A Lesson Learned At Fenway Park Applied To The Mass: You Can Miss An Awful Lot, When You Leave A Special Event Early!

Mark Loretta being mobbed by his teammates

(Twentieth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on August 20, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twentieth Sunday 2006]

It was my night off. It was also the hottest night of the year so far. Not the ideal time to be at Fenway Park in Boston, but since I had only been to one other Red Sox game since the early 1990s, I couldn’t let the opportunity go by. So I happily accepted the invitation from Mike Rogers, Sr., and his son, Fran, and I went with them to see the Sox play the Cleveland Indians. Besides, by the time the game started the air temperature had gone from 100 to a “cool” 85, so it really wasn’t all that bad.

We sat in a great spot in the stadium—almost directly in back of home plate. The only negative was that we happened to be sitting two rows up from an aisle, so people were constantly walking into our line of view. A few men and women actually walked by several times during the evening. I wondered whether they were there to watch the game or buy souvenirs and food!

As some of you may remember, Jon Lester pitched that night for the Red Sox and he gave up 3 runs in the very first inning. Not good. But then the home team came back and scored 4 unanswered runs off Cleveland pitching to take a 4-3 lead. That held until the eighth inning when Mike Timlin came in to pitch for the Sox, and proceeded to give up a double and a home run. All of a sudden, it was 5-4, Cleveland, and I was beginning to think that I should have stayed home and watched the game in my air conditioned room at the rectory!

The Sox couldn’t do anything in the bottom of the 8^th, nor could Cleveland in the top of the 9^th.

Cleveland then sent in its reliever, Fausto Carmona, to close the deal in the bottom of the 9^th. And it appeared that he would do just that, after he struck out the first batter he faced in the inning.

THEN IT ALL BEGAN! Immediately after that first out, droves of people stood up and began to leave. Now normally that wouldn’t have bothered me, but as I told you earlier we were sitting right behind an aisle, which meant that there was now a wall of bodies in front of us, such that we could hardly see the field.

At that point, I leaned over to Mike Rogers and said, “Mike, they can’t stay for the end of Mass, and they can’t even stay for the end of a close Red Sox game! Unbelievable!”

And it’s not as if the Sox had never come back from that kind of deficit before. In fact, just two nights earlier, David Ortiz had hit a walk-off home run for a come-from-behind victory in the last inning.

But they left anyway.

The next batter comes up at that point, and he strikes out—and more people leave.

Then Doug Mirabelli steps up to the plate, batting less than .200, and Carmona gets two strikes on him. Needless to say, it doesn’t look good.

But then, amazingly, Carmona loses control and hits Mirabelli with a pitch. Gabe Kapler goes in to pinch run for him at first.

Thankfully, after Mirabelli got on base with the tying run, those of us who were still in the ballpark rose to our feet. That meant Fran, Mike and I could now see over all the people who were walking out. They were no longer an issue for us.

Up comes Alex Gonzales, and he also gets hit by a pitch. The crowd begins to go crazy with 2 men now on base.

Then Kevin Youkilis steps up to bat—and he walks! The cheers get even louder because the bases are loaded.

Finally, second baseman Mark Loretta comes to the plate, and he crushes Carmona’s second pitch off the Green Monster in left field. Kapler and Gonzales score easily, and the game is over. Red Sox win, 6-5!

The crowd that’s left literally goes berserk!

After I had “high-fived” Mike and Fran and everyone else around me, I turned to Mike and I said, “Isn’t it too bad all those people left early? My heart bleeds for them—NOT!”

You can miss an awful lot, when you leave a special event early.

I know what some of you are thinking: “Fr. Ray, I see where you’re going with this. Now you’ll start talking to us about all those rude parishioners who leave Mass early every Sunday.”

Wrong.

Quite frankly, in my old age I’ve decided that most of those people are hopeless—or nearly hopeless. Even if Jesus Christ appeared to them in a heavenly vision and told them to stay they’d still walk out!

My focus here today is on the rest of you who are trying to take your faith seriously; on those of you who are making a sincere effort to live your faith and grow closer to the Lord; on those of you, who want to (as today’s first reading says) “forsake foolishness . . . and advance in the way of understanding”.

