An Unsettling Experience During Stations Of The Cross

Jackie Boy celebrating his most recent birthday.

(Holy Thursday 2006: This homily was given on April 13, 2006, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; John 13: 1-15.)

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

It was one of the most unsettling experiences I’ve ever had in my life.

It occurred a couple of weeks ago, on a Tuesday night. Some of you were there, although I think it’s safe to say that none of you noticed anything unusual taking place. But I did.

It was 6:05, and I had just finished saying the opening prayer of the Stations of the Cross from this pulpit.

I immediately moved down into the center aisle of the church, and faced the first station.

When the initial verse of “At the Cross Her Station Keeping” was finished, I began in the customary fashion. I said, “The first station, Jesus is condemned to death. We adore you O Christ, and we praise you.”

Those in attendance genuflected and gave the usual response: “Because, by your holy cross, you have redeemed the world.”

I then proceeded to read a brief meditation from the stations’ booklet, recounting how Pontius Pilate “washed his hands” on Good Friday and condemned our Lord to death by crucifixion. When I was finished, the people in the congregation began to recite their prayer of response.

That’s when it happened.

I looked up from my booklet, and all of a sudden I caught sight of little 4-year-old Jack Carey, standing 5 feet away from me in the first pew. Now I know Jack pretty well. His mother, Deb, is my cook. She brings Jack (or, as his friends call him, “Jackie-boy”) to the rectory all the time. He plays in my kitchen quite often. If I have a free moment on a given afternoon, you might even find me playing a game with him, or drawing a picture with him at the kitchen table.

I see Jack several times a week. But I have never, ever seen him like this. When I first spotted him during stations, what struck me was the fact that he was standing perfectly still (that, in and of itself, is pretty unusual for a 4-year-old!). He was facing me, and he wasn’t moving a muscle. He was like a statue!

And he was staring at me such that when I began to look at him, our eyes immediately made contact. Now, under normal circumstances, Jackie-boy would have given me a really quick smile, and then would have turned away. But that’s not what happened on this particular occasion. Even after our eyes had made contact, he continued to stand there without moving, looking at me—looking into my eyes—with an expression that can only be described with one word: AWE!

He was staring at me with a look of AWE in his eyes.

Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Man, you must have loved it, Fr. Ray! That must have stoked the fire of your ego big time!”

No, it did not!

I was serious about what I said at the beginning of my homily: this was a very unsettling experience—one of the most unsettling that I’ve ever had!

Because, as that boy stared into my eyes with awe written all over his face, 3 thoughts went through my head almost simultaneously.

The first concerned the dignity and power of the priesthood. We know how the world has reacted with horror (and rightly so) to the stories of clerical misconduct that have become public, especially since 2002. But, as bad as this situation has been, the world’s reaction to it has been a sign of something positive. It’s been a sign of the fact that even world people—even materialistic, hedonistic unbelievers—implicitly recognize the dignity of the priestly office!

Let’s face it, this type of sinful, evil behavior happens in every segment of our culture; but it’s especially heinous when a priest is involved. That’s because a priest, by virtue of his ordination, is different from everyone else in one very important respect (and even worldly people implicitly recognize it). He is—in the words of Catholic author George Weigel—“a living icon of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ”.

In the theology of the Eastern Church, an icon is a sacred image through which people encounter the mystery that the image portrays.

By virtue of his ordination, a priest is an icon of Christ because, when he administers the sacraments, he acts “in persona Christ” (“in the person of Christ”). That is to say, Christ works directly through him to touch his people.

Consequently, it is Christ who, through the priest, consecrates bread and wine and changes them into his Body and Blood; it is Christ who absolves you through the priest in the sacrament of Confession; it is Christ who anoints you through the priest before major surgery—or on your deathbed—in the sacrament of Anointing.

That was my first thought: the dignity and power of the priesthood that I am blessed to share in through the sacrament of Holy Orders.

The second thought that came to me that Tuesday night followed directly from this one. I thought of what I am called to be as an ordained priest of Jesus Christ: HOLY!

I am called to love as Christ loved—selflessly;

I am called to serve as Christ served in today’s Gospel and throughout his earthly ministry—by “washing the feet” of others;

I’m called to follow the example of St. Paul and to “hand on to you” the full truth of the Gospel message without compromise, by the way I preach and teach, and by the way I live;

I’m called to be merciful and forgiving and pure of heart.

In a word, I’m called to be perfect as Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest, was perfect!

