Lent: A Time To Get Fit Spiritually!

This homily was given at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. on Ash Wednesday, 2009, by Fr. Raymond Suriani. It is available only in audio form. To listen to the homily, click here: Ash Wednesday 2009

The Importance of ‘Carrying’ Others to Jesus

(Seventh Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on February 22, 2009 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Mark 2: 1-12.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Seventh Sunday of the Year 2009]



If you live on this earth long enough, sooner or later what happened to me in the last 3 weeks will happen to you:


You’ll have an illness or be forced to go through a surgery that will keep you out of commission for an extended period of time.



And if you’re an active person who finds fulfillment and meaning in your daily work (like I do), then the inactivity will drive you absolutely, positively crazy! (Or, if you’re like me, it’ll just make you crazier than you already are!)



One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that most of us tend to measure our self-worth by the number of activities we engage in. If we “do” a lot, then we think our life is worth something; if we “do” little or nothing that the world considers “productive,” then we think our life is worth little or nothing.



This, of course, is not the Catholic and Christian way of looking at reality (which means it’s not the right way of looking at reality), but it is the contemporary cultural way of looking at things—and we’re all affected by it to some extent.



I know I was a few weeks ago, in the aftermath of my shoulder surgery. It was very frustrating. I literally couldn’t “do” much of anything in terms of my normal, daily activities. In fact, I spent an entire week at my sister’s house without ever going out the front door even once!



I’ve never been inside a building continuously for that length of time in my entire life—except, maybe, when my mother took me home from the hospital right after I was born!



I didn’t like it—but I decided early on that I should try to make the best of it. The line of Scripture that came to mind was the one from Ephesians 5 where St. Paul says, “Make the most of every opportunity.”



Believe it or not, there is opportunity in everything—even sickness.



So I made the decision to take advantage of the opportunity God was giving me in my convalescence to do things like read Scripture and pray more. And I resolved that in my prayer I would be like the 4 men in this gospel story we just heard from Mark 2. These 4 men took a paralyzed friend of theirs to Jesus, and the Lord gave the sick man what he needed: first forgiveness, and then healing.



But please notice something: Notice that if these 4 men had not made the effort to physically carry their paralyzed friend to the house where Jesus was and then lower him through the roof into the presence of our Lord, the guy would have remained paralyzed—and even worse he would have remained in his sins!



The man was blessed because—and only because—his friends carried him to Jesus Christ in faith; which is what we do, spiritually speaking, whenever we pray prayers of intercession, and whenever we offer up our sufferings for others in union with the sufferings of Christ: in a certain and very real sense we “carry” our brothers and sisters to the Lord.



Obviously this little biblical story illustrates the fact that God has made some things in this life conditional. Recall that in 1 Corinthians 3, St. Paul tells us that we are God’s “co-workers,” which basically means that we are called to cooperate with God to accomplish his will in the world. It’s not a case of God doing everything and we human beings doing nothing. In God’s design, certain good things will happen in this life only if we do our part to help bring them about. And one of the ways we “do our part” is by “carrying people to the Lord” (in other words, by interceding on their behalf and by offering up our sufferings for them).



Very often, unfortunately, we don’t see the immediate results of our bringing people to Jesus in this way, but thankfully at other times God will let us know that what we’re doing is having a positive effect. In that regard, two weeks ago I was praying and offering up my sufferings for a number of special intentions, one of which was our parish school. So it didn’t surprise me when I called our principal, Henry Fiore, during my convalescence and he told me that new people were calling every day to inquire about registering their children for next year—in spite of the difficult economic situation we’re currently in. One doctor from Cape Cod called, for example, to say he is moving to Westerly in the near future and wants to register his 3 children, all of whom are in upper grades.



Henry had stories like that to tell me every time I phoned him during my recovery.



I said to him, “Well, I take that as a sign that my offered-up pain is making a difference. I don’t like it, mind you, and I’m trying to get rid of it every day, but while I have it I’m trying not to waste it.”



Which leads to the obvious question of the day: Whom have you “carried” to Jesus lately through prayer and/or suffering?



