St. Josephine Redeemed

(–Hey Jason, ever heard of Hollis Thompson? Come on, buddy!)

Hope you, dear reader, are having a good Syracuse Hate Week. Carolina-Duke? Yawn. Kentucky-Florida? Snooze. Giants-Patriots? Totally three-days-ago.

Some people might have to sit through parish Finance-Council meetings during the contest in the Carrier Dome. Sacrifices have to be made for Jesus. Feel free to text me the score every two or three minutes.

As we know, Pope Benedict wrote an encyclical letter about how Christian hope redeems us. He began his letter by recalling the life of St. Josephine Bakhita:

We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to [meet] this God for the first time. I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II.

She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan…

Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant, who returned to Italy. Here, after the terrifying masters who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of master.

Now she heard that there is a Master above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her…

What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her ‘at the Father’s right hand.’ Now she had hope—no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: ‘I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.’

Through the knowledge of this hope she was ‘redeemed,’ no longer a slave, but a free child of God…She was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion. [Five years later], she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and she made several journeys around Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her, which had redeemed her, she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.

…At every Mass, after the Our Father, we pray that the Lord would protect us from all distress as we await “the blessed hope.” This phrase comes from St. Paul’s letter to Titus, where the Apostle writes, “we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ” (2:13).

St. Josephine lived out in a particularly vivid way the redemption of every Christian. We confidently hope for the coming of Christ, the true Master of all, Who loves us. This certain hope frees us from every slavery.

I Have Always Hated…

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I root for the Va. Tech Hokies, just like all God-fearing people.

The bad man announces the bad news.

…college football. Hated it. But now? Rage. Rage, wrath, fury. And more rage.

I have two good things in my little life.

God.

And Big East basketball.

Who could be surprised that Syracuse University would cast aside everything that is holy and good? Who could be amazed at such cretinous mutiny and faithlessness?

But to throw your lot in with such unspeakable villains? A conference made up mainly of teams from North Carolina, many of which simply cannot be named in decent company?

And for football? Who cares about Syracuse football?

Thanks for ruining college basketball. Thanks for ruining the one good thing left in the middle of the inanity of “March Madness.” (Big East tournament at Madison Square Garden). An ACC tournament at Madison Square Garden? What’s next, a gay ‘marriage’ between James Worthy and Fred Brown?

Listen: I will root for the Hoyas. I will root for the Hoyas if they just play St. John’s and Providence over and over again every season. I will root for the Hoyas if they join the Big 12 or the “Catholic League” or Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations. I will root for the Georgetown Hoyas!!!

But, gosh, talk about a buzzkill: The ruination of one of the few truly excellent things on earth, Big East basketball. And for football. Football should be ashamed.

Franciscan Principles

Can we beat Syracuse without Chris Wright? We have Hollis Thompson. What is there to worry about?

–

…Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?

…Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin.
But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?

I think we would have to say that—after our Blessed Mother—the most beloved saint of all time is Francis of Assisi.

While he was on earth, St. Francis loved the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. He loved the Church and the sacraments. He loved music and poetry. He loved his fellow man. He loved the Word of God. He loved the world because God made it, and He loved God for being infinitely greater than anything in the world.

St. Francis had a deep, complicated, and maddeningly unpredictable personality. But we love him most of all because his fundamental principles were simple.

Has anyone ever known a Franciscan? Franciscans wear brown robes with white ropes as belts. Franciscans accomplish many different works: They pray, teach, help the poor, help parishes; they operate many different enterprises. But their fundamental principles are simple. ‘I don’t need money, because God provides. I don’t need a family, because I already have one.  God and everybody is my family.’

Well, looky here! Look at the words of the Sermon on the Mount that we just heard! Your heavenly Father knows that you need food and clothing. Your heavenly Father provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field, who neither sew nor reap nor toil or spin.

God is our Father, and we are all brothers and sisters. These aren’t just the fundamental principles for Franciscans. They are the fundamental principles for Christians.

But here’s a question. It is the perennial question about the Sermon on the Mount and about St. Francis and his followers, whom everybody loves from a respectful distance. The question is this: It all sounds beautiful, but is it really practical? Can I live by these principles when I go to buy a car? Can I live by these principles when I need a paycheck, and it’s a hard, cold world out there?

How about if we put the question in another way: Would St. Francis be so lovable if he were a flighty, impractical, irresponsible dreamer? For that matter, could we revere our Lord Jesus as the ultimate law of every human life if He were just an ineffectual waif who painted castles in the sky?

To follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount does not make a person impractical. Quite the contrary. The Sermon on the Mount helps us to focus on the fundamental reality of life. And the fundamental reality is: God is our Father, and we are all brothers and sisters.