You can miss an awful lot, when you leave a special event early. That, of course, does include the Mass. And yes, this truth does apply to all those who walk out right after Communion or sometime before the Liturgy is finished.

But it also applies to the rest of us who stay!

You see, there are two ways to leave a Mass before it’s over: physically and spiritually. And that second way of leaving the Liturgy early is a real temptation for all of us every time we come here, even if our bodies stay in the pews from beginning to end.

We “leave Mass early”, in this spiritual sense, whenever we cease to participate actively in the Liturgy—which means that it’s possible to leave a Mass just as soon as it begins, or even before it begins! And some do! Their minds and hearts are a million miles away, focused on other things.

People like this will often tell you that they don’t get anything out of Mass and that it’s boring.

Whenever someone used that excuse in his presence, Bishop Sheen would normally respond by saying, “Of course you don’t get anything out of Mass! You don’t get anything out of it, because you don’t put anything into it!”—which is simply another way of describing what it means to “leave early”.

Let me share with you now some of the things you miss out on whenever you make the choice to depart from a Mass before you should (this, by the way, is not an exhaustive list):

• If you leave and “zone out” spiritually before the opening song—or any song for that matter—you miss the opportunity to have your spirit lifted. (And don’t tell me you have a bad voice and that you can’t sing. As the old saying goes, “If God gave you a bad voice, sing and give it back to him!”)
• If you leave and “zone out” spiritually before the penitential rite, you miss the chance to have some of your venial sins forgiven! Did you know that? Mortal sins can’t be forgiven at that time, but some venial sins can be, depending on our disposition of heart.
• If you leave before the opening prayer of the Mass, you miss out on having some of your personal prayers answered by the Lord. After the priest says “Let us pray” just prior to the opening prayer, you will notice that he pauses for a few seconds (or at least he should pause). That’s not because he’s lost his place in the book! That’s to give you an opportunity to call to mind the intentions you want to pray for during the Liturgy—your special needs! Then he lifts up those needs to God in the prayer itself.
• If you leave Mass before the Scripture readings and the homily, you miss the opportunity to have a problem solved, among other things. God’s Word is full of insights, but we have to listen intently to the Word in order to receive them.
• If you leave early by not actively saying the Creed and the other prayers of the Liturgy, you miss the chance to be an example of faith to others. You also miss the chance to inspire those around you to pray. (I don’t know about you, but when people around me are praying out loud and with great enthusiasm, that inspires me to want to do the same.)
• If you leave Mass immediately after the Our Father, you miss the chance to be “delivered” from something that’s adversely affecting your life (either anger or fear or depression or some other condition). That’s because the prayer immediately after the Our Father is a prayer of deliverance!
• If you leave Mass before Communion, you miss the chance to “commune” with the Lord of the universe; you miss the chance to have his life—his presence—grow stronger within you. As Jesus said in today’s Gospel text from John 6, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.”
• And if you leave immediately after Communion, you miss the opportunity to receive many graces and gifts—including a healing or two! Someone told me a story the other day about a woman who received a physical healing at a Mass right after she received the Holy Eucharist. I’m not surprised.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells us to be wise and not foolish, and to make the most of every opportunity! Each time we come to Mass, we have countless opportunities to experience the Lord and his many gifts and blessings. May we always take advantage of them—by never making the choice to leave early.

Mary: She Did It Once, And She Can Do It Again!

(Assumption 2006: This homily was given on August 15, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Luke 1: 39-46.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Assumption 2006]

My message today can be outlined with 3 words: who, what and why.

First, “who”: Who is the woman we honor today?

Well very simply, she’s the one who is where we someday hope to be—and who is there body and soul!

If our deceased relatives are with the Lord right now in his kingdom, they are there in soul only! (Hopefully we’re all clear about that.) According to Catholic teaching, physical death separates our bodies and our souls until the end of time. Immediately after physical death we are judged, and our souls go either to heaven or hell or purgatory. (They go to purgatory if they need final purification before entering God’s eternal presence). Only at the end of the world will our bodies rise again and be reunited with our souls. Then we will go—body and soul—to one of two places: heaven or hell. Purgatory will cease to exist.

