Fr. Chris Mahar on Forming our Consciences

Fr. Mahar with his favorite Green Bay Packer fan--me!!!

At all our Masses this weekend Fr. Chris Mahar spoke about forming our consciences properly in preparation for Election Day.  Click on the link below to listen to the audio version of Fr. Mahar's excellent homily.

Fr. Mahar's Homily

Retrouvaille: A Healing Remedy for Troubled Marriages

 

(Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on October 7, 2012, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Genesis 2: 18-24; Mark 10: 2-16.)

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-seventh Sunday 2012]

 

 

A fourth grade teacher asked her students to write down their ideas about marriage.  One boy said, “It’s really important to find a wife who likes the same stuff that you like.  Like, if you like sports, then she should like it that you like sports, and she should let you watch games on TV.”  (I hope you could all—like—follow that!)  A girl wrote, “When you get married, you make a promise to go through sickness and illness and disease together.”  And then there was this classic comment from a third student: “Nobody really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry.  God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you’re stuck with!”

Somehow I don’t think that’s what the Lord meant when he talked about the two becoming one!

Hopefully that fourth grader will eventually see his future spouse in a slightly more positive light.

But it’s not surprising that he has the attitude that he has, given the fact that we’re living right now in a culture where marriage is not held in very high regard.  (By “marriage,” incidentally, I mean the lifelong union of one man and one woman.  In 2012 it’s important to clarify that point whenever you’re giving a talk like this to a large group of people—just to make sure no one misunderstands the meaning of the term!)

Back now to my homily.  In contrast to the marriage naysayers of our contemporary culture we have Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, who has an incredibly high view of marriage and of married life—as is illustrated quite clearly in today’s well-known gospel passage from Mark 10.  There the Pharisees ask him, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?”

Notice how Jesus answers.  He first of all dismisses their argument in support of divorce by saying that Moses only tolerated it because of the stubbornness and hardness of heart of the ancient Israelites.  And then he goes back to the very first book of the Bible—specifically to the creation story in the Book of Genesis (part of which we heard in our first reading today)—to make the point that marriage was not, originally, a human idea; rather, it was the idea of Almighty God himself!  God is the true author of marriage; consequently he’s the one who binds a man and a woman together when that couple exchanges their vows and a true marital bond is formed.

Which is precisely why the Catholic Church teaches that a valid, sacramental marriage can never be broken!  It’s because of what we just heard in this gospel; it’s because of what Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, taught about the permanence of marriage. 

The bottom line is that the Church has no power to undo what God has definitively done in uniting a husband and wife! 

Of course, it’s important to note here that it is possible for a couple to exchange their vows in a Catholic church without entering into a true, valid marriage.  To enter into a valid marriage before God you have to do it freely and willingly, and with a certain level of maturity (emotional as well as physical), and with the right intentions.  Well, unfortunately, sometimes one or both of the parties doesn’t fulfill one or more of those requirements—but that doesn’t become clear until long after the ceremony has taken place.

The annulment process (which I know some of you have been through) seeks to determine whether or not that is, in fact, the case with respect to a particular relationship.  If the marriage tribunal finds a defect that was present when the couple exchanged their vows, then the marriage is declared null; but if they can’t find a defect, the marriage stands.  It stands because the evidence indicates that there’s a true, marital bond present.  As Jesus said here, “What God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

I’ve sometimes heard people refer to an annulment as a “Catholic divorce”—but that’s wrong.  A divorce says, “There was a marriage; now there isn’t a marriage.”  An annulment says, “There was never a true marriage bond formed in the first place.  Even though the couple entered the relationship in good faith, there was something wrong at the very beginning which was not recognized at the time.”

Because the experience of divorce—and because even the annulment process—can be so painful, it’s extremely important that we, as Catholics, reach out to friends and relatives who are having difficulties in their marriages.  We should pray for them, of course; but in addition to that we should do our best to point them to people and groups and services through which they can find healing in their relationships.  In other words, as Catholics we should do what we can do to help save marriages!

