The Beatitudes: Jesus’ Prescription for Happiness

(Fourth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on January 29, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13; Psalm 146:6-10; 1 Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here:  Fourth Sunday 2023]

For the last five years or so, I’ve been one of the editorial writers for the Rhode Island Catholic, our diocesan newspaper.  When I read the gospel in preparation for this Mass, I thought of one of the first editorials I wrote back in 2018.  Let me read that short editorial to you now:

The most popular class in the history of Yale University is being held this semester.  Nearly one quarter of the school’s population is enrolled in it.  The title of the course is “Psychology and the Good Life,” and its purpose is to teach these young people how to attain a measure of happiness in their lives. Similar courses have also been held at other major universities in recent years.  One Yale student was quoted as saying that enrollment in these so-called “Happiness 101” classes is “a cry for help.”

That candid comment says a lot.

Yale was founded in 1701 to train Congregational ministers.  The early graduates of Yale understood that the key to attaining a measure of happiness in this world (and perfect happiness in the next) is to be found in a personal relationship with the living God, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

Obviously that is not so clear to Yale students in 2018.  In no small part, this is because they’re growing up in a culture which has, for all practical purposes, rejected God.  We hope that these young men and women will rediscover their educational and academic roots, which are deeply spiritual and firmly grounded in faith.

If they do, they will come to recognize the truth of St. Augustine’s words: “Oh Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

 

I doubt that much has changed at Yale since 2018—although I found out this week that you can access this course online now (if you’re interested).  You might want to check it out when you’re “surfing the net” sometime.

Which brings us to the Beatitudes.  The Beatitudes are the keys to true and lasting happiness—the true and lasting happiness that those Yale students—and all of us—are looking for. Each beatitude you will notice begins with the word “Blessed.” That word in the original Greek text of Matthew’s gospel is “makarios.”  Makarios can be translated by the English word “blessed” (as it is here), but it can also be translated by the English word “Happy.” And in some versions of the Bible it is. In those versions, the first beatitude reads, “Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

 

And the others begin in the same way.

 

The Beatitudes are the attitudes that keep us on the road to eternal life—which is why they have the power to bring us happiness.  But we need to be clear about it: this is not the superficial kind of happiness that depends on circumstances (which is the kind of happiness that Patriots’ fans and Packers’ fans don’t have right now on Championship Sunday in the NFL!).  That kind of happiness comes and goes, depending on what’s going on in your life (and whether or not your favorite football team won its last game!). The happiness that comes from embracing and living the Beatitudes is different. 

 

The happiness that comes from embracing and living the Beatitudes is a happiness—a kind of peace, really—that dwells at the very core of your being, which means that it can exist—and persist—even in the midst of great sorrow.

 

Which is very good news.

 

So Jesus says, “Happy will you be if you are poor in spirit.”  In other words, happy will you be if you know you need God and then put him first in your life, because in doing that you will be on the road to heaven—even if from time to time you experience a few bumps in the road here on earth.

 

Happy will you be when you mourn: when you mourn, first of all, for your own personal sins—because your mourning will lead you to repentance.  And happy will you be when you mourn in the midst of the “bumps in the road” you experience, because those sufferings will bring you closer to Christ, and when you “offer them up” (as the nuns used to tell us to do) you'll draw down many blessings into your own life and into the lives of others.

 

Happy will you be if you are meek—in other words, if you humbly accept God's will in your life with serenity and confidence.

 

Happy will you be if your first goal in this life is to be holy, and not rich or famous.

 

Happy will you be if you are merciful and forgiving.  Unforgiveness will not destroy you, and God will be merciful to you in your own life.

 

Happy will you be if you are single-hearted and if you serve God for the right reasons and not for selfish motives.

 

Happy will you be if you work to establish the peace that Jesus came to this earth to give: peace in your family, peace in your place of employment, peace wherever you happen to be.

 

Happy will you be even in the midst of persecution, because you'll realize that you're sharing in the Cross of Christ, which means that in heaven you'll share more fully in the fruits of the Lord's resurrection!

 

This is Jesus’ prescription for happiness.  I wonder how many of these ideas can be found in Yale’s Happiness 101 course.  Hopefully at least a few of them are there in some form—like the one about being merciful and the one about working for peace.  But all of them are important.  They’re important because they make it clear that we should not base our happiness on the ever-changing circumstances of our lives (like whether or not our favorite football team wins).