The dogma of the Assumption says that for Mary this has already taken place. At the end of her earthly life, she was assumed into heaven soul and body. That’s why in the preface of this Mass it says, “Today the Virgin Mother of God was taken up into heaven to be the beginning and the pattern of the Church in its perfection.”

In other words, she is where every member of the Church hopes someday to be—and she is there as a complete person, soul and body.

That’s the “who” of the Assumption.

Now for the “what”. The “what” I want to focus on today is our personal devotion to the Blessed Mother. As Catholics we do not worship Mary—she was a human person like we are; but we do honor her, and as such we seek her prayers for all of our needs. The Bible tells us in James 5 that the prayers of a holy person are powerful; they can obtain for us many favors from the Lord. Well, our Blessed Mother was the holiest human person who ever lived (Jesus, remember, was a divine person, so he’s in a different category). And because she was the holiest human person who ever lived, her prayers are most important and most powerful.

Which brings us, finally, to the “why”: Why should we pray to this woman every single day of our lives?

Well I just gave you one very good reason: because of Mary’s holiness. But there’s another reason that needs to be mentioned today, in light of what’s going on in the world right now: in Israel, and Lebanon, and Iraq, and the Sudan —and in light of what happened here in the United States on September 11, 2001.

We need to seek Mary’s prayers, because I think that she, by the grace of God, can help to end this so-called “clash of civilizations” that we’re now experiencing. We need to seek her prayers, because she—and perhaps only she—can help to bring God’s peace into this situation of conflict and hatred.

And she’s done it before—with respect to the Cold War. I believe that very strongly, and so do many others.

Thirty years ago how many people believed that the Cold War would end—that the Berlin Wall would be torn down and the Soviet Union would cease to exist—without a major military conflict?

Very few believed that.

But that’s exactly how it happened!

And even secular historians admit that one of the major players—if not THE major player—in this peaceful collapse of the Soviet bloc was Pope John Paul II. And many of them maintain that the collapse began in June of 1979, when the pope went to his native country of Poland for the very first time. Do you remember the news footage of the Polish Communist leader, General Jaruzelski, visibly trembling in the presence of the Holy Father? Historians tell us that that papal visit sent shock waves throughout the Communist world, and ignited a “revolution of conscience” among the people, because for the very first time someone had publicly confronted a Communist leader on his own turf and had lived to talk about it!

Not coincidentally, of course, John Paul II was intensely devoted to Mary—so much so that he took as his papal motto “Totus Tuus”, meaning “Totally yours.” Some people think that the pope’s motto was a direct reference to Jesus, but it wasn’t. It was a reference to Mary. His motto meant, “I’m totally yours, Mary. I’m totally committed to Jesus Christ through you.”

At Fatima in 1917 the Blessed Mother had told the world to pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia. I believe that God combined the grace from all those rosaries that were said for more than 70 years (and the grace of all the Masses that were said during that time) with the actions of a pope intensely dedicated to the Blessed Mother, to put an end to an oppressive, godless form of government in eastern Europe that had been responsible for the murder of millions of people in the 20^th century.

So it’s happened before, with respect to radical communism.

And, by the grace of God and by Mary’s powerful intercession, it can happen again with respect to radical Islam. I’m convinced of that—especially because Muslims traditionally have had a reverence for the Blessed Mother (a reverence the Communists never had!).

By the way, did you know that? Did you know that Muslims have a high regard for Mary? Many Christians don’t. She’s mentioned over 30 times in the Koran. No other woman is mentioned even once! There she’s described as “Virgin, ever Virgin.” Imagine, the very doctrine some liberal Christians reject—the perpetual virginity of Mary—is accepted by Muslims!

Concerning his daughter, Fatima, Mohammad—the founder of Islam—once said: “She has the highest place in heaven after the Virgin Mary.”

Mary’s prayers affected atheistic communists who repudiated her, so why shouldn’t Mary’s prayers affect believing Muslims who already respect her deeply?

And here’s an interesting fact: In 1917, Mary chose to appear to 3 children in a place that was named after a Muslim convert to the Catholic faith: a woman who at birth had been named after Mohammad’s daughter. Because of this many Muslims today make personal pilgrimages to the Catholic shrine of Mary in Fatima, Portugal.