Let me share with you now some information on one very good marriage-saving resource: it’s called, “Retrouvaille.”

Retrouvaille (which means, “Rediscovery” in French), is a program for hurting marriages that was developed in Quebec, Canada back in the late 1970s (hence the French name).  It consists of a weekend experience and 12 follow-up sessions.  It’s not a Marriage Encounter (which some of you have probably been on).  Marriage Encounters are designed to make good marriages better; Retrouvaille weekends and follow-up sessions are designed to save marriages that are “on the rocks,” so to speak.

There are no Retrouvaille weekends here in Rhode Island, but there are weekends held, periodically, in nearby Connecticut and Massachusetts.  I’ve recommended these to many couples over the years, and several have actually gone.

And, as far as I know, all the couples who took my advice and went are still married.

Thanks be to God!

Some of those who have gone, incidentally, have told me that although the weekend experience was very good, the follow-up sessions were even better.  They said that it was in those 12 additional gatherings that the real healing in their marriages began to take place.

I’ve included an insert on Retrouvaille in today’s bulletin.  On it you’ll find, among other things, the address of their website (click here), where you can find more information and resources—including info on upcoming weekends in the area.

I happened to be looking at the website the other day, and one of the things that I found there was an article entitled, “The 4 Stages of Marriage.”  This article makes clear why a program like Retrouvaille is so needed, especially in a society like ours which de-values marriage, and in which the divorce rate is so high.

Perhaps many of you can identify with these:

• The first stage of marriage they call the “romance stage.”  The authors (obviously married people) say: [In this first stage] “life was so wonderful we couldn't stand to live without the other. Our thoughts often turned to the other when we were not with them. We had fallen in love and knew that this was the person we wanted to spend the rest of our life with.  Little differences between us were cute and endearing.”
• However, that stage doesn’t last forever.  The next stage they call, “disillusionment.”  They write, “At some point those little differences started to annoy us. We felt bothered by some of those same things that may have been cute a short time earlier. The self-talk in the back of our mind started wondering why our spouse couldn't be more like us. We had entered into the second stage of marriage, the disillusionment stage. During [this] stage we start to realize that our spouse is not the perfect person that we had envisioned him or her to be. Sometimes, especially if our romance stage had been particularly intense, we are hurt deeply by this disillusionment. We realize that the expectations we had of the perfect marriage [are] not going to happen. For some this realization is too heart-wrenching and they give up on the marriage and divorce.”
• Those who survive, according to the authors, then have to face “the misery stage”—which is even worse than the disillusionment stage.  As they say in the article, “Many people stick with and try to work through their problems during disillusionment. They seek the counsel of family, friends, clergy and marriage family counselors. Some of these people find the key they are looking for from these resources. [But] many others continue to struggle and their troubles worsen. Often the marriage deteriorates more deeply due to drug, alcohol or other addictions. Sometimes a third party relationship in the form of [an] extramarital affair results.”
• For some couples, unfortunately, that’s where everything comes to an end; but for others, thankfully, there is a fourth stage of “awakening”—which is where Retrouvaille comes into the picture.  As the article says, “Teams of couples who have experienced all 4 stages of marriage [themselves] present the Retrouvaille program. Instead of giving up, [these couples] found solutions. In Retrouvaille they learned the tools they needed to live a happy marriage. They learned that marriage does not follow the romance and happily-ever-after formula portrayed in literature and [the] media. Rather, they [realized] that there are certain learnable skills, attitudes and tools that they can use to deal with the inevitable problems of the real world.”

 

Like that fourth grader I mentioned at the beginning of my homily, everyone who has gone through the Retrouvaille experience has, before the weekend, felt like they were “stuck” with their spouse.  But, by the grace of God and with some really hard work, many have “rediscovered” their spouses to be great blessings—and they’ve saved their marriages in the process.

If you know someone whose marriage is in trouble right now, please tell them about Retrouvaille--tell them about this opportunity; and if your marriage is suffering at the present time, consider going.

It just might move your marriage out of the misery stage and into the awakening stage—the healing stage—which, I’m sure, is where you and your spouse would like it to be.

