later, repeatedly stroking Mary’s arm through the sheets, touch far transcended the words I repeated: “It’s Sue, Mary, I’m here.  Thanks for all you taught us.  Go easily….know you are loved.”

The following day during a prayer and discussion hour at the parishes, one of the older women in our parish urged me into a chair where she massaged my shoulders and head, trying to remove the sorrow that remained.  Tears ran down my cheeks as I recognized the touch of God in those loving hands.

We take for granted that ability to share in another’s sorrow through touch, and perhaps even more so through joy.  Just the Sunday before, one of our RCIA candidates who had been ill at the time of the Easter Vigil, was received into the Church and confirmed.  His joy, and the exuberance of those who had worked with him, was palpable in the spontaneous hugs that erupted during the conferral of these sacraments, not to mention in the Gathering Space after the Mass.  “I was drowning in hugs!” he exclaimed.

“Touch me,” said Jesus in the reading from John’s Gospel the third week of Easter.  “Touch me and see.”   Christ, incarnated, became a man who wept, who laughed, who ate and drank, who had as much of a need for the touch of a hand, the embrace of a friend as do any of us.

The ancient and yet still-living heresy of Gnosticism taught that Jesus was a divine being whose persona simply mimicked that of a real human person.  It was necessary, the Gnostics believed, to transcend the physical body to become again who we are meant to be.  As the Incarnation and the gospels tell us, that is not the Catholic way!

“Touch me…” Jesus commanded; see that I’m no ghost, no spirit, but a person who lives as you do, one who understands your physical sorrows and joys.   Touch one another, in love, through hugs and kisses of peace, to communicate what words cannot say, and in so doing, touch the Christ who lives still among us.

“Touch me, and know I am here.”

Photo: Flickr/Josep Ma. Rosell

I’ve recently had a number of conversations with my 2-year-old that have gone something like this:

Daughter:  “Can I have one gold coin [referring to those very waxy pieces of chocolate covered in gold foil]?”

Father:  “Not until after dinner.”

Daughter:  “How about two gold coins?”

Father:  [Turns head and laughs]

Her innocence makes her hard to turn down.  And her bold asking makes me want to cave and give her a double-portion on the spot.

These conversations have led me to wonder if I’m childlike enough in my prayer, especially if the following statements are true (and we believe they are):

• “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in heaven.” Mt. 18:3-4
• “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to you children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  Mt. 7:7-11
• “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”  James 1:17

To become childlike in prayer means trusting that God, the Father, does indeed want what is best for me and wants to give me truly good things.

If I can afford to give my daughter gold coins, I could also afford to become more courageous in my asking, and even more courageous in using the gifts that He has given me.  I could become more childlike in my dependence upon Him.  I could become more confident in Him through humility.

“The State of our Unions” is the title of a December 2011 research report from the National Marriage Project of the Institute for American Values and the University of Virginia. The researchers set out to answer these three questions: “Is it emotionally easier to parent alone in a world in which a good marriage seems increasingly out of reach? Is parenthood itself an obstacle to a good marriage? What are the social, cultural, and relational sources of marital success among today’s parents?”

According to the study, the top five predictors of marital satisfaction for married mothers are above-average (1) sexual satisfaction, (2) commitment, (3) generosity to spouse, (4) attitude toward raising children, and (5) social support.

The top five predictors of marital satisfaction for married fathers are above-average (1) sexual satisfaction, (2) commitment, (3) generosity to spouse, (4) attitude toward raising children, and (5) marital spirituality shared by both spouses.

The top five factors that minimize the likelihood of separation or divorce for married mothers are above-average (1) commitment, (2) sexual satisfaction, (3) marital spirituality shared by both spouses, (4) social support, and (5) marital spirituality of wife.

The top five factors that minimize the likelihood of separation or divorce for married fathers are above-average (1) commitment, (2) sexual satisfaction, (3) marital spirituality shared by both spouses, (4) attendance at religious services weekly or more often, and (5) generosity to wife.

Read the rest of the article on the Catholic Telegraph website.

Sean Reynolds is the archdiocesan director of the Office of Youth & Young Adult Ministry.

This is the time of year when rumors swirl around about priestly assignments. Of the men to be ordained this spring, it is likely that some will be assigned to teach in high schools. In the 1960s and 70s it was rare for a newly ordained priest not to begin his priestly ministry as a high school teacher. During the 1980s and 90s that become less common (though today we have at least four priests teaching full time in our schools and a couple more who teach part time).

When I was ordained in 2009, I was asked to teach full-time at Bishop Fenwick High School in Middletown. I began that assignment with a little trepidation:

How would I approach teaching religion to high school students? How would I promote the faith, especially the sacraments? How would I work to encourage vocations to the priesthood and religious life? How would I manage my classroom and try to keep some semblance of discipline?

The first semester was difficult – adjusting to being a priest, having new co-workers and two new “bosses” (my principal and Archbishop Schnurr!), getting used to drafting lesson plans and managing a classroom.

But within a few months, I began to love my ministry. I looked especially forward to daily Mass in the high school chapel before school as well as the opportunity to hear confessions and help with retreats. I enjoyed getting to know my students – in class, but also through sports and clubs. I became convinced that teaching and working with young people was among the most rewarding of ministries.

After two years of teaching high school, I was asked to move to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and teach future priests. Though my students are now a bit older and on average more interested in matters of faith and religion, many of the lessons I learned from teaching high school remain with me. I feel blessed to be able to continue my ministry of teaching.

For those soon-to-be priests who will be ordained in a couple of weeks, I am praying for blessings in their ministries. I hope that for at least some of them that ministry includes teaching in one of our Catholic high schools.

As we continue to celebrate the Easter mysteries, it is a time “for the community and the neophytes together to grow in deepening their grasp of the paschal mystery and in making it part of their lives through meditation on the Gospel, sharing in the Eucharist, and doing the works of charity… Through their experience of the sacraments they have received…they truly have been renewed in mind, tasted more deeply the sweetness of God’s word, received the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, and grown to know the goodness of the Lord.  Out of this experience, which belongs to Christians and increases as it is lived, they derive a new perception of faith, of the Church, and of the world.”

[Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: Study Edition – 37, 38]

Whew!  I had to take a deep breath.  There is a lot going on in these words.

Is this really happening in the midst of the gathered community?  If it is, you would think that not only are the neophytes (the newly baptized) transformed, but the whole community has been renewed in mind and heart.  This is the very reason that we celebrate the Sacraments of the Church in the gathered community.  They provide an opportunity for the entire community to reflect upon and to know that God is still working miracles in us and through us.

It is in the celebration of the Easter Sacraments – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist – that we are able to experience the power of God’s Holy Spirit to change, cleanse, transform, and satisfy the wounded soul.

It is in journeying together that we come to understand that we, too, have been breathed on by the same Lord who entered into the upper room and “breathed on the disciples saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” [John 20: 19-23]

We shout our Alleluia’s to the glory of God, for the children, the young and the old who have heard, responded and professed belief in the God who called them each by name. It is truly a miracle that in broken communities, in the throes of storms and trials, we are witnesses of the things God has done.  So, let us tell the world, we have seen the Lord!  Our God is still working miracles.