But I’m not.

And that was my third and final thought as I looked into young Jack’s eyes that night: I am called to be perfect—but I’m not.

And that’s why it was such an unsettling experience!

I do take some consolation in the fact that after several seconds of staring at me with a look of awe, little Jackie-boy finally turned his head a little, gave me that impish grin of his, and then went back to being his normal self.

That took the pressure off—at least for the moment.

But my real consolation comes from the fact that he prayed for me that night.

How do I know that?

Because his parents have told me that he prays for me every night. In fact, I have the privilege of being the very first person on his prayer list—every single evening. I even beat mom and dad!

I’m honored. Perhaps through his prayers—and through yours—I will move a little bit closer than I am right now to the priestly ideal of perfection.

And this, incidentally, is not only the best thing you can do for me; it’s also the best thing you can do for yourselves and for the universal Church.

That’s because, as our own St. Pius X said so many years ago, “A holy priest makes holy people.”

Do you want to be holy? Do you want to be saints? Then pray for me and for all priests. Every day. Like Jackie-boy.

What does Jesus mean when he says, ‘Whoever LOVES HIS LIFE loses it, and whoever HATES HIS LIFE IN THIS WORLD will preserve it for eternal life’?

(Fifth Sunday of Lent (B): This homily was given on April 2, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read John 12: 20-33.)

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

“Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

It’s a strange statement, isn’t it?

What exactly is Jesus getting at here?

I mean . . . It almost sounds as if he’s saying that this earthly life is bad!

But isn’t this earthly life a gift from God?

Aren’t we supposed to be grateful for it?

Aren’t we supposed to treasure it and be good stewards of it—taking care of our physical and emotional health and not abusing our bodies in any way?

The interesting thing is, Jesus would answer all those questions with a resounding Yes: yes, this life is a gift from God; yes, we should be grateful for it; yes, we should treasure it and be good stewards of it. But then he would add, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

And Jesus would know that in giving us this answer he would not be contradicting himself!

How can that be?

Well, perhaps I can clarify the matter somewhat by paraphrasing this troublesome text for you. (I trust the Lord won’t mind me doing this. If, perchance, a lightening bolt should strike me in two seconds, you’ll know I was wrong!)

Here’s the paraphrase: Jesus said, “The person who lives his earthly life as if it were his only life, will not experience eternal life in heaven; but the person who values his life in this world less than he values eternal life, will experience eternal life in heaven.”

Let me now compare this paraphrase with the text itself.

When Jesus says, “Whoever loves his life loses it,” he is not implying that we should detest the natural life that God has given us on this planet. Not at all! Rather, he’s warning us not to act as if this life is the only life there is! He’s reminding us that this life only has relative value.

Do you believe that? Do you REALLY believe that?

If you do, then I would say that you’re probably in the minority right now—at least here in the United States (and in most other places in the western world). From my observation, people who currently live in western, technological societies like ours tend to be extremely passionate about activities like making money, getting ahead in the workplace, buying lots of stuff, and having a good time. That’s where their focus is. God, morality, spirituality—if they’re in the mix at all—tend to get put on the back burner. And if you don’t believe me, just ask our religious education director, Chris Magowan. She’s heard every excuse in the book in the last couple of years as to why students can’t fulfill their basic CCD obligations. And we don’t ask that much of them! For many—even here in our own community—anything and everything comes before Jesus. That’s just the way it is.

“Whoever loves his life loses it.”

In the same way, I think we all know of men and women who are also extremely passionate about their physical health—who wouldn’t miss a workout at the gym, who get all kinds of plastic surgery, and who are incredibly strict about their diets—but who almost totally neglect their souls. If you ask them about reps, calories, or good plastic surgeons, they can go on for hours; if you ask them about the last time they went to Mass or Confession, or the last time they read Scripture or prayed seriously, they scratch their heads. You might as well be talking a foreign language.

“Whoever loves his life loses it.”

Within reason, of course, it’s good to be concerned about our earthly needs and our physical well-being. It’s good to eat properly, and exercise regularly, and get a yearly physical. To use a biblical image, it’s good to take care of our “temples”—our temples of the Holy Spirit.

But when we start to act as if this life is the only one, chances are we will make too much of the physical, and miss out on our ultimate spiritual goal, which is heaven.

The new Catechism says it well. In paragraph 2288 it says that “life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.”

