First Letter of John

One of my favorite books of the Bible is the First Letter of John. 

It is so richly centered and focused on the Lord Jesus, and it shows us how true belief in Jesus must result in love.  “Love each other” we hear in I Jn 4:7.  Of all the things that we do and believe as parishioners of St. Gregory the Great, love is at the heart of who we are.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once described love as the “style” of the believer, in a talk he gave in St. Peter’s Square in 2010.  Is there no love in your heart? Then you do not know God, John tells us.  May this teaching challenge and inspire us!

For St. John, furthermore, love is not fundamentally about warm feelings.  I like greeting card stores as much as anyone else; I go to the Hamilton Marketplace every so often to look for cards or gifts for family members or to look for decorations to put around the rectory offices or other places. For St. John though, love must be grounded and rooted explicitly in the person of Jesus Christ, the Commandments and truth. To not love our neighbor/brother/sister is a serious matter; it is a sin for which we will one day be held accountable by God in some way.  Love is bold and self-sacrificing; it is Christ giving His own life for us on the Cross forgiving us of our sins!   

We learn these profound lessons and many more from the First Letter of John.  May they help us to live out our unofficial motto here at St. Greg’s: “Where there is love, great things happen.”

Priestly Promises

I was thinking today about the promises that I made at my Ordination – both my Ordination to transitional diaconate and to priesthood.  (A priest is ordained as a “transitional” deacon, as opposed to permanent diaconate, for a period of usually up to one year before priesthood).  I look back on these promises from time to time to see if I am ‘measuring up’ to God and to the people I serve.  Of course I do not fulfill them perfectly, but as priests we try. 

Here are just some of them:

At Ordination I promised respect and obedience to my bishop (I was ordained by Bishop John Smith) and his successors (now Bishop David O’Connell). I resolved to “celebrate the mysteries of Christ [especially the sacraments and other liturgies and rituals] faithfully and religiously as the Church has handed them down to us.” I resolved to “maintain and deepen a spirit of prayer” and to celebrate faithfully the Liturgy of the Hours.

At Ordination I resolved to “remain celibate for the sake of the kingdom.” I resolved to unite myself “more closely every day to Christ the High Priest.” What a grace-filled way of life!  I am so lucky to work and minister with two wonderful priests here at the parish: Fr. Mike Hall, my parochial vicar and Director of the Office of Worship for the Diocese of Trenton, and Fr. Jay Bowden, who as a “retired” priest is as busy as ever!   I learn many things about being a priest from both of these men, who strive to live out their promises as well. 

Thank you for allowing us to exercise our priestly ministry here at St. Gregory’s.  It is a privilege.  Thank you also for praying for us – we of course pray for you – and please pray for more vocations to the priesthood!  There may be a future priest in your own family!

The 36th Annual Family Carnival is here!!

I was honored last night to “light the midway” at our 36^th Annual Family Carnival! Thank you to Jerry Madaio and the Carnival Committee and Mary Theresa Weil and the Carnival Sponsorship team for all the work they did all year to prepare for this week. I’ve discovered that the Carnival is such a big event that it requires year long preparation! I also thank all the volunteers from our parish community who will help us this week.

I am learning that the Carnival here at St. Gregory’s is not just a fundraiser for our school. It is also a cultural event that people throughout the area look forward to. I extend a welcome not only to the guests who will come on our grounds but also to the workers who are visiting us this week.   

It is funny how certain life experiences prepare you in a way that you could never imagine.  The summer between my graduation from high school and college I worked at carnivals in northern New Jersey. I worked for a family in town at their travelling company Robart Amusements.

I got to know the family I worked for very well and was like another son to them that summer.  I stayed overnight with them in a trailer one night for goodness’ sake!  The bunk bed I slept in was like a sardine can.  I am very thankful for having experienced carnival life.  I never could have imagined at that time in 1997 that one day I would be the pastor of a parish that hosted a very large carnival.  

I will never forget a man I met at a carnival in Flemington, New Jersey.  I started to talk with him and told him I was considering priesthood.  I confided in him that I was having a hard time embracing it.  He responded to me: “Why don’t you let it embrace you?” He helped me continue on the journey toward priesthood.

May you and your families enjoy this week --- and always realize that God can speak to you in the most unlikeliest of places!  Enjoy the Carnival.

Happy Thanksgiving

Abraham Lincoln, in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863, said the following:

“[T]hose nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.”

What a powerful message from our 16^th president, the president who kept our country united!  

Today you and I as members of St. Gregory the Great Parish are called to offer such praise to God as the source of all our blessings.  