Need a suggestion? How about our new president? As committed Catholics, we should be “taking this man to Jesus” every day in prayer and in acts of penance, asking that God will give him the wisdom he needs to guide us in these tough economic times; but, even more importantly, asking that the Lord will convert his heart on issues like abortion and embryonic stem cell research.



Our new president may have good ideas on many matters of importance to our nation, but, quite frankly, when it comes to life issues his positions are nothing short of atrocious. He’s already given the green light to using taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions in foreign countries, and now he plans on lifting the 8-year ban on embryonic stem cell research imposed by former president Bush.



In this year of St. Paul, we should be praying and doing penance that he will have a St. Paul-like conversion on moral issues like these—which are even more important than our nation’s economy, because they involve direct attacks on our nation’s most innocent citizens.



So I ask you once again: Whom have you “carried” to Jesus lately? If you say “No one,” then realize that you might be depriving our country of some much needed changes at the present time—and you may be depriving the people you love of the blessings God wants to give them. Bishop Sheen used to say, “Thousands of favors are hanging from heaven on silken cords, and prayer is the sword that cuts them down.”



There are many people who are counting on us to do some “cord-cutting” for them in their need.



May we not disappoint them, as the 4 friends of this paralyzed man did not disappoint him 2,000 years ago.



That, my brothers and sisters, is where I was going to end my homily—until yesterday morning, when I received a beautiful email from Betsey Conway, who’s the wife of one of our local veterinarians, Dr. Michael Conway. As you know if you read the Westerly Sun this past week, Dr. Conway was recently diagnosed with a very serious—and very aggressive—form of cancer. That came as a big shock to me, since I just saw him at the gym about a month ago. He was running and lifting weights and appeared to be in perfect health.



You never know, do you?



Betsey’s email contained a reflection that she recently wrote about the trial she and her husband are now dealing with. In it she quotes a sonnet of William Shakespeare, and then she compares an experience she and Mike once had on an airplane to prayer. It ties in perfectly with the theme of this homily, and so I share it with you to conclude today. Here’s part of what Betsey wrote:



Several years ago Mike and I were on an airplane on the evening of the 4th of July. The plane was hugging the long shoreline of Connecticut as we began our descent to Providence. As we gazed in amazement down below, the small towns nestled in the gentle river valleys sparkled with the bright lights of fireworks. As the plane moved on, more wondrous displays unfolded. We were mesmerized, and felt our spirits light up like the earth below.



In these dark nights, bearing the uncertainty and fear that Mike’s condition evokes, we are like the sonnet writer who beweeps our outcast state. But, like the writer at the conclusion of the sonnet, our spirits sing hymns at heaven’s gate when we remember that heaven is not deaf, that we are rich in friends and family, wealthy in their love for us and the love of Jesus Christ.



And so this starry night I like to imagine that the Lord looks down on this sullen earth and sees the brightness of the prayers of people petitioning the Lord on our behalf, much like the fireworks so brilliantly displayed for us that 4th of July. I can imagine how beautiful it is to Him. It is priceless to us and we are richer than kings.



In all my years, I’ve never heard anyone compare intercessory prayers to fireworks—but it really is a great analogy. So when you “carry” your friends and family members to Jesus in the near future, remember to “shoot up a firework or two” for Dr. Mike Conway. I know the good doctor—and his family—would greatly appreciate it.

'Calls' and 'Falls'

(Third Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on January 25, 2009 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Jonah 3: 1-10; Mark 1: 14-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday of the Year 2009]

It matters not whether you’re big and tall—or short and small;
This simple truth applies to all:
You will most definitely have a call,
But just as certainly will you suffer a fall;
And how you deal with your fall has everything to do
with how well you live and fulfill your call.

Jonah was called—he was called to be God’s prophet to the Ninevites (we heard a small portion of that story in today’s first reading); the apostles were called—they were called to be leaders among the earliest followers of Jesus Christ (as we heard in this Gospel reading from Mark, chapter 1).