But then, in the very next paragraph, it reminds us that the “life of the body” is not an “absolute value”. If we do make it an absolute value, then we end up embracing what the Catechism calls “the cult of the body,” where we idolize physical perfection and become willing to sacrifice everything for its sake.

So you want to know why we have a steroid problem in the sports world right now? You want to know why so many women—and men—experience eating disorders these days?

It’s because we live in a society where the “cult of the body” is literally everywhere!

Jesus said, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

From everything I’ve just shared with you, the meaning of the word “hate” in this passage should be now clear: it doesn’t mean “to detest”; rather, it means to “value to a lesser extent”. As I expressed it in my paraphrase a few moments ago: “the person who values his life in this world less than he values eternal life, will experience eternal life in heaven.”

This means that nothing else—absolutely nothing else—should be more important to us than getting into God’s eternal kingdom after we die! Saving our own soul, in other words, should be our top priority while we’re living on this earth!

Does that sound a little selfish to you? Perhaps it does, but it shouldn’t! In fact, it’s not selfish in the least! Because if my greatest concern is to get to heaven, then I will make every effort to live a life of charity—and mercy—and compassion: the kind of life that will keep me united to Christ; the kind of life that will get me through the Pearly Gates someday! And you—and everyone else—will benefit greatly from my kindness and generosity!

This, of course, is the meaning of life as the old Baltimore Catechism defined it, in answer to the question, “Why did God make me?”—“He made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this life, and to be happy with him forever in the next.”

I asked a teenager a few weeks ago to tell me what the meaning of life is, and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know.” He’s not alone. Many adults nowadays would do the same thing.

And that’s a very big part of the problem! Let’s face it, if you don’t know—and believe—that the goal of this earthly existence is heaven, you’ll probably value your earthly life too much. That is to say, you’ll value it much more than you value eternal life.

And we all know what Jesus said about that!

One more point needs to be made concerning this line of Scripture, and I’ll conclude with this thought: Jesus said these important and challenging words less than 7 days before his crucifixion and death. This means that he first spoke them, and then he went out and lived them! And this is verified for us in the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 12, where we are told “For the sake of the glory that lay before him [in other words, because of the goal he wanted to attain, namely heaven], Jesus endured the cross, heedless of its shame.” (Hebrews 12: 2)

We’ve been redeemed by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, because our Lord valued heaven more than his mortal life here on earth.

But we will only be saved and end up in heaven ourselves, if we follow Jesus’ example, and put our values in that same order.

Commandments, Consequences—And Confession

(Third Sunday of Lent (B): This homily was given on March 19, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Exodus 20: 1-17.)

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

One day a man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman as he drove down a busy city street. Suddenly, the traffic light just ahead of him turned yellow. Realizing that it would be red by the time he actually got into the intersection, he stopped. He made the right decision. (I can’t say I always have in similar circumstances!—but he did.)

Well the tailgating woman, who was obviously in a big hurry, wasn’t very happy. She began honking her horn, screaming obscenities, and making obscene gestures (you can use your imagination to fill in the details there!).

All of a sudden, she heard a tap on her car window. It was a policeman. He told her to get out of the car and to put her hands up.

Then he took her to the local police station, where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and put into a holding cell.

Two hours later, the policeman came to get her. He took her to the booking desk and gave her back her personal effects. Then he said, “I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, Mrs. Jones. But let me explain what happened. I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, cursing and swearing uncontrollably, and making some not-so-nice gestures with your hands toward the man in the car in front of you. At the same time, I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder on your vehicle, as well as the ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ bumper sticker, and the Christian fish emblem on the trunk.

“Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car!”

That’s an old story, but it illustrates a timeless truth. It shows that there is a close connection between COMMANDMENTS and CONSEQUENCES—a connection that many people today fail to recognize.

Mrs. Jones violated the 2^nd and the 5^th commandments (since anger is at the root of killing), and she suffered several negative consequences in her experience with the local policeman.

In today’s first reading, Moses delivers to the people of Israel the Ten Commandments that he had received from God on Mt. Sinai. Now it’s very important for us to understand what these ten directives are: they are the moral laws that God has built into the very framework of reality. In that sense, they’re a lot like the physical laws of the universe: if you honor them, many good consequences will follow; if, on the other hand, you disobey them, you court disaster.

For example, if you decide to walk to the edge of a 1,000 foot cliff, and then take one giant step off the edge, you will not be able at that moment to determine the consequences of what you’ve done! Reality will dictate the consequences to you. You made the choice to do something foolish—you made the decision to violate one of the laws of nature—and now that law (the law of gravity) will take over and you will fall. It’s a simple as that.

