’Pick-a-Pope’: It’s the game EVERYBODY plays!

(Twenty-first Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on August 27, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 22:19-23; Psalm 138:1-8; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-first Sunday 2023]

 

“Pick-a-Pope”: It’s the game EVERYBODY plays!

Every once in a while, someone (usually a non-Catholic) will say to us, “Do you believe in the pope?”

Now there’s a very subtle presumption behind that question, and we need to be aware of it.  The presumption is that if you don’t accept the authority of the Holy Father in Rome (currently Pope Francis), then you don’t believe in a pope.  But that’s not true!  It’s my contention that EVERYONE has a pope!  Presbyterians have a pope; Anglicans have a pope; Baptists have a pope; people who call themselves “non-denominational” have a pope; Muslims, Buddhists and even atheists have a pope!

That’s because everyone has an authority who guides them, who defines the meaning of human existence for them, and who teaches them right from wrong.  So the real question is not, “Do you believe in the pope?”  The real question is, “Which pope do you believe in?”

In this regard, there are a number of possibilities.  For example, there’s what I would call the “Feel-Good Pope.”  Those who follow him live almost exclusively by their emotions.  If it feels good, then in their estimation it must be okay.  Or how about the “Gallup Pope?”  He’s named after the famous poll-taker.  Those who follow him form their views and attitudes based on what the majority says.  Thus if 85% of Catholics polled say they think artificial contraception is morally acceptable, those who follow the Gallup Pope immediately add their names to the 85%. 

A very popular pope among young people today is what I would call the “Peer Pope.”  He lives, and acts, and speaks through their friends.  Whatever these friends say, is considered to be the truth.

Or how about the “Pop Pope?”  (He is a close relative of the “Woke Pope” who’s come on the scene in the last few years.)  Those who follow the Pop Pope are those who are unduly influenced by the ideas of contemporary “pop” culture—ideas which come through the music they hear, through the media, the press, the Hollywood crowd, sports heroes and self-help gurus.  Of course, most of all, followers of the Pop Pope are influenced these days by the ideas they encounter on social media.

Because everyone knows, if it’s on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook it’s got to be true.  Right?

Now those are just some of the possibilities.  Believe it or not, other possible popes even include some Protestant evangelists and theologians.  Think, for example, of how many people followed the late Billy Graham as if he had been designated the authoritative interpreter of God’s Word!  These people would have denied that they believed in a pope; and yet, they listened to Graham as if he was God’s appointed mouthpiece here on earth.  Consequently they obeyed him as good Catholics will obey the Holy Father.

Even those who have no religious affiliation whatsoever have a pope—in the sense that they have a person or group of people to whom they look for guidance and direction.  For example, many of the people who caused those riots on our city streets a couple of summers ago—as well as the university professors who have been stifling free speech on college campuses in recent years—have the same pope.  Perhaps you’ve heard of him; his name is Karl Marx.  The secular media in this country doesn’t tell you this stuff, my brothers and sisters, but it’s true.  Many of those rioters and university professors are professed Marxists, who literally want to destroy American culture as we know it and create some kind of socialist utopia—with themselves in charge, of course.

It’s scary what’s going on out there these days!

Everybody has a pope, whether they’re conscious of it or not.  That’s why I began my homily by saying, “Pick-a-Pope: It’s the game EVERYBODY plays!”

So, which pope do you pick?

Personally, I want to pick the pope that Jesus Christ picked.  Because that’s the right pope!  In today’s Gospel text from Matthew 16, we see Jesus making his choice.  He says to Peter, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build by Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”  Here Jesus gives papal authority to Peter—the authority of “spiritual fatherhood” in his Church.  And then Jesus indicates that this authority is to be passed on to others in the future when he says, “I give you [Peter] the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”  In Isaiah 22 (the text we heard in our first reading today) the “keys” symbolized dynastic authority—authority which would be passed on from one person to another.  The authority Eliakim received in the kingdom of David was the authority of an established office.  And so it is with the papacy.  Peter’s authority didn’t die when he did.  It was passed on to Linus, then to Cletus and Clement . . . and finally to Pope Francis. 

So you see, contrary to what some non-Catholics would have us believe, the Church didn’t “invent” the Catholic papacy—Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior did!

And so, for me, the game is easy.  The pope I pick is the same one Jesus picked.  My prayer today is that the Pick-a-Pope game will be just as easy for all of you.  

 

 

God’s Great Spiritual Remedy for All the Noise in Our Lives

(Nineteenth Sunday of the Year (A): This homily was given on August 13, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13a; Psalm 85:9-14; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14: 22-33.)

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

“Leave me alone!”

“Give me some space!”

“Give me some time to gather my thoughts.”

“I want some peace and quiet for a change!”

“I need to get away from the rat race!”

All those common expressions are ways of affirming the very same truth: Quiet is good!

Or to use another well-known adage, Silence is golden.