The ‘Politics’ of the Prophets

John the Baptist confronting King Herod

 

(Twenty-sixth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on September 30, 2012, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Numbers 11: 25-29.)

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-sixthSunday 2012]

 

This morning I’d like to speak to you briefly about the ‘politics’ of the prophets (a rather timely topic to deal with during an election year, wouldn’t you say?).

Now, there’s always a danger in mentioning politics of any kind from the pulpit—at least there’s a danger if you’re an orthodox Catholic who believes in the natural law and the Ten Commandments.  Then, you had better watch it!  On the other hand, if you’re a cleric of a more liberal persuasion when it comes to abortion and other social issues, then you can say whatever you want about political topics and not a word of protest is uttered in most secular media outlets.

I find it interesting, for example, that a certain Baptist minister—who proudly uses the title, “Reverend” in public—has his own TV show on one of the cable news networks: a show that’s almost completely political in its focus!

Whatever happened to the so-called “separation of church and state,” Reverend Sharpton?

Oh well, I guess that only applies to some of us.

I, of course, never tell anyone from the pulpit whom they should vote for—although I’ve been accused of doing that by some people.  I’ll never forget, several years ago, just before a presidential election, an irate elderly woman came to the rectory one afternoon demanding to talk with me.  So I took her into the sun room, we sat down, and she immediately pointed her finger at me and shouted, “I’m very upset with you!  You want us to vote for so-and-so!”

I said, “Well, that’s interesting.  But tell me, have I ever said in one of my homilies, ‘In this election you should vote for so-and-so’?  Have I ever said anything like that?”

She said, “Well, no. . . . BUT I KNOW YOU—AND YOU WANT US TO VOTE FOR SO-AND-SO!!!”

Now I will give that woman credit for one thing: she was making “connections”—very important connections: connections between what I did say in my homilies and the circumstances of her daily life.

And I make no apologies for that occurrence, because that’s exactly what a preacher is supposed to help people do!  He’s supposed to help men and women to connect the timeless message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with their everyday experience.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this in paragraph 2246: “It is part of the Church’s mission to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it.”

So when a priest says something like, “It’s wrong for a politician to support and promote the destruction of innocent human life through abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem-cell research,” or, “It’s wrong for a politician to directly attack the religious freedom and conscience rights of others,” that priest is simply doing what he was ordained to do!  He’s highlighting truths that should guide Catholics—and all men and women of good will—in choosing the best possible people to be their leaders.  Now if those listening to him at Mass on a given Sunday make direct connections in their minds between these truths and certain individual politicians, that’s their business.  The priest can’t help that.  The fault actually lies with the politicians who advocate those evil public policies.  The policies are evil because they violate basic, fundamental human rights, like the right to life and the right to religious freedom (rights, incidentally, upon which this nation was founded!).

Politicians can differ on the best way to fix the economy and the health care system, but not on basic human rights.

Human rights are non-negotiable.

Now if you still have an objection to priests addressing subjects like this in their homilies, I do ask that you try to be thankful: Be thankful that you have to listen to someone like Fr. Ray every weekend and not Samuel, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Elijah, or Amos, or John the Baptist, or any of the great biblical prophets.  I say, “Be thankful,” because, compared to all those guys, I’m a veritable pussycat!

Biblically speaking, who were the prophets?  Well, very simply, the prophets were people who proclaimed God’s word—God’s sacred truth—to others.  They were not fortune-tellers (that’s a common misunderstanding).  Yes, it’s true, they did talk at times about the future, but always in relation to what was happening in the present moment!  For example, they often said things like, “Reform your lives, so that something bad will not happen to you.” 

Notice: that message points to the future, but it’s designed to get people to change their lives in a positive way in the present moment.

That’s typical of prophetic utterances in the Bible.

Actually, we’re all called to be prophets in the world today because of the fact that we’re baptized!  We’re called to be the fulfillment of the desire of Moses that he expressed to Joshua in today’s first reading—in that line where he says, “Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!  Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!”