And we are called. We are called, among other things, to be different—different from those in the world who are materialistic and hedonistic and selfish; we are called to embrace and to live Christian virtues in every dimension of our lives (including when we go to work, and when we get behind closed doors). We are called to be holy and to serve God by fulfilling his perfect plan for our lives. For most people that involves marriage and natural parenthood; for some it involves priesthood, the diaconate and/or religious life; and for others it involves service in the Church or in society as a single person.

And within those 3 primary “calls” or vocations, there are particular calls that we each have to serve God in a chosen profession, or in charitable organizations, or in some other way.

But regardless of what your call is in this life, at some point along the way—and maybe several times along the way—you will fall. As I indicated a few moments ago, there is a call for every human being, but for every human being there will also be a fall. And here I’m not just talking about a little mistake; I’m talking about a decisive moment of failure that challenges your vocation or call and threatens to destroy it. It might be a big temptation that you start to give into—like the temptation to give up; it might be something more serious like an act of adultery or some other mortal sin.

And how you deal with this fall has everything to do with how well you end up fulfilling your call—as it says in the last line of the poem I read at the beginning.

What’s interesting and noteworthy about the prophet Jonah is that his call and his fall happened almost simultaneously! That doesn’t occur too often; usually there’s a period of time between the two.

God told him to go and preach to the Ninevites, so that they would repent of their sins and be forgiven. Jonah responded to that call by getting on the first ship headed in the opposite direction. Why? Because he hated the Ninevites and didn’t want God to forgive them, that’s why! Jonah wanted God to “fry” them, not forgive them! He wanted fire and brimstone, not kindness and mercy!

The Lord, of course, was not impressed by Jonah’s fall—or his juvenile antics—so he sent a terrible storm onto the sea, which resulted in Jonah being thrown overboard and getting swallowed by a big fish. Three days later, the fish spewed Jonah back onto the shore, after which God called him again.

This time Jonah went—albeit begrudgingly—and he preached the message God told him to preach; after which everyone repented, from the king of Nineveh on down!

Jonah, you know, is the envy of every preacher: The guy preached for one day, and everyone turned to God!

I should be so blessed!

However the story ends sadly with the prophet sulking like a five-year-old and praying for death. He prays for death because he’s incensed that God has forgiven the people of Nineveh and spared their city.

Apparently his days as a prophet were finished. And it leaves you wondering: How much more good could Jonah have done—and would Jonah have done—in his life, had he responded to his “fall” a little better?

How much good would he have done, had he responded to his fall like the apostles responded to theirs? Called by Jesus in this scene from Mark 1, they all fell extremely hard 3 years later on Holy Thursday night, when they either denied him or betrayed him or simply ran away in fear.

But they all came back, with the exception of Judas, who unfortunately responded to his fall with despair.

Although he could have been forgiven like the rest! As Bishop Sheen used to say, the great tragedy of Judas is that he could have been “St. Judas”—had he responded to his fall with sincere repentance, like the other 11 disciples.

How you deal with your fall has everything to do with how well you fulfill your call.

It’s never pleasant to hear of a fall, but it’s always a joy when you see someone respond to theirs in the right way, and then move on successfully to continue to fulfill their call in life.

I remember early on in my priesthood dealing with a couple who were experiencing severe difficulties in their marriage. They were both called to holy matrimony, but he had been unfaithful—and she had found out about it. Needless to say, she was extremely angry (as she should have been).

By the time I met them, which was long after the affair had ended, he had repented of his sin and was sincerely trying to make amends.

And she knew that; however she still had a lot of anger within her. In fact, at times she would slip into what seemed like an uncontrollable rage.

It was not pretty.

But to her credit, she persevered—and so did he; and together they both did the hard work that was necessary to restore the trust in their relationship.

And last I knew they were doing very well.

Ultimately they responded as a couple to this terrible fall in the right way.

As I was preparing this homily the other day, providentially I happened to come across the personal testimony of Chuck Colson online. His is yet another story of a fall after a call.

If you are old enough to remember the early 1970s—the time of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal—then you are certainly familiar with Chuck Colson’s name, since you heard it on television and read it in the newspapers almost every day.

Colson was chief counsel to President Nixon in Nixon’s first term of office. During that time, he was disdainfully called “the White House hatchet man,” and was once quoted as saying, “I’d walk over my own grandmother to re-elect Richard Nixon.”