And these days, very few of us have enough of it—including yours truly.

We live, unfortunately, in what has to be the noisiest era of human history—most especially because of all the technological gizmos that we have at our disposal, many of which were sold to us with the idea that they would make our lives simpler and easier.

And, to some extent, I suppose, they have.  But they’ve also caused us to be bombarded by noise—lots of noise—almost incessant noise—all day long.

We even have what I would call “silent noise” to contend with.  (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn’t.)  Silent noise includes activities like text-messaging and tweeting and emailing—you know, all those things we do when we’re not talking on the phone, listening to the iPod or the radio, playing a video game, or watching television or a movie!

Is it any wonder that so many people in our modern world can’t deal with silence?  The lack of noise positively freaks them out!  Is it any wonder that so many of our young people can’t focus their attention on one thing for more than 2 minutes?  Psychologists say it’s ADD or ADHD, but at times I think it’s because these young people “OD”!  They OD—they “overdose” so to speak—on the non-stop noise in their lives!

I mention this today because this noise saturation that we all have to deal with directly affects our relationship with God.  That’s because our most profound encounters with the Lord usually happen in the quiet silence of our hearts.  Based on this morning’s first reading you might choose to call this “the Elijah-rule of the spiritual life.”  There, as we heard a few moments ago, Elijah the prophet encounters God on Mt. Horeb.  But notice that this encounter does NOT happen in the noise!  It doesn’t happen in the howling wind and crashing rocks; it doesn’t happen in the earthquake or in the noisy havoc caused by the fire.  Elijah meets the Lord in the “tiny whispering sound”; that is to say, in an experience of almost total silence.

Today’s gospel, in its own way, makes the very same point.  Yes, the apostles meet Jesus on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of a very noisy storm, but their deepest encounter with the Lord happens afterward in the silence of their hearts, as they allow the experience they just had to sink in and strengthen their faith.  The text reads, “After they got into the boat, the wind died down.  [In other words, it got very quiet.]  Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’”

So, I ask you, how often do you go before the Lord in silence?  Do you ever go to the Lord in that way?  Do you make an effort, for example, to be here early for Mass each week so that you can spend a few moments in quiet prayer, preparing to meet your Lord in word and in sacrament?  How comfortable are you with the longer period of silence that Fr. Najim has asked us to have after Communion here at St. Pius?

And how about Eucharistic Adoration?  Have you made that a part of your spiritual life?  Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament provides us Catholics with the perfect opportunity to encounter our Lord in silence.  And that’s true even if the Eucharist is in the tabernacle and not exposed in the monstrance on the altar.  Now if you’re like me you do way too much talking and not enough listening during Adoration (and that affects the quality of the experience, for sure)—but at least during Adoration the atmosphere is right for us to have a profound encounter with our God.

I sat down once and made a little list of some of the great benefits that can come to us from spending time each week in quiet prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  Here they are: 

1.    First of all, Adoration provides us with an opportunity to hear God speak to us through a word of Scripture that we might happen to read, or even in the silence of our heart.

2.    Adoration provides us with an opportunity to take our important decisions to the Lord, and to receive guidance and insight from him on those decisions.

3.    Adoration opens us up to special blessings from the Lord.

4.    Adoration gives us an opportunity to evaluate our own lives soberly and accurately in the light of God’s revealed truth (that is to say, it gives us an opportunity to examine our consciences—which we all need to do from time to time).

5.    Adoration gives us an opportunity to “get away”.   (And it’s a lot cheaper than a ticket on Southwest Airlines!)

6.    Adoration gives us the chance to reprioritize and to be revitalized.

7.    And, finally, adoration gives us the opportunity to—in the words of the Letter to the Hebrews—“cast all our cares on the Lord” who cares for us!

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of possible benefits.  Some of you could add others, I’m sure, based on your own personal experience of praying to the Lord in this way.

Let me close this morning by giving the last word on the subject to some holy men and women of Church history.  Here’s what they said about Adoration:

First, St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa).  She wrote, “The time you spend with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the best time you will spend on earth. Each moment that you spend with Jesus will deepen your union with Him and make your soul everlastingly more glorious and beautiful in Heaven, and will help bring about everlasting peace on earth.”

St. Peter of Alcantara said, "Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament has His hands full of graces, and He is ready to bestow them on anyone who asks for them."

Archbishop Fulton Sheen (who made a Eucharistic Holy Hour every single day of his priestly life) said, "Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are preceded by a personal encounter with Him. Theological insights are gained not only from between two covers of a book, but from two bent knees before an altar. The Holy Hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world,"

And again, Mother Teresa: "When the Sisters are exhausted, up to their eyes in work; when all seems to go awry, they spend an hour in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This practice has never failed to bear fruit: they experience peace and strength."

And, finally, my own insight (which is far less profound than these others but equally true, I believe): “Eucharistic Adoration can be for us a remedy—God’s remedy—God’s great spiritual remedy—given to us so that we don’t overdose on all the noise in our lives.”