Each and every one of is called to speak God’s truth to other people in love (as St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4: 15).  That’s our common Christian mandate. 

And yet, as we all know, throughout history God has appointed certain people to be prophets in a more formal sense.

I mentioned some of these individuals a few moments ago: Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, etc.

And what I realized when I was preparing this homily the other day is that these men, whom we read about in the Sacred Scriptures, were extremely political when they spoke and wrote their prophecies.

At least they were political by our standards, and according to our definition of the term.

That’s something that had never struck me before—at least not in the way it did the other day.

But it’s so true!  Think, for example, of how often the prophets verbally attacked the wicked kings of Israel and Judah. 

They did it constantly—on almost every page of their writings!  They didn’t just mention principles, like we priests do.  They also named names!

The great prophet Samuel, for example, said to Saul (the very first king of Israel), “Because you did not obey God in dealing with the Amalekites, your kingship is over!  It’s finished!—and there’s nothing you can do to change that fact!”

That’s typical of how the prophets confronted their leaders when their leaders disobeyed God.

The prophets also meddled in what we would refer to today as “foreign policy.”  Jeremiah, for example, gave King Zedekiah advice on how to deal with the Babylonians and the Egyptians at a crucial moment in the history of Judah.  It was great advice; but, unfortunately, Zedekiah didn’t listen.

Even a good king like David was reprimanded by a prophet—the prophet Nathan.  It happened (as you will recall) after David had his little “fling” with Bathsheba.

So even the personal lives of the rulers were considered to be fair game for the prophets of Sacred Scripture!  Remember what John the Baptist used to tell Herod?  He used to say to him, “Herodias—the woman you’re living with—is the lawful wife of your brother Philip!  You stole her, Herod!  You’re committing adultery!”

And John never made any apologies for his words.

Needless to say, the prophets were really, really serious about their politics.  And they were never shy about expressing themselves on political matters.

Here, in the United  States, in 2012, they’d probably all end up in jail.

So it’s really a great blessing that you have us priests (and bishops and deacons) to simply remind you of the truths—the principles—that should guide you in the voting booth and in every other aspect of life.

More about that—from a special guest priest—in late October.

I’ll bet you can’t wait.

Why a Priest Will Mention Purgatory in a Funeral Homily

 

(Twenty-fifth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on September 23, 2012 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Mark 9:30-37.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-fifth Sunday 2012]

 

After a recent funeral, a couple of people asked me why I mentioned purgatory in my homily.  Now please do not misunderstand, these post-funeral questioners were not angry or combative; they were simply curious—and somewhat confused.  You see, in their minds their recently-deceased friend was a good, caring, faith-filled person; consequently they thought that I should have focused my remarks exclusively on heaven.

They really didn’t see the need to mention purgatory, since, from their perspective, their deceased friend couldn’t possibly be anywhere other than in God’s eternal kingdom.

Now there were several problems with their line of reasoning, not the least of which was that it violated a command of Jesus Christ: the command not to judge!

When we hear Jesus say, “Stop judging, that you may not be judged,” we usually interpret that to mean, “Don’t condemn another person to hell in your mind or heart.”  And that’s right; that’s definitely a valid way to interpret our Lord’s words.   But it’s also only half the story.  Jesus is also warning us here against “judging” others in the opposite way, by personally declaring them to be in the kingdom of heaven.  No, we should never condemn another person to hell, but neither should we presume that they’re going to heaven immediately when they die; nor should we presume that our deceased relatives and friends have already passed through the pearly gates.

The Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, has the power to canonize people; we, as individuals, do not.

We can speak of our hope that our deceased relatives and friends have already arrived; we can express a very confident hope that they’ve already made it into the kingdom of heaven.  But we must never say “we know,” because we don’t (unless, of course, they’ve been canonized; then we do know).

And this is precisely why we pray for the dead!  We pray for the dead because we realize that some people die in the state of grace—in friendship with God—but are not quite ready to see the Lord face to face.  They don’t have any mortal sins on their souls when they leave this life, but they may still have some venial sins that they need to be forgiven for, and they may still have some sinful attitudes that they need to get rid of.