You are well aware that Thanksgiving and Christmas are becoming increasingly secularized;  this is nothing new – it has been happening for decades.  By “secularism” I mean the ideology that the worldly/temporal must be always distinguished from the spiritual, that religious belief must always be separated out of public life.  At one point in the 1930’s, Thanksgiving Day, which had been established by Lincoln as the last Thursday of the month of November, was moved up one week earlier to allow for more shopping time prior to Christmas.  

As Catholics we do not live as if our daily lives are separate from our religious lives.   We integrate the two and believe that our faith in God affects our everyday lives and that faith should also have a place in the public life of our country.  

May you and I live Thanksgiving Day in the spirit of the Pilgrims, George Washington and Lincoln, in a spirit of love and joy, by offering thanks to Whom it belongs: our Creator, our Father in Heaven.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mass of Remembrance

As we look at the beautiful trees around here on campus - red, yellow, orange, and gold - and see the leaves begin to fall - we think of the words describing trees in autumn from the poet Robert Frost:

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

As we remember our loved ones this month, we speak those same words: “Nothing gold can stay.”  Our loved ones mean the world to us, yet we always knew all along that at some point they would have to leave us - that they could not stay forever - that they would have to pass from this world.

As I shared with those present at our Mass of Remembrance this past Wednesday, Harold Bloomfield, Peter McWilliams and Melba Colgrove have some advice for us in a book about surviving during loss. They say that it is important to grieve for our loved ones.   

“Don't postpone, deny, cover or run from your pain.  Be with it now.”  “Everything else can wait.”  “Set aside time to mourn” they say to us. We are so used to putting things behind us quickly and moving on with our lives. But sometimes we force that to happen and we never completely heal.   

It is best to be open with God about our grief as we think about our loved ones and lift them up to God.    

“Be gentle with yourself.”  “Accept that you have an emotional wound, that it is debilitating, and that it will take awhile before you are completely well,” they advise us. 

It may be a little more difficult for you to carry out certain tasks. That's okay.

“Surround yourself with goodness and light.”  “Breathe deeply of goodness and light.  Let it fill every cell of your body.”

God can help us heal. We want to breathe in the light and goodness of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection.  We choose to light candles for our loved one and allow the warmth of that light to come into our hearts.

Please take a moment to pray for our deceased parishioners whose photos are in the alcove of our Gathering Space this month.  It is a powerful way that we continue to think about them, hold them in our hearts, and still express our love for them.

Confirmation 2014

On Saturday, November 1st (All Saints Day) Bishop O’Connell, the bishop of the Diocese of Trenton, celebrated the sacrament of confirmation with 225 youngsters of our community.  It was a beautiful, prayerful, sacred, spiritual event!   These boys and girls received this final sacrament of their sacraments of initiation, the third one for them after baptism and Eucharist.  Confirmation is a strengthening of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in the soul of the person. Those gifts include wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord. It was wonderful to be present as those gifts were sealed in them.

Our church was decked in red: red cloths, red flower wreaths around the candles, red ribbons on the edges of the pews, and red vestments on the bishop, priests and deacons. “Red” as you know is the liturgical color of the Holy Spirit.  At the ceremony, the boys and girls reaffirmed their faith in God and His Church by responding “I do” to the Bishop when he asked them if they believed various teachings of the Faith and the Creed.  The Bishop then laid hands on them as a group while praying a prayer. He then placed chrism on their foreheads in the form of a cross and said “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit” followed by “Peace be with you.”   

Each youngster of course had chosen a confirmation name. Just as a piece of trivia, the Bishop told me that the two most common confirmation names for girls are “Cecilia” and “Elizabeth.”  

One could truly feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament. May we all support these young men and women as they strive to live their Faith this year, in their high school years and beyond!  We pray that the gifts of the Holy Spirit will continue to blossom and shine forth in them.

It was such an honor to have Bishop O’Connell with us to celebrate confirmation. The Bishop is not able to go to all the 109 parishes in the Diocese of Trenton to perform confirmation, so it was a privilege that he selected us.

Most of you know about the Bishop already I am sure, but I just wanted to share some biographical information about him with you.  A member of the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians), Bishop O’Connell since his ordination to priesthood has served at various institutions in the areas of academic administration and education; he has served as a professor of theology, philosophy, religious studies and canon law.   

In 1998, then-Father O'Connell was named the 14th president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.  One of his main priorities while he was president of the university was the Catholic identity of the programs on campus.  I was a canon law student at CUA while Bishop O’Connell was president there and was able to meet him there on one occasion (not knowing that he would be my bishop one day!).

On June 4, 2010, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI appointed Father O'Connell as Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Trenton. He was ordained to the episcopacy by Bishop John M. Smith in St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, Trenton, on July 30, 2010.  Bishop O'Connell succeeded Bishop Smith as the 10th Bishop of Trenton on December 1, 2010.