I don’t think his grandmother was too happy about that—but that’s another story.

Needless to say, he was a ruthless and power-hungry individual.

And then came Watergate. Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to one to three years in federal prison.

In the midst of all that political and legal turmoil, Chuck Colson experienced a personal conversion to Jesus Christ—a conversion, incidentally, that was scoffed at by most people in the secular media.

They didn’t believe that he would change; they didn’t believe that he could change.

But he did. So much so that many years later, when Mike Wallace asked him during a 60 Minutes interview, “Chuck, how do you now look back on Watergate?” the former hatchet man responded, “Mike, I thank God for Watergate, because I learned the greatest lessons of my life. The teaching of Jesus is true. He who seeks to save his life will lose it. He who loses his life for my sake shall find it.”

Chuck Colson served seven months of his 1-3 year prison term, but in a certain sense he never left prison. I say that because in 1976, he founded an organization called Prison Fellowship Ministries, which has since become one of the largest and most successful prison outreach programs ever, with over 40,000 volunteers who minister to prisoners, to ex-prisoners, and to prisoners’ families.

He even has satellite programs around the world in 112 countries!

Some people thought Chuck Colson’s conversion was an act. Many others thought it was superficial and wouldn’t last.

But it has!—to the point where he is now one of the most respected and admired evangelical Christians in the world.

Here was a man who had a call—a call that very few people ever experience: a call to serve at the right hand of the President of the United States.

And then he fell—big time!

But out of that painful fall came a genuine conversion. And that led to a brand new call.

That, my brothers and sisters, is the kind of thing God can do, when we respond to our falls with faith and with repentance. In other words, when we respond like the 11 apostles, and not like Jonah.

“The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why they call it ‘the present’”: How These Words Apply To Baptism.

(Baptism of the Lord (B): This homily was given on January 11, 2009 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read 1 John 5: 1-9; Mark 1: 7-11.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Baptism of the Lord 2009]

The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why they call it “the present.”

Fr. Dean Perri quoted that line in his Christmas homily a few weeks ago, as many of you will recall. He had recently heard it in the movie, Kung Fu Panda.

I mention it today on this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, because, believe it or not, this well-known expression is also very “baptismal,” as I hope to make clear in a few moments.

There are, of course, a number of differences between the baptism that Jesus experienced 2,000 years ago and the baptism we experience as contemporary Christians.

His was the baptism of John; ours is sacramental baptism. He didn’t need baptism of any kind; we need baptism in some form to be saved. He in a certain sense “sanctified the water” when he received his baptism; we are sanctified by the water when we receive ours.

Jesus was baptized in humble submission to the Father’s will, not because he needed forgiveness for his sins—since he had no sins to be forgiven for! He was not a sinner; although he was willing to look like one by receiving John’s baptism in the Jordan that day, prefiguring what would happen at the end of his ministry, when he would once again look like a sinner in his death on the cross.

Which brings us back to that line from Kung Fu Panda, and its application to the baptism we receive today as Catholic Christians: a baptism that draws its power from the cross—and resurrection—of Jesus: The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why they call it “the present.”

Take the first phrase: The past is history. We all have “a past,” don’t we? Some of us, of course, have a more colorful and eventful past than others. Do we appreciate the power of baptism to take a person’s evil past and consign it to the dustbin of history? In other words, do we appreciate the complete and total forgiveness that baptism brings to us? Many of us might not, since we were infants when we received the sacrament, and so we didn’t have any “past” to be forgiven for. But we still did suffer from original sin—that is, the lack of sanctifying grace—and that needed to be wiped away before we could have any hope of eternal life.

And besides that, in the years since our baptisms we’ve all been forgiven for a lot of sins in the sacrament of confession (at least I hope we have!). Well, believe it or not, at the root of that forgiveness is baptism! Remember, the only reason we can receive the forgiving grace of the sacrament of confession is because we’ve already received the saving grace of the sacrament of baptism.

Baptism is the door to all the other sacraments; baptism makes confession possible.