 

But that’s a mistake that many people make—which is illustrated, I think, in the polling data on this issue.  In recent years, when Americans have been polled, and asked whether or not they’re happy, amazingly only 31 to 35 percent have answered in the affirmative.  Almost 70 percent have said that they are unhappy at the present time.  That makes a lot of sense to me because in my humble estimation that’s about the percentage of the population that’s dealing with difficult circumstances at any given time.  For example, I’ll bet if I took a survey today on how many of you are dealing with difficult circumstances in your lives right now, at least 7 out of every 10 of you would raise your hands.

 

So obviously it’s a mistake to try to find lasting happiness—lasting beatitude—in the things and in the circumstances of this earthly life.  If you do that, you’ll be crying 7 out of every 10 days!

 

The happiness—the beatitude—that endures comes from Jesus Christ, and is rooted in his words to us in today’s gospel.

 

And so we pray this morning: Lord, may your Beatitudes become our attitudes, and may we inspire others to make your Beatitudes their attitudes, so that we will all experience a measure of beatitude here on this earth, and eternal beatitude someday with you in your heavenly kingdom.  Amen.

 

 

Three Easy and Effective Ways to Promote Vocations

(Third Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on January 22, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 8:23-9:3; Psalm 27:1-14; 1 Corinthians 1:10-17; Matthew 4:12-23.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday 2023]

I came across this reflection on the priesthood several years ago.  Some of you have probably heard it before:

If a priest preaches more than 10 minutes, they say he’s long-winded.  If his homily is short, they say he didn’t prepare it well.  If the parish funds are in the black, they say he has business savvy.  If he mentions money, they say he’s money-mad.  If he visits his parishioners, they say he’s nosy; if he doesn’t, they say he’s a snob.  If he has dinners and bazaars, they say he’s bleeding the people; if he doesn’t, they say there’s no life in the parish.  If he takes time in the reconciliation room to advise sinners, they say he takes too long.  If he doesn’t, they say he doesn’t care.  If he celebrates Mass in a quiet voice, they say he’s boring; if he puts emphasis in his words, they say he’s an actor.  If he starts Mass on time, they say his watch must be fast; if he starts late, they say he’s holding up the people.  If he’s young, they say he’s inexperienced; if he’s old they say he ought to retire.

And you think it’s easy being a priest?!!

Of course, I know that none of those things has ever been said about me!—especially the one about being long-winded!

I wonder if Peter, Andrew, James and John had any idea what they were getting into when Jesus called them away from their fishing business and former way of life to be his apostles, and, eventually, his first priests.

Probably not.  But they said yes anyway!  And they did it enthusiastically, as do most priests today.

That last point might come as a surprise to many people, but it’s true nonetheless.  In spite of the challenges and sacrifices of priestly life—like dealing with the divisions among people that St. Paul had to deal with in Corinth (which we heard about a few moments ago in our second reading)—most priests today are happy in their vocation.

In fact, when Fr. Stephen Rossetti surveyed 834 priests after the scandals of 2002 (a time when priestly morale should have been extremely low), he found that 92% of them either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Overall, I am happy as a priest.”  A Los Angeles Times poll of 1,854 priests yielded a similar result: 91% said they were satisfied with the “way [their] life as a priest [was] going,” and 90% said they would do it all over again.  If they could turn back the hands of time, they would choose once more to respond to God’s grace and serve the Lord in the priesthood.

That’s because it’s a joy to bring Jesus to people (especially in the sacraments), and to bring people to Jesus!

Now, unfortunately, there are many places (especially in the affluent Western world) where the number of vocations is very, very low.  Actually, it’s not the number of “vocations” that’s small (since God always calls a sufficient number of shepherds for his people).  The problem is that many who are being called are not responding!  The Lord is calling, but they are not saying yes.

There are many reasons for this, of course—for this “response crisis” that we’re currently experiencing in the Church; but one of the most important is that many Catholics are simply not doing what they can and should do to promote vocations.  And some are actively trying to undermine them—especially when it’s someone in their family!

Personally, I would not want to stand before Almighty God someday to try to justify undermining a vocation to the priesthood, the diaconate, or religious life!

That’s not a good idea.

All that having been said, let me now share with you 3 very easy and effective ways that you can promote vocations, if you so desire. 