This means that, as we speak, Mary is already bringing Christians and Muslims together in peace.

She can do it. Mary can do it. But we need to pray to her in order for it to happen. God can bring peace through the Mother of his Son (and I believe he wants to); but he will only do it if we turn to him in faith through Mary—and if we do it perseveringly.

So here’s the bottom line: If you want to contribute in a concrete way to world peace, resolve to say the Rosary every day for that intention (as well as for all your personal ones). Or at least, resolve to say one decade in the morning when you get up, and one decade at night before you go to bed.

And get serious about it. Don’t just say you’ll do it: DO IT!

And don’t ever stop.

Mary, Our Hope For World Peace

Holy Angels Church: My home parish in Barrington, R.I.

(Holy Angels’ Patronal Feast 2006: This homily was given on August 13, 2006, at Holy Angels Church, Barrington, R.I., at the annual patronal feast Mass in honor of Our Lady of the Assumption.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Holy Angels Feast 2006]

It’s nice to be back home for this great celebration, which was so much a part of my youth—although I will admit that in my younger days I was more enthused about the carnival than I was about the Mass and the procession. After all, at the carnival I had a chance to win a brand new album at the “record booth”. Some of you young people might not know what a “record” is; you’ll have to ask your parents when Mass is over.

As many of you know, my second home now is in Westerly (which to some people in Barrington, like my Aunt Louise, is on “the other side of the universe”!). I say it’s my second home because I’ve been there at St. Pius X Parish for eighteen years (eleven as the assistant and the administrator, and now seven as pastor). Westerly, of course, is where Fr. Giudice is from. In fact, it’s really thanks to him I’m able to be here with you today. He’s saying my 8:30 and 10:30 Masses this morning. It’s interesting how God works things out: I was his altar boy here in Barrington for many years, and now he’s my part-time assistant in Westerly in his “retirement.”

Although I’ve been away from Holy Angels and this feast for awhile, I’ve still been a part of a yearly celebration in honor of the Blessed Mother. Every year in July (often, it seems, on the hottest day in July) at the neighboring parish, Immaculate Conception, there’s a big procession in honor of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. When I march in that one, I almost always think of the one here at Holy Angels. Thankfully, however, the one here is a little shorter: in Westerly, it’s three-and-a-half miles!—a real penance on a hot day, believe me!

I mention this today because I want to make it clear to you in this homily why celebrations like these so important, and why they need to be preserved: It’s because of what Mary can do for the world by her intercession before the throne of God. It’s because of what Mary—and perhaps only Mary—can do for the cause of world peace.

We know what’s going on in Lebanon and Israel right now; we know what’s been going on in Iraq and in Afghanistan and in the Sudan and in countless other places throughout the world in recent years. And we remember all too well the events of September 11, 2001.

The world has been experiencing what some have called “a clash of civilizations”. It’s been extremely violent, and it seems to be getting worse every day, in spite of the efforts of so many well-intentioned people.

Which begs the obvious question: Is there any hope? Can anything be done to change this situation and establish peace with the Muslim world? Or is this the way it will always be from now on?

Well, aside from the obvious political and diplomatic efforts that need to be made, I think there is something that all of us can do on a very practical level to bring about positive change and to help establish peace, in particular with devout Muslims: We can take our personal devotion to Mary very seriously—more seriously than ever before!

You know, it’s ironic. In the past three or four decades it’s been common to say that Mary should be ignored whenever we deal with people of other faiths—especially Protestants—because Mary somehow drives a wedge between us. But I’ve discovered that, in reality, the exact opposite is true! I’ve come to realize that Mary is actually the key to greater unity! She’s not the one who divides us; she’s the one who can bring us all together: Christians, Jews—and even Muslims.

Did you know, for example, that Muslims traditionally have had a deep regard for the Blessed Mother? (I’ll bet many of you didn’t! Most Christians are totally unaware of it.) She’s mentioned over thirty times in the Koran. No other woman is mentioned even once! There she’s described as “Virgin, ever Virgin.” Imagine, the very doctrine some liberal Christians reject—the perpetual virginity of Mary—is accepted by Muslims!