If a person is not baptized, then it’s baptism they need, not confession. And when they are finally baptized all the sins of their past life are forgiven instantaneously—without ever being confessed!

That’s the power of this great sacrament! Not only that, even the temporal punishment due to their sins is taken away (which means that if the person dies immediately after repenting of their sins and being baptized, there’s no need to pass through purgatory).

Perhaps it’s adult converts like Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who appreciate all this the most—because they really have a strong sense of what they’ve been delivered from. Born in 1926, Dr. Nathanson, was raised in a Jewish family but eventually declared himself an atheist. Back in the 1970s, as many of you know, he ran the largest abortion clinic in the world, located on the East Side of Manhattan, where he presided over approximately 75,000 abortions.

He even killed one of his own children.

He eventually became pro-life, not because he had faith—he was still an atheist at the time—but because he finally came to recognize the scientific truth that the fetus in the womb is a human being!

However his past continued to eat at him. In spite of all the pro-life work he began doing, he had no peace. As he later said, "I plunged into a very serious, profound depression. I found myself almost unable to go to work. I was deeply troubled by what I had done in my life. Another marriage was falling apart, my son was emotionally disturbed. I was getting older, and as I looked back all I could see was the baggage of 75,000 little lives interrupted and destroyed, and a great deal of adult lives that I had damaged. . . .I reached bottom spiritually in those years. . . . [and I seriously thought about suicide]. I felt there was really no reason to go on."

His conversion happened over a period of time, with the help of a priest you see on EWTN every once in awhile, Fr. John McCloskey.

Finally, on December 9, 1996, he was baptized—born again of water and the Spirit—at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Cardinal John O’Connor officiated at the ceremony.

Dr. Nathanson described the experience in this way: “It was a very difficult moment. I was in a real whirlpool of emotion. And then there was this healing cooling water on me, and soft voices, and an inexpressible sense of peace. I had found a safe place. . . . For so many years I was agitated, nervous, intense. My emotional metabolism was way up. Now I've achieved a sense of peace.

“I can't tell you how grateful I am, what an unrequitable debt I have, to those who prayed for me all those years when I was publicly announcing my atheism and lack of faith. They stubbornly, lovingly, prayed for me. I am convinced beyond any doubt that those prayers were heard. It brought tears to my eyes.”

The past is “history” the moment a person is baptized. Dr. Bernard Nathanson definitely understands that; hopefully we do as well.

As for the future, that’s a mystery—for him and for all of us—as that line from Kung Fu Panda makes clear. On that note, I received an email a few weeks ago from a young EMT in his twenties, who was having difficulty dealing with the sudden death of a police officer in his town.

This police officer was also in his twenties, and died of an apparent heart attack during the previous night.

The young EMT was upset in part, I think, because this tragedy brought him face to face with his own mortality, and with the uncertainty of this earthly life. It is, indeed, a mystery. But through the sacrament of baptism which he received more than two decades ago, this EMT was brought into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ; and through Christ I told him he can face the mystery—and the uncertainty of life—with faith and courage. So can we. As St. Paul put it in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me.” St. John conveyed a similar idea in today’s second reading when he said, “Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

Which brings us to the gift that is today. Today is where we live, is it not? We may think about the future, and we may reflect on the past, but what we do now is what’s most important, because the now is all that we’re guaranteed. The Bible tells us to make the most of every opportunity—and that means making the most of every opportunity NOW!

Sometimes, of course, we don’t do that. We delay doing things we know we should do right away: we delay repentance; we delay acts of charity; we delay making the positive changes we know we should make in our lives. In other words, we do not make the most of the opportunities God gives us in the gift that is “today”.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Once again, if we’re living in a relationship with Jesus Christ—a relationship that’s rooted in baptism—he will remind us of what we should be doing NOW (whether we want to be reminded of it or not), and he will give us the grace, through prayer and the sacraments, to follow through on our good intentions.

And he will help us to be more grateful for everything—even the crosses and challenges we experience.

The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift—that’s why they call it “the present.”

O Lord, help us to remember how these words apply to the sacrament of baptism, and help us to live our lives accordingly—beginning right now! Amen.