Or they may need to make reparation for some of their already-forgiven sins.

It says in the Book of Revelation, chapter 21, that “nothing unclean will enter [heaven].”  NOTHING!  That means you’re not ready for heaven, even if you have just one, little, unforgiven venial sin on your soul—or just a teeny, tiny bit of anger or pride or lust or some other sinful attitude in your heart.

In Hebrews, chapter 12, we are told to “Strive for that holiness . . . without which no one can see the Lord”—indicating that we need to attain a certain level of holiness before we can experience the beatific vision.  Basically, that holiness needs to be attained in this life (meaning that we need to die in Christ, in the state of grace); but some of that holiness can be attained after death, which is what Jesus was getting at when he said in Matthew 12: 32 that some sins can be forgiven “in the age to come.”

So even though—as many Protestants like to tell us—the word “purgatory” is not found in the Bible, the truth about purgatory and about the need for a final purification after death is clearly present in the Sacred Scriptures.  One of the most important passages in this regard is found in 1 Corinthians 3, where St. Paul says that some people who have lived mediocre Christian lives will be saved, but they will first need to pass through “fire”—hence one of the ways purgatory is sometimes described is as a “holy fire.”

It’s not the destructive fire of hell; rather, it’s a fire that purifies us and cleanses us and makes us radiant with God’s grace.

The need for purgatory is illustrated quite well by the apostles in today’s gospel story from Mark 9.  It says there that when they arrived at their destination in Capernaum Jesus asked them a question.  He said, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

They were fighting, of course, about who was the greatest; about who was “numero uno” among them.

Now I ask you, if these men had died of natural causes at that precise moment, would they have been ready to pass through the pearly gates of heaven?

I don’t think so!  They clearly had some pride in their hearts—and perhaps a little arrogance and self-centeredness as well.

All of that would have needed to have been washed away, before they could have entered the Lord’s eternal kingdom.

And so it is for many—perhaps most—souls after death.

Which is why I mention purgatory in every funeral homily I preach!  Every deacon, priest and bishop should. 

I think that some people react negatively when purgatory is mentioned because they think that purgatory is a bad thing, and that the priest is implying something negative about their deceased relative or friend by making reference to it.

But it’s not a bad thing!  It’s a great thing.  Remember, the people in purgatory are saved; their salvation is secured;  they’re on their way to heaven, and there’s no possibility of them ever going to hell.

They just need to be cleaned up a bit before they meet the King of kings and the Lord of lords!  And the good news is that we can help them to pass through their purification process more quickly by our prayers, and sacrifices—and especially by having Masses offered for the repose of their souls (since the Mass is the most powerful prayer of all, given the fact that it’s the prayer of Christ himself).

Many of you I’m sure remember Monsignor Struck, who helped out here in his retirement years until he passed way in 1997.  Monsignor Jack Struck was one of the holiest people I’ve ever met in my life, but he always used to say, “When I die, all I want is to get through the back door of purgatory.”

He said that because he was holy and humble—and because he knew that if he got through the “back door” he was eventually going out the “front door” and into the eternal kingdom of heaven!

Let me conclude today by reading to you a small part of the Church’s official teaching about purgatory, which is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, beginning in paragraph 1030.  There we are told:  

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. . . . The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire . . .

This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture [in the Old Testament Second Book of Maccabees].

From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.  The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.

So if I mention purgatory at the funeral Mass of one of your relatives or friends sometime in the near or distant future, please do not be confused or offended.  Remember, saying that they might be in purgatory is just another way of saying that they’re on their way to heaven.

But do remember to pray for them!—because if our loved ones are indeed in purgatory that’s what they want from us most!  Not words of praise, but rather prayers and sacrifices and Masses for their souls, so that they can get to that “front door of purgatory” more quickly.

“But, Fr. Ray, what if my relative or friend is already in heaven?”

Well, then the prayers you offer will go to help another needy soul.

No prayer for the dead is ever wasted.