Concerning his daughter Fatima, Mohammad—the founder of Islam—once said: “She has the highest place in heaven after the Virgin Mary.”

Is it a coincidence that, in 1917, Mary appeared to three children in a place which was named after a Muslim convert to the Catholic faith: a woman who at birth had been named after Mohammad’s daughter? I don’t think that was a coincidence, I think it was a “God-incidence”! In fact, many Muslims today actually make personal pilgrimages to the Catholic shrine of Mary located there in Fatima, Portugal.

This means that, as we speak, Mary is already bringing Christians and Muslims together in peace.

And don’t you think that Mary can also be a bridge between Christians and Jews? What better way to share the Good News with someone of the Jewish faith than to speak to them about the greatest human person who ever lived: a Jewish mother!—one of their own who was faithful to the Mosaic Law, as St. Luke clearly indicates in his infancy narrative.

And what about our Protestant brothers and sisters? It’s been my experience that once devout Protestants understand what the Church really teaches about Mary, many of them fall in love with the Blessed Mother, and they realize that she’s a great biblical role model for them. Why? Because committed Protestants are devoted to God’s written Word (which is great!), and they want to obey Jesus. Well guess what? Mary was also devoted to God’s Word and wanted people to obey Jesus! We see that in her two famous lines from Scripture: “Be it done unto me, O Lord, according to your Word,” and, “Do whatever he [i.e. Jesus] tells you.”

So you see, Mary is not a barrier as many have mistakenly believed all these years, she’s actually a bridge—the bridge I believe God wants to use to bring greater peace to our world in the third millennium.

And we have a precedent for this. We’ve already seen historically how Mary can have a decisive role in bringing peace to a potentially cataclysmic situation. Remember the Cold War? Remember the threat that Soviet Communism was to the security of this nation? Remember the fallout shelters? Remember the threats of nuclear annihilation?

If I had told you thirty years ago that the Berlin Wall would someday be torn down and that the Soviet Union would come to an end without a major military conflict of some sort, how would you have responded?

Let’s be honest about it, you probably would have laughed in my face and said, “Sure, Fr. Ray. That’s a really nice thought—a really nice idea—but that’s all it is, an idea. It will never, ever happen that way.”

But it did.

And even secular historians admit that one of the major players—if not THE major player—in this peaceful collapse of the Soviet bloc was Pope John Paul II. And many of them maintain that the collapse began in June of 1979, when the pope went to his native country of Poland for the very first time. Do you remember the news footage of the Polish Communist leader, General Jaruzelski, visibly trembling in the presence of the Holy Father? Historians tell us that that papal visit sent shock waves throughout the Communist world, and ignited a “revolution of conscience” among the people, because for the very first time someone had publicly confronted a Communist leader on his own turf and had lived to talk about it!

Not coincidentally, of course, John Paul II was intensely devoted to Mary—so much so that he took as his papal motto “Totus Tuus”, meaning “Totally yours.” Some people think that the pope’s motto was a direct reference to Jesus, but it wasn’t. It was a reference to Mary. His motto meant, “I’m totally yours, Mary. I’m totally committed to Jesus Christ through you.”

At Fatima in 1917 the Blessed Mother had told the world to pray the Rosary for the conversion of Russia. I believe that God combined the grace from all those rosaries that were said for more than seventy years (and from all the Masses that were said during that time) with the actions of a pope intensely dedicated to the Blessed Mother, to put an end to an oppressive, godless form of government in eastern Europe that had been responsible for the murder of millions of people in the 20^th century.

As Peter Cetera once put it in an old 1980s song, “Just goes to prove what one good woman can do”—especially when the woman in question happens to be the Mother of God.

Do you see, now, why this feast is so important? Do you see why this tradition and others like it need to be maintained? Do you see why you should have a personal devotion to Mary and why you should be praying the Rosary—or at the very least a decade or two of it—every day without exception?

It’s because of what this Heavenly Woman can do for our world and will do for our world—if we ask, and if we continue to ask in faith every day.