 

Transfiguration Experiences: They’re Given so That They Will be Remembered

 

(Transfiguration (A): This homily was given on August 6, 2023 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Daniel 7:9-14; Psalm 97:1-9; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Matthew 17:1-9.)

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

They were supposed to remember.  The apostles were supposed to remember what they saw on Mt. Tabor when Jesus was transfigured before their eyes.  That was why Jesus gave them this experience; it was why he removed the veil of his humanity for a few brief moments, and allowed Peter, James and John to get a little glimpse of him in his divinity.  He wanted them to remember the vision they saw that day on the mountain, so that they would be strong on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, when he would be condemned to death and nailed to a cross.  He wanted them to remember the glorious vision they saw, so they would not give up hope and despair.  He wanted them to remember so that they would persevere and be faithful.

And yes, they did remember the vision—that’s why we have the event recorded for us in the gospels: Peter, James and John obviously told the story in their preaching and in their teaching. 

But at “crunch time” they forgot.  At crunch time—when the soldiers arrested Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and his passion began—the apostles all ran away.  The glory and splendor of the Transfiguration, unfortunately, was the furthest thing from their minds at that moment.

But, thankfully, their spiritual amnesia was only temporary.

Applying this now to ourselves: we should thank God from the bottom of our hearts for whatever “transfiguration experiences” he allows us to have in our lives: experiences in which we’re deeply aware of God’s love and presence.  It’s very important to call to mind those experiences often, because sooner or later we will have to face our own Holy Thursdays and Good Fridays.  But if we remember our transfiguration experiences, we will be able to face those crosses with greater strength and greater perseverance.  A lot of our teenagers have transfiguration experiences when they go to the Steubenville youth conference in the summer.  I tell them never to forget those special moments, especially when life becomes difficult for them.  I tell them that remembering their transfiguration experience at Steubenville will help them to deal with whatever trial they’re experiencing, and pass through it.

I’ll give you a few real-life examples of what I mean.  This year, on the bus ride home from the conference, we invited the young people to share some of their reflections on the weekend in writing—and several did.  Here’s what some of them wrote:

One young man said, “I felt an abundance and a rush of happiness all weekend.  I felt full.  I went with my two brothers, something I will only be able to do once.  It was special to share that with them.  It’s so powerful and life-changing when that many people come together and praise.  It was truly beautiful.”

A teenage girl wrote, “This year I experienced the presence of God in a peaceful way.  Every year, I look forward to being around like-minded people and seeing God touch others’ lives.  It’s life-changing to witness.  Seeing their experiences gave me peace and an overwhelming sense of happiness.  Adoration is always powerful and emotional and this year I truly let go and focused on God.  Overall, Steubenville is always an amazing time and where I feel at home.”

And finally this one, from another teenage girl: “This was my first year going to Steubenville.  This experience was so life-changing that sharing it with others is hard to explain.  Growing up in a Catholic family, I’d say my faith wasn’t as strong as it should’ve been.  Going into Steubenville I was longing for a real relationship with Jesus.  On Saturday morning, I went to confession. … I think this was the first meaningful confession I’d ever had.  I really felt God’s presence and forgiveness through the priest.  [But] it wasn’t until Saturday night that I developed a real relationship with Jesus.  When the speaker Lisa Cotter talked is when my thoughts on Jesus really shifted.  Her talk was just so relatable.  Then the worship music began and I was in awe.  I looked at other people and saw their eyes closed with arms lifted up and then I began to do the same.  I became incredibly focused on the words and phrase after phrase as I started to feel God’s love.  Then adoration came and I sang my heart out to Jesus.  It was then that I found the answer I was looking for in order to have a strong relationship with Jesus.  That night was the turning point for my faith.”

Those are powerful transfiguration experiences—experiences that those young people will hopefully remember and call to mind in the future—when trials and crosses and challenges come their way.  If they do that, it will make a difference—a positive difference—in the way they respond to those trials and crosses and challenges.

I’m sure this is something Mother Teresa had to do (and did do) during her life, especially in her many years of spiritual darkness (which is something we learned about after her death from the things she had written to her spiritual director).  I’m sure that in her later years Mother Teresa thought back quite often to the moments earlier in her life when God had revealed his presence to her in some extraordinary and powerful ways. And I’m sure that that act of remembering made a huge difference!  I’m sure it made her stronger—and helped her deal effectively with the lack of spiritual consolation that she experienced during the rest of her life.

My point in all this is that transfiguration experiences are given for a reason.  They’re given to be remembered; they’re given to help us persevere in faith; they’re given to help us to deal with the Holy Thursdays and Good Fridays of our lives.  But most importantly they’re given to remind us of heaven, our eternal home, where everyone will have a transfiguration experience that won’t have to be remembered—because it will never end.