The first way to promote vocations is to know your Catholic Faith! (And if you don’t know it, learn it!)  The truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ speaks for itself, when it’s shared and explained in an intelligent and reasonable way.  Young people today are looking for the same things that young people have been looking for throughout history.  They’re looking for answers to the most basic questions of life: Who am I?  Why am I here?  What is the meaning of life?  What is the goal of life?  Is there a God?  If there is, does he care at all about me?—and what, if anything, does he expect of me?   

If we know our Catholic Faith well, and can answer questions like these for the young people we come into contact with every day (especially those in our families), they will come to see the beauty and truth of the Gospel—and they’ll begin to see that investing your life in promoting the Gospel full-time is a good thing, a very good thing.

We’ve been blessed here in our community with many vocations.  I know there are some who think that I’ve put pressure on these young people to choose the priesthood or religious life.

Not at all!  All I’ve tried to do is teach them the Gospel in a convincing way and help them meet Jesus.  The rest has been between them and the Lord—which is precisely the way it should be with any vocation.

The second way to promote vocations is this: Live your Catholic Faith to the best of your ability.  A young person will not invest his or her life in an ideal that he or she doesn’t see lived out, at least to some extent.  Every priest, deacon and religious brother or sister can tell you stories about committed Catholics who made a deep and lasting impact on their life.  Perhaps it was a parent or some other relative; perhaps it was a priest, or a religious, or a co-worker, or a friend—or some combination of the above. 

One of the people who made a profound impact on young Karol Wojtyla during his years of discernment for the priesthood (in addition to his parents) was a Polish tailor named Jan Tyranowski.  Tyranowski knew the Faith—and the writings of the great spiritual masters like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross; he lived the Faith in a devout way in is personal life, and because of that knowledge and example he helped to form a future Pope and saint—John Paul II.

This brings us to the third way to promote vocations, which, not surprisingly, is to pray!   A vocation, ultimately, is the work of God’s grace, and that grace is poured forth into the heart of a young person through prayer. 

On that note, I had a very saintly grandmother who lived in a wheelchair for the last several years of her life.  (This was when I was in the seminary.)  For a long time she had open wounds on her legs that wouldn’t heal (they didn’t have the good wound care back then that they have now).  But during those years I always remember her with her Rosary beads in her hands, fingering them while she quietly prayed.

She had many intentions that she was praying for (and offering up her sufferings for) in those days, but I knew that I—her seminarian grandson—was either at or near the top of the list.

Would I have become a priest without those prayers and offered-up sufferings?  I seriously doubt it.

I remember Fr. Marcel Taillon speaking here at St. Pius about vocations many years ago, and during his homily he asked people to pray one Hail Mary every day for vocations.

Those of you who were here back then: Have you done that?  Or do you at least pray every once in a while in some fashion for vocations?

That last question is for everyone.

Know the Faith; Live the Faith; and Pray!—three easy and effective ways to promote vocations.  Please notice, these activities are not complicated; they don’t require a lot of special gifts or a lot of specialized training.

All they require is a willing and loving and faith-filled heart.

May that kind of heart reside in each and every one of us. 

 

What Do You See?

 

Kevin Becker

(Second Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on January 15, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 49:3-6; Psalm 40:2-10; 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; John 1:29-34.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Second Sunday 2023]

 

In today’s gospel story, John the Baptist sees what no one else sees.  Everybody else sees a young, Jewish rabbi walking toward John at the Jordan River.  Nothing extraordinary about that.  But John has a deeper perception; he “sees” something more.  John sees “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”!  John sees his Messiah; John sees his Savior.  In short, John sees God ALIVE and PRESENT and AT WORK in his cousin, Jesus.

Which brings us to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, and a young man named Kevin Becker. 

Many of you know the story of Blessed Pier Giorgio, who’s become a great inspiration and role model to Catholic young people all over the world, especially in the last few decades.  Recent popes have often mentioned him and quoted him in their World Youth Day talks and homilies—and in other addresses they’ve given where lots of young people have been present.  Pier Giorgio was born in Turin, Italy in 1901, and died just 24 years later of polio—a disease that he probably contracted from the many sick people he visited and cared for during his relatively short life.  He came from a wealthy family (his father owned a newspaper), but he gave away most of what he had to the poor—even, sometimes, his bus money.  He was also a very athletic young man—a mountain climber, among other things.  And, of course, he was deeply devoted to prayer and the sacraments and his Catholic faith.

He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1990.