You can’t drive your car into a brick wall going 70 miles an hour and then expect your car to be in showroom shape afterward. It will be broken into a million pieces! (And so, in all likelihood, will you!)

You can’t drink lethal poison and expect to be in perfect physical health an hour later. (You’ll be lucky to still be alive!)

If you violate the laws of the material universe, you can be sure that there will be negative consequences you’ll be forced to deal with.

So why do some people expect things to be entirely different in the moral and spiritual dimensions of reality? Why do they think they can violate God’s moral laws with impunity? Why do they think they can disobey his commandments without suffering any negative consequences in the process?

It’s impossible.

This, incidentally, is a not a complicated idea. It’s a basic concept that even a small child can understand if he wants to (or if he’s forced to!). Here’s a little story that illustrates the point. Several years ago a woman from the parish went to visit her great nephew, who was then about 5 years-old. The little boy spotted his aunt coming up the front walk toward the house. He stuck his head out a window on the second floor and yelled to her, “I can’t come out of my room today. I’ve got consequences.”

He understood—at 5 years-old! He had done something wrong, and his parents were teaching him a very valuable lesson.

It’s the same lesson, incidentally, that C.S. Lewis taught the world in “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” As most of us know, in that story Edmund betrayed his 3 siblings, and violated the “Deep Magic”. And what exactly was the Deep Magic? Very simply, it was the moral law that Aslan and his Father (the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea) had built into the magical world of Narnia. Edmund violated one of the principles of that law, and the White Witch was well aware of the necessary consequence of that act: Edmund had to die! So she demanded his blood. And even Aslan had to agree that she was right in her demand. As St. Paul said in Romans 6: 23, “The wages of sin is death.”

What really disturbs and worries me (and this is why I bring it up this morning) is the fact that so many people nowadays don’t seem to take this truth very seriously.

They scoff at the idea that there’s any intrinsic connection whatever between commandments and consequences.

Perhaps, in some places, that’s because those who have this attitude don’t know the Ten Commandments. They couldn’t distinguish commandment 1 from commandment 8 or 9. But I know that can’t be the case here! We have a brand new Ten Commandments monument sitting right out there on our front lawn! Most of you walk by it every time you come into church.

So obviously all of you know them by heart.

Right?

But the question still remains, even if we know what they are: Do we really think that we can violate them without suffering any negative consequences in the process?

Do we really think that we can put other things before God, use his name as a curse word, miss Mass without good reason, disrespect our parents and others in authority, murder someone’s reputation, support evils like abortion and euthanasia, commit sins of impurity (like the kind that have been committed recently at the high school before the school day begins—“Ah yes, Father has heard about these things!”); do we really think that we can take what doesn’t belong to us, and covet and lie, and not have it affect us (and those around us) in a negative way?

Are we living in a dreamworld?

If we haven’t done so already, it is time for us to wake up to reality!

Commandments and consequences—those two “c-words” and what they represent—cannot be separated.

Which brings us to another important “c-word”: confession!

In fact, to end my homily today I’ll put the 3 of them in one sentence (and if you forget everything else I’ve said this morning, make sure you remember this one line):

Confession helps to undo the consequences of violating the commandments.

Confession undoes the consequences (especially the ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES) of disobeying the commandments.

And that’s why we should go—frequently.

Do you?

Hold On—But Not Too Tightly!

The Sacrifice of Isaac

(Second Sunday of Lent (B): This homily was given on March 12, 2006 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Genesis 22: 1-18; Mark 9: 2-10.)

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

Hold on—but not too tightly.

This is one of the keys to doing God’s will on this earth. It’s also one of the keys in helping others to do the will of God in their lives.

“Holding on,” in the sense that I’m using the expression in this homily, is something all of us do every day, whether we are conscious of it or not. Specifically, we hold on to other people. That is to say, we rely on them; we develop bonds of friendship and affection with them. We do that because we’re social beings. As John Donne once said, “No man is an island.” We grow up in families; we attend schools; we live in neighborhoods and communities. This is how God created us. In fact, it’s one of the reasons why his Son established a Church (a community of believers). As we’re told in the very first paragraph of the new Catechism: “[God] calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church.”