Since becoming the shepherd of the Diocese, Bishop O’Connell has focused his efforts on the catechetical development of his flock, the sanctification and cultivation of his priests, and the advancement of vocations.  The Bishop has also devoted special attention to the sustainability of Catholic schools in the diocese, and I know that he thinks very highly of our Academy.  

The bishop also serves on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education. He is also a consultor to the Congregation for Catholic Education at the Vatican.

Congratulations again to all our newly confirmed and to their parents and families!       

 

 

Happy Halloween

It was fun to walk over to our school’s “Trunk or Treat” event last Friday! There were rows and rows of cars whose open trunks were filled with candy.  People were in clever costumes, and the cars were decorated in all sorts of ways. Some vehicles were spooky.  One person’s trunk was decorated according to the theme of the movie “Frozen.”    Someone even turned her car into a pirate ship! It was clear that the children who took part in “Trunk or Treat” had a great time!

We all know that kids love Halloween.  They love to dress up, eat candy, and spend time with their friends.   It is a popular holiday for them (and for many adults as well).   Additionally – and this is something we don’t think about a lot - it is also a golden opportunity to assist your kids to make connections to the Faith.  

Halloween as you know has Christian roots.  At one time, as early as 800 B.C., the ancient Celtic tribes who lived in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany celebrated the beginning of the new year and the coming of winter on November 1. On the night before the new year these pagan peoples celebrated the festival of “Samhain,” or “lord of the Dead.”  During this festival, Celts believed that the souls of the dead, ghosts, goblins and witches returned to mingle with the living.  In order to scare away the evil spirits, people wore masks and lit bonfires.  When the Romans conquered the Celts, they added their own traditions to the Samhain festival, such as making centerpieces out of apples, bobbing for apples and making apple cider; they did this in honor of Pomona, whom they considered the goddess of the orchards. 

In 835 AD, Pope Gregory IV guided this pagan holiday in a Christian direction.  He moved the celebration for all the martyrs (later all saints) from May 13 to November 1.  The night before became known as All Hallows Even or “holy evening.”  Eventually the name was shortened to the current “Halloween.”  The purpose of “All Saints Day” as well as “All Souls Day” (November 2) is to remember those who have died, whether they are officially recognized by the Church as saints or not. 

The Church throughout the centuries has been very adept at taking pagan events or symbols and Christianizing them by reinterpreting their meaning in the light of the Gospel. In Rome, for example, the famous building known as the Pantheon is today a Christian church devoted to all the saints (or more specifically to St. Mary and the martyrs); at one time it was a pagan temple dedicated to ‘all the Roman gods.’

In this spirit, the best way that we can celebrate Halloween is to see the Christian meaning of it by helping children to connect it to the two feast days of the Church that follow.  

As you know it is natural for people to want to explore the supernatural and the spiritual

world.  For example, I love to visit Gettysburg, and each time that I visit I see that there are more and more ghost tours that take place in the streets of the town in the evening.  One can see small groups led by lantern-wielding guides all over town when it gets dark.  Many people believe that the town and battlefield are haunted.   

Another example of people’s fascination with the supernatural is the movie out now called “Ouija.”  The “Ouija” board is an instrument under the guise of a simple board game through which people are able to contact spirits.  In the movie the protagonists are able to contact dead people.  

When I was a child I did not really know that there was anything wrong with the Ouija board, until one day when my father made this clear to all of us by throwing the game into our fireplace to be engulfed by flames!   

People are curious about the spirit world and life after death.  It is good to ask questions about these things.  And the Church has answers for us about them! 

What is wrong with the Ouija board for example? The problem is that it is a vehicle that opens us to supernatural sources that are evil.  The Ouija board, tarot cards, palm readers, fortunetellers and psychics are all examples of the “occult.”  The “occult” refers to anything that claims to give us secret knowledge from supernatural sources other than God. The First Commandment forbids us from putting our trust in spirits other than God and from placing our faith in, and entrusting our future to, something that is not of God.

What about ghosts? Does the Church believe in ghosts?  If you're wondering whether spiritual souls live on after the body dies, the answer is yes.  “Ghosts” could be souls in Purgatory (a place of purification and suffering where a soul dwells before it arrives in Heaven), or they could be evil spirits.

Many Christians do not celebrate Halloween because it has pagan origins and because some of the symbols associated with it have evil connotations.  But once again if we try to see this secular holiday with a Christian meaning, notably by interpreting it through the lens of the communion of saints, All Saints Day or All Souls Day, then our families will have many reasons to celebrate.  With this in mind, I wish you a “Happy Halloween!”