Proud2bCatholic.com Music Festival

On Saturday, August 12, a group from Westerly made the trek once again to Framingham, Massachusetts, for the annual Proud2bCatholic.com Music Festival. Here are some pictures from the event (click on images to enlarge):

Who let this guy onto the property?




My buddy Jack








Hi Zoe!


Fr. Stan Fortuna and Righteous B

The chaperones got a little giddy at the end of it all.

Annual Mass at the Beach: August 10, 2006

The Eucharist is at the center of our lives as Catholics. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, it is "the source and summit of the Christian life" (CCC, 1324).

Every year we gather our young people at the beach here in Westerly for a special Mass. It's a great opportunity for them to meet Jesus in word and sacrament--in the midst of his beautiful and awesome creation! The weather was ominous when we arrived, but the Lord kept the thunderstorms away and we had a marvelous evening.
I thank Jim and Fran Pucci (and Lauren!) for hosting this event once again. May our Eucharistic Lord bless them for their hospitality and generosity.
Thanks also to our favorite "shutterbug", Elaine Chicoria, for taking these great pictures.

(Click on images to enlarge.)

More Beach Mass Pictures!

Four more pictures from the Mass at the beach, taken by Dan Hyland of the Westerly Sun.
Thanks to Tim Ryan, Ray Lamont and everyone at the Westerly Sun for giving me permission to post these photographs.

(Click to enlarge.)

The Law And The Prophets Point Us To Jesus.

The Transfiguration window at St. Pius X Church in Westerly, R.I.

(Transfiguration (B): This homily was given on August 6, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Daniel 7: 9-14; 2 Peter 1: 16-19; Mark 9: 2-10.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Transfiguration 2006]

Have you ever wondered why they showed up?

Have you ever wondered why it was Moses and Elijah who appeared with Jesus on Mt. Tabor at the Transfiguration and not two other people?

I mean, why not King David and his son, King Solomon? They were also important Old Testament figures.

Or how about Abraham and Noah? Or Isaac and Jacob? God the Father could certainly have chosen to send any (or all) of them to Mt. Tabor that day to appear in a glorified state with Jesus, his Son.

If you don’t know the answer, don’t feel too bad about it. The meaning of Moses’ and Elijah’s presence on Mt. Tabor at the Transfiguration is not immediately obvious to most Christians today. And one reason for this is the simple fact that we’re not Jewish! That is to say, most of us—and most Christians in 2006—are not Jewish converts who understand Jewish symbolism.

Peter, James and John, of course, were Jews; they were good, practicing, devout Jews. So it was relatively easy for them to figure out why God had sent Moses and Elijah to the mountain that day and not two other people from the Old Testament.

Good Jews, you see, knew that Moses represented the law—especially the moral law that God had revealed to them on Mt. Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments. And they knew that Elijah was—as the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it—“the loftiest and the most wonderful prophet of the Old Testament” (although Jews wouldn’t have referred to the Hebrew Scriptures as “the Old Testament”—that’s a Christian designation).

By sending Moses and Elijah, therefore, God was making a very important statement to these 3 apostles. He was saying to them: “The law and the prophets that you read about in the Sacred Scriptures both point you to Jesus! That’s why Moses and Elijah are here. The law and the prophets—two of the most important realities of your lives—testify to the fact that Jesus is my divine Son. So listen to Jesus! Follow Jesus! Obey Jesus! Do not be afraid to give your lives to him completely!”

Now that’s all very nice. But how exactly does it relate to us? How does this event 2,000 years ago on an obscure mountain in the Middle East relate to our experience in Westerly, R.I. at the beginning of the 21^st century?

Simple.

The law and the prophets pointed the apostles to Jesus 2,000 years ago.

And they do the very same thing for us today, although in a slightly different way.

For the Hebrews, the law was found in the Ten Commandments, and in the first 5 books of the Bible—the Torah. For us, the law—the Gospel Law—is contained in those same Ten Commandments, in the Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the other moral teachings of the New Testament and the Church.

This Gospel Law points us to Christ, because it’s all his teaching. If we obey it, we find happiness, peace, joy—and our lives are orderly. If we disobey it, we experience sadness, frustration, confusion, anger, disorder—and perhaps even despair.