Now on to Kevin Becker.  In 2011, Kevin was a student at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania.  He didn’t know any of this information about Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati; he didn’t even know Pier Giorgio’s name.  Then came the terrible day that year when he fell from the second floor of the house he was renting with two friends, two fellow college students.  He fractured his skull in five places and his brain was severely injured.  The doctors did emergency surgery immediately, but for nine days afterward he was completely unresponsive.  The doctors thought he probably wouldn’t live; and if he did somehow recover they said that in all likelihood he’d be severely handicapped for the rest of his life. 

Well, one of Kevin’s cousins suggested that the family begin praying to Blessed Pier Giorgio, asking for his intercession, because, as she put it, “He needs one more miracle to be canonized a saint.”  So the family did, and Kevin’s mother placed a picture of Pier Giorgio by her son’s hospital bed.

The next day, much to the surprise of everyone, Kevin opened his eyes for the first time since the accident.  Shortly thereafter he began to stand, speak and walk normally.  When he left the hospital and began his physical rehab, he discovered that he was miles ahead of the other people who were there with brain injuries—including those who had been in recovery for six months to a year.  When he was given some cognitive tests to determine how much brain damage he had experienced, he passed with flying colors.  In fact, the doctors told him it was like he had never been injured.

On the day after he came home from the hospital, he decided to take a walk with his mother, and during the course of that walk he told her about a strange, dreamlike experience that he had during the time he was unconscious.  Kevin said that, during this “dream,” he woke up in the house he shared with his friends, and he heard someone moving downstairs.  Kevin said it was unusual for one of the other guys to be downstairs first in the morning, because he was normally the first one up.  So he went down to investigate, and in the living room he found a young man—a young man he didn’t know.  He said, “Who are you?”  The man said, “I’m Giorgio, your new roommate.”  Kevin said, “That can’t be.  I already have two roommates, Nick and Joe.”  The stranger said, “You don’t have to worry about them for now.”

Kevin then spent the “day” with Giorgio, who, he said did everything possible to keep him in the house.  And that was difficult for Kevin, because he’s an athletic guy—an ardent soccer player—who hates to stay indoors.  But Kevin said that every time he tried to leave the house Giorgio would say to him, “You’re not ready to go out there yet.”

Kevin’s mother then said to her son, “Do you think you’d recognize this person if you saw a picture of him?”  Kevin said, “Yes.”  So she showed him the picture of Pier Giorgio that had been at his bedside (he hadn’t seen it in the hospital), and Kevin said, “Yes, that’s him.  That’s the guy in my dream.  That’s the guy who kept telling me not to leave the house.”

I’ve read that the medical records of Kevin Becker’s case have been sent to Rome, to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.  Perhaps his total and complete healing will be the miracle that results in Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati finally becoming Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati!

I certainly hope it is!

In today’s gospel story, John the Baptist sees what no one else sees: He sees God ALIVE and PRESENT and AT WORK in his cousin, Jesus. 

In the story I just told in this homily about Kevin Becker, what do you see?

•   A mysterious case of spontaneous healing?
•  An unexplained phenomenon that has a natural explanation that we just don’t understand yet—but someday will?
• A young man who got lucky?

 Or do you see a God who is ALIVE and PRESENT and AT WORK in his world?

 In this story, what do you see?

I’m not sure how you would answer that question, my brothers and sisters, but I can tell you with almost absolute certitude how John the Baptist would answer it.

Why the World Needs Mary Now More Than Ever

(Mary, the Mother of God 2023: This homily was given on January 1, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Mary, the Mother of God 2023]

 

The world always needs Mary.  It needs her example; it needs her holiness; and it needs her powerful prayers.

But the world needs Mary today more than ever!  It needs our Blessed Mother now more than at any other time in the past.

At least that’s how I see it.

That’s the thought I want to focus on in my homily today, as we begin the new calendar year of 2023.

FIRST OF ALL, WE NEED MARY BECAUSE SHE REMINDS US THAT WE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE SAME RACE: THE HUMAN RACE!  We heard in our second reading from Galatians 4 that when the fullness of time had come God sent his Son, born of Mary, to die for us “so that we might receive adoption.”

The “we” in that text means “everybody”—without exception!  The “we”, in other words, includes both the people we like and people we don’t like; it includes those little, microscopic people in the womb as well as those old, sick people in the nursing home on the verge of death; it includes people of our ethnic and racial groups and people of every other ethnic and racial group.

Simply put, it includes everyone from natural conception to natural death.

This is something we seem to be forgetting more and more these days.  Think of all the racial violence and anti-police violence in our country in recent years; think of the ongoing terrorism problem in the world, and the persecution that many people (especially many Christians) are experiencing all over the planet.