But there’s a danger that comes with “holding on” to other people in this life, and we need to be aware of it. The danger is that we will hold on to them too tightly. This happens whenever we try to control or manipulate someone for our own selfish ends—by putting them, for example, on a “guilt trip.”

Have you ever heard something like this on your voice mail or answering machine?—“Hello, Johnny, this is your mother calling. You remember me, don’t you? I’m the lady who brought you into this world (after 3 horrible days of labor, as I recall!). I’m also the one who made all those sacrifices for you for 25 years. I hope you come to see me soon. I’m so lonely, you know. I just sit around here all day and stare at these four ugly walls. And then I cry. But don’t worry about me—I know you’ve got your own life to live. Goodbye. Have a nice day.”

Have you ever heard anything like that before? That’s a perfect illustration of what it means to hold on too tightly.

Now if we’re being honest, we will admit that this is a state of mind that can affect any one of us—at least from time to time. But I would say that parents are especially vulnerable to it, simply because of their great love for their children. The thought occurred to me in preparation for this homily: There are probably priests in the world today who never should have become priests!

So why were they ordained?

Simply because in one way or another they were pressured into it by one or both of their parents! Of course, there are also men out there who were called to the priesthood by God and who should have become priests, but never did— also because of parental pressure. (The latter, I think, is far more common these days.)

By the same token, there are men and women who married the wrong person because of interference from mom and dad or some other member of the family; and there are others whose marriages have broken up because of family meddling.

Whenever we try to control or manipulate another human being—even if we do it in the name of love!—we’re holding on to them too tightly. Much too tightly.

This is also a tendency we have to battle when someone close to us passes away. As many of us know by experience, “letting go” of loved ones who have died is sometimes extremely difficult. Those of you who were blessed to have your parents for 70 or 80 years; those of you who lost your spouse after 40 or 50 years of marriage—you know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? It was a struggle (and perhaps still is a struggle) to let go of them on an emotional level.

I knew a woman many years ago who was deeply in love with her husband. They had been married over 40 years, and they were constantly together. He suffered a massive heart attack one day at work, and died shortly thereafter. She was a woman who was in church every Sunday and sometimes even during the week, but in her grief she actually tried to take her own life a few months after her husband passed away. Without a doubt, she was holding on to him much too tightly. She needed to let go of him emotionally—even though it was extremely painful and difficult.

I mention this today because it’s exactly what Abraham had to do with respect to his son, Isaac; it’s also what Peter, James and John had to do with respect to Jesus.

In asking Abraham to sacrifice his son on Mount Moriah, God was challenging him to “let go”. In effect, the Lord was saying to him, “I know how much you love this boy. He’s the child you waited 100 years to have; he’s the child through which my promises to you will be fulfilled. And I have a marvelous plan for his life. Will you, Abraham, allow me to fulfill that plan, or will you stand in the way? Your job as a parent is to love and care for your son: to instruct him in the truth; to affirm him in the good he does; and to discipline him when necessary. But you are not the Lord of his life, I am! So do not cling to him too tightly! Let go of him now, so that he will be free to do what I want him to do, and fulfill my perfect plan for his life.”

Something similar happens in the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus, which we heard a few moments ago in that Gospel text from Mark 9. Remember, when this event occurred historically, Peter, James and John had been living with Jesus for 3 years. In the process, they had come to rely on his physical presence with them. And that’s completely understandable! Whenever they wanted help, guidance, or direction, all they had to do was walk up to our Lord and ask him for it. And they did. We all would have done the same thing if we had been in their shoes.

Well, within a few short weeks all that would change: Jesus would be crucified, and he would never again be with them in exactly the same way. Yes, he would always be with them spiritually and sacramentally—but that’s different than the way he was with them during the 3 years he was walking around Palestine! To prepare them for this radical change, Jesus allowed Peter, James and John to see him transfigured on Mount Tabor. His message to them was, “Remember what you’re seeing here, my friends. You have been holding on to me tightly for 3 years by relying on my physical presence with you. But within a few weeks I will be crucified, and you will be forced to let go. And yet, I will still be with you. In fact, I’ll be with you always until the end of the world. See me transfigured; see my divinity! So you will still be able to hold on to me—but you’ll have to learn to do it in a very different way.”

Eventually, thank God, they learned the lesson.

So did Abraham, with respect to Isaac. He held on to his son in love (as any good father would)—but not too tightly.

Let’s pray that in our relationships with other human beings on this earth—especially our relatives and close friends—we will do the same.