This truth really came home to me once on a youth retreat. There was a prayer service with the teens at certain point of the weekend, and one young girl from our group was obviously having a difficult time in the middle of it. So I and one of the female chaperones took her out of the service. We sat her down and asked her what was going on. She then began to hold her stomach and say, “I’m sick. I’m feeling sick. I think I’m going to be sick.”

When I heard that, I thought, “Oh wonderful. Is there a basin nearby?”

But it soon became clear to me that it wasn’t really a physical issue. She said, “Fr. Ray, I’m sick of how I’ve been living lately; I’m sick of some of the things I’ve been doing; I’m sick of it.”

This young woman was actually having a powerful experience of the grace of God! She was experiencing in her body the sickness of her soul. But at the same time, she was repenting and turning toward Jesus. Her violation of the moral law made her sick, but that pointed her to Jesus as the one who could forgive her and heal her and give her happiness again.

And the Lord did all that for her on the retreat. Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was awesome for her. Once she confessed her sins, received forgiveness, and renewed her commitment to Jesus, the sick feeling was gone, and she experienced joy and peace in her heart.

When we violate it—and when we obey it—the Gospel Law points us to Christ.

And so do the prophets!

The definition of a prophet is “one who speaks for God.” A prophet is someone who tells us the truth about life and about ourselves; he’s someone who speaks God’s word to us in a particular situation (whether we want to hear it or not!).

This means that we all have lots of prophets—lots of “Elijahs”—in our lives. We have the ones in the Bible (of course)! We have the ones in the official Church, in particular our Holy Father and the bishops in union with him. (When they speak as a body, they speak prophetically!)

But we also have ordinary prophets in our personal lives who speak the truth to us every day. They point us to Jesus, by encouraging us to be faithful to him and to his moral law. There’s a famous quote of St. Augustine where he speaks of the advice his mother gave him prior to his conversion—in the days when he was running around with women and living an immoral life. He wrote, “I remember my mother warned me in private not to commit fornication, and especially not to defile another man’s wife. These seemed to me womanish advices, which I should blush to obey. But they were yours, O God, and I knew it not.”

After his conversion, Augustine finally realized that his mother had been a prophet for him in telling him to be pure and chaste. Before his conversion he thought she was simply being a nag!

Not long ago a husband and wife were dealing with a particular problem, and I said to the woman, “Listen to your husband in this situation. He’s telling you what’s right. He’s saying what I think God would want him to say; he’s being a prophet for you.”

As I recall, she didn’t like that too much; it was not what she wanted to hear! On the other hand, he was ecstatic! But in any event, it proved to be true: once she took his advice, the situation improved dramatically.

Now in all fairness let it be known that I have also said the very same thing to certain men about their wives! I’ve said, “You need to pay attention to what your wife is saying to you right now. She’s telling you the Gospel truth; she’s being a prophet for you at this moment.”

It can work both ways in a marriage. And it very often does.

The law and the prophets point us to Jesus Christ—and to the happiness and peace that only he can give! That’s one of the most important lessons of the Transfiguration.

Dear Lord, help us to understand this message—and help us to live our lives accordingly. Amen.

Parish Sunset Cruise: July 31, 2006

Each year our parish sponsors a sunset cruise aboard the Argia, an authentic 81 foot replica of a 19th century schooner that sails out of Mystic, Connecticut (click here for more information).
The cruise takes us into Fisher's Island Sound, just opposite St. Edmund's Retreat. There we hold a brief prayer service.
This year's weather can only be described as "picture perfect"! Dinner was enhanced (once again!) by great wine, provided by John and Carol Marzano.
Enjoy the pictures from the "picture perfect" cruise!
(Click on images to enlarge.)

The captain (not!)

Deacon Marcin, Connie, Ruth-Ann and Ann Marie

Luann and Bob

"Mr. and Mrs. Deacon"
(The wine server Joseph is to the left of Mrs. Deacon.)

Pete and Lora

Two guests from the SS St. Clare: Nancy and Sam

Barbara and Andy

A moment of reflection.

Those two stowaways again!

Thanks be to God for a beautiful evening.