Mary, we need you—the new Eve—to remind us that we share a common humanity.  Your Son died and rose so that we ALL might become adopted sons and daughters of God.  When Jesus said those words to you on Good Friday, “Woman, behold your son,” St. John was the one standing there, but St. John stood there REPRESENTING ALL OF US.  He stood there representing every human person.

WE ALSO NEED MARY NOW MORE THAN EVER, BECAUSE SHE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE A KIND OF “BRIDGE” BETWEEN THE THREE MAJOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE WORLD: CHRISTIANS, JEWS AND MUSLIMS.  (I spoke about this in a homily several years ago.) 

Mary’s importance in Christianity is a given.  No need dwell on that.  But she also has the potential to appeal to our Jewish brothers and sisters, given the fact that she was Jewish herself—and the greatest human person who ever lived!  (Jesus, remember, was a divine Person so he’s in a different category.) 

And she is already revered in Islam!  She’s the only woman mentioned in the Koran, and she’s mentioned over thirty times!  The founder of Islam, Mohammad, believed that his daughter, Fatima, had the highest place in heaven—after the Virgin Mary!

Many people are not aware of those things.

WE ALSO NEED MARY BECAUSE SHE SHOWS US THAT IT’S POSSIBLE TO LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.  We have no record of Mary ever saying a hateful word to anyone, or engaging in a spiteful or vengeful action toward anyone—even the people who murdered her only child.

And we know for a fact that she never did those things because she was sinless.

We will never be perfect like Mary, that’s true—but we can all improve in our ability to love: in our ability to love our friends as well as our enemies.

WE ALSO NEED MARY BECAUSE SHE SHOWS US HOW TO FACE SUFFERING: WITH FAITH AND WITH TRUST IN GOD.  She gave us that lesson as she stood silently at the foot of her Son’s cross with St. John.

WE NEED MARY IN A REALLY BIG WAY BECAUSE SHE SHOWS US THAT PURITY IS POSSIBLE IN A SEX-OBSESSED CULTURE.  Lest we forget, the pagan Roman Empire was not exactly “Romper Room”!  It was decadent and materialistic and hedonistic.  In other words, it was just like our society—minus the internet, TV and social media, of course!

And yet Mary lived with a pure mind, and heart—and body—in the midst of it all.

Mary, our world today desperately needs your prayers and example in this area of life.

AND SPEAKING OF PRAYERS, WE ALSO NEED MARY BECAUSE SHE REMINDS US OF THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER AND REFLECTION.  It says in today’s gospel reading that, after the shepherds left the manger in Bethlehem, Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  St. Luke says something similar about the Blessed Mother after the finding of Jesus in the temple when our Lord was 12-years-old.

This means that Mary was constantly taking the events of her life to prayer: reflecting on what God was doing in those events; reflecting on what God was saying to her in those events; reflecting on what God wanted her to do in response to those events.

In the midst of our noisy and very busy lives we need to do the same thing.  Speaking of such matters, when was the last time you made a Holy Hour, or simply put everything aside for at least 15 minutes to focus totally and completely—and quietly—on God?

Which brings me to the final reason I’ll mention as to why the world needs Mary now more than ever (and from one perspective at least this is the most important reason of all): SHE POINTS US TO JESUS AND TELLS US TO OBEY JESUS! 

Mary does not focus attention on herself (she never has and she never will).  Mary is not self-absorbed.  If she were a modern-day politician, she would definitely not be obsessed with her “legacy”—as so many of our public figures are.

Her one concern would be what it always has been: that we do the perfect and holy will of God in our lives!  Mary says to us and to every human person today what she said to the stewards at Cana 2,000 years ago: “Do whatever HE tells you.”

“Do whatever he—my son, Jesus—tells you to do.”

If we want to help to change the world for the better, my brothers and sisters, one of the best things we can do is to bring Mary into our lives (or more fully into our lives): asking for her intercession every day, and allowing her example to inspire us and guide us (especially in the ways I just mentioned in this homily).

And so in conclusion I ask you to make a New Year’s resolution: to bring our Blessed Mother into your life by praying the Rosary each and every day of 2023.  And if you can’t commit yourself to a full 5 decade Rosary, at least commit yourself to 1 decade: an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory be.

In fact, why don’t we do that together now to end this homily?  One decade—together—to get everyone off to a good start …