God is my Father. Fathers show their love by entrusting their children with limited responsibilities. When I was a child, I did not understand anything about the mortgage on our house that my father and mother were working to pay off. But I did know that when I came home from school, I had to sit down and do my homework, and that when dinner was over, I had to do the dishes.

Likewise now. I do not understand how it is that my Father in heaven makes the sun come up; I do not understand how He organizes things so that all I have to do to get food is go to Kroger’s. I do not understand how my car works, or the refrigerator in my kitchen, even though I couldn’t live without either of them. But I do understand that it is my responsibility to try to do my best and be a decent priest. My Father loves me enough to provide everything, including even a little area of responsibility for me to control.

Everyone is my brother or sister. We are all in this together. I owe everyone my love and respect. Meeting St. Francis changed people’s lives because he treated everyone he met as if he or she were a king or queen.

But St. Francis was never anyone’s doormat. He could respect others so gently because he respected himself for the child of God that he knew himself to be.

The Lord Jesus let Himself be spat on, crowned with thorns, and executed like a criminal for our salvation. But He never tolerated the slightest disrespect for His divine mission. He repeatedly castigated even His closest friends for insulting Him by trying to make Him out to be less than He is. They wanted a new petty despot for an obscure Roman province. But Christ is the divine King of the Universe, and everything He said and did and suffered bore witness to the indescribable grandeur of Who He is.

‘Everybody is my brother and sister’ does not mean that I let one of my brothers abuse me. If a brother tries to wrong me, it is my duty as a brother to stand up for myself honestly so that we can find our way together to what is true and just.

So let’s all try to be good Franciscans. Or rather, let’s all be good Christians. God is our Father. We are all brothers and sisters.

Most Annoying

This morning I was meditating on the parable of the prodigal son.

Sinai

Here is a dramatic painting by El Greco of the mountain where Moses fasted and prayed for forty days.

…Meanwhile, who could have predicted that…

West Virginia would handily beat Pitt? Villanova would beat Marquette? Syracuse would beat UConn after SIX overtimes? The Big East tournament is up for grabs.

And today, Virginia Tech almost beat UNC!

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(Quite a long highlight reel–the game was over 3 1/2 hours!)

Valentine’s Day Miracle

Orange "flush"

The miracle is that the Hoyas scored as many points as Syracuse after forty minutes of play.

It is only right that the Orange won in overtime, because they dominated the Hoyas. They named Onuaku the game MVP, but in my opinion it was Dievendorf’s five threes that killed us. I am still at a loss as to how the Hoyas managed to put the game into overtime.

Apparently, there are many provisions in the “economic stimulus package” which regulate health care. I have heard that one of these will require a cost-benefit analysis for expensive procedures. The years a patient could be expected to live would be assigned a monetary value. Then this amount would be measured against the cost of the procedure.

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I do not know if this provision has in fact been enacted into law. Perhaps a knowledgeable P. & B. D. reader could chime in on that question.

The idea of measuring the years of a person’s life in dollars reminded me of something Bl. Columba Marmion wrote about the priesthood:

The goal for a priest is for an unbeliever to consider his life utterly worthless.

The priesthood only makes sense by the light of faith. Without faith, a priest’s life appears to be a complete and total waste.

So my goal is: When it comes time for health-care dollars to be allocated according to a cost-benefit analysis of productivity and quality of life, I hope the experts will value my life at no more than $5.00 per year.

My health-care allowance will cover two tubes of toothpaste annually (or one tube, plus dental floss). If it’s more than that, then I have not been following my vocation properly.

No Fears and No Pride

Alex Ovechkin

Abraham Lincoln is 200 years old. The Capitals lost a heartbreaker in Madison Square Garden on a shootout last night. And we are NOT worried about any Friday the Thirteenth.

To fear Friday the 13th is a type of superstition. “Divination” seeks knowledge about the course of events from dates, signs in the sky, or other auguries.

God provides for us every day of every month. To be afraid of Friday the 13th is a sin against the First Commandment.

Nonetheless, if you have an orange bathmat or doormat, make sure to use it on Saturday.

Stomp on anything orange, especially between noon and 2:00 p.m…

…How did Notre Dame just manage to beat Louisville by 33 points?

…Okay, here is today’s homily:

A man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh (Genesis 2:24)

Juice? Georgetown Downs Orange (88-74)

"I told you the Hoyas are tough!"

Summers brought it. Freeman brought it.

Monroe can pass the ball better than any 18 1/2-year-old big man who has ever lived.

Georgetown dominated the #8 Orange.

My mom doesn’t have cable, so we had to listen to Chvotkin the Great on AM 570, which, as I have said, is even better than being at the game.

Very nice Big East win for the Hoyas! By the way, does anyone know the whole story of how the Syracuse Orangemen became the Syracuse “Orange”?

DaJuan Summers had 21 points, his season high

On other interesting matters…