Homily for the Commemoration of All Souls

Recently, a book club I belong to has been reading some of the collected works of Flannery O’Connor, the great Catholic author of the American South who died of Lupus in 1964.

Reading one of her essays, I discovered a little fact about American Catholic history, and about another great American author, that I had never known before . . . and you all know how much I love American Catholic history.

It seems that Nathaniel Hawthorne, the American novelist and short story writer who penned The Scarlet Letter, had a daughter named Rose, who converted to Catholicism in the 1890’s, founded a religious community of Dominican sisters and is now being proposed for sainthood.

I’d like to spend a few minutes telling you a bit more about the connection that binds these fascinating figures – and I promise that in the end, it has great relevance for the feast we’re celebrating today.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was not a member of any Christian church. Though religious thinking and imagery played a major role in his fiction; especially the battle in the human heart between good and evil; he seems to have struggled to find faith in his own life.


Still, the seeds of Christian life were clearly planted somewhere deep within him. Hawthorne served for a time as the American consul in Liverpool, England. And in that capacity, he once visited a orphanage where, as he describes in his journal: “this sickly little fright prowled around me, taking hold of my clothes, following at my heels, and at last holding up its hands, smiling at me, insisting that I pick him up. I had never seen a child I should feel less inclined to fondle . . . but I should never have forgiven myself if I had repelled its advances.”

Hawthorne’s daughter Rose once said that she thought these were the most beautiful words her father had ever written. Years later, she found the faith that he had sought: she converted to Catholicism in 1891, and “in the fall of 1896, after taking a three-month course in nursing at New York's Cancer Hospital, Rose Hawthorne moved into a three-room cold-water flat on the impoverished Lower East Side of Manhattan and began to nurse the poor with incurable cancer.”

Rose Hawthorne’s work on behalf of poor and disfigured cancer patients grew and grew as more young women came to join her mission. In time, the religious community she founded opened seven homes for poor patients with incurable cancer.

One of those homes is in Atlanta, near where Flannery O’Connor lived and wrote during her short life. That’s how she came to know and record this final piece of the story:


O’Connor wrote about a little girl, named Mary Ann who was left as an orphan with Rose Hawthorne’s sisters. As an infant Mary Ann was found to have a large cancerous tumor in her face and she was given six months to live. Mary Ann “lived for twelve years, long enough for the Sisters to teach her what alone could have been of importance to her.” Hers was an education in life prepared for death.

In telling this story Flannery O’Connor wrote: “there is a direct line between Nathaniel Hawthorne’s action in the Liverpool orphanage, the work of his daughter Rose Hawthorne, and Mary Ann. The work of Rose Hawthorne and her sisters is the tree that sprung up from Nathaniel’s small act of Christlikeness, and Mary Ann is the tree’s flower.”


Friends, “this action by which charity grows invisibly among us, entwining the lives of the living and the dead, this is called by the Church, the Communion of Saints. It is a communion created by the God who knit us in our mother’s womb, and destined us to share in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. It is a web, fragilely formed by our human imperfections but made stronger-than-death by the perfection of Christ.

This is the deepest meaning of what we celebrate today on this Commemoration of All Souls. As we pray for all of our beloved dead, our family and friends, and distant ancestors who have “gone before us marked with the sign of faith,” we remind ourselves that death cannot and does not destroy the ties that bind us all together: the Church is the community of all the living and the dead: the Saints in Heaven, the faithful departed in Purgatory, and you and me still striving here on earth.

We similarly recall that the seeds of faith and the works of charity that our dead love one’s planted in this world, and in us, continue to grow steadily, if sometimes invisibly. And the full flower of these seeds is the new life we will be awakened to when we, like our ancestors and loved ones, come to the hour of our own death.

Like the young Mary Ann, who received from the gentle care of the sisters an education in life prepared for death, we remember that all of us will one day die. As our celebration of All Saints reminds us of what we are all called to be; our commemoration of “the Day of the Dead” reminds us of what we all one day will be, for sure.

And so as we pray to God not only that our deceased loved ones will be welcomed into the pure joy of His heavenly banquet, but that we who live “we will grow in union with Christ’s death, so that we will also be united with Him in the resurrection” from the dead.

Homily for the Solemnity of All Saints

In his award-winning novel, The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene tells the story of a ‘whiskey priest’ during the 1930’s Mexican Revolution, a war that attempted to completely destroy the Church in Mexico.

This all-to-human priest is an alcoholic and has fathered a child, but he refuses to abandon his people and he moves from village to village, secretly providing the Sacraments to the faithful while the authorities hunt him down.

Eventually, he is betrayed and captured. In his prison cell on the morning of his execution, he examines his life and death . . . Greene narrates the scene in these words:

“He felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all. It seemed to him, at that moment, that it could have been quite easy to have been a saint. It would only have needed a little self-restraint and a little courage. He felt like someone who has missed happiness by seconds at an appointed place. He knew now at the end there was only one thing that counted – to be a saint.”

Throughout the liturgical year, the Church celebrates the lives and deaths of our fellow Christians who so perfectly imitated Christ in this life that they now reign with Him in the everlasting life of Heaven. And every year the Church sets aside this Feast of All Saints to celebrate the collective witness, not only of the saints whose names and stories we know, but those many others whose names and stories are known to God alone.


In proposing these great men and women to us for emulation and intercession, the Church is attempting to bring us to the same realization that Graham Green’s ‘whiskey priest’ came to at the end of his life: at the end, there is only one thing that counts: to be a saint.

In this sense, the Feast of All Saints is our feast day as well. It is the day when we remember and celebrate what we are created and called to be: “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are.”

By the way they lived their lives, by the things they said and wrote, by the acts of charity they performed the saints show us what a life looks like when it has been completely re-shaped by knowledge of the fact that we are indeed children of God. In practical terms, the saints show us how to live the Beatitudes, which Pope Benedict has called Jesus’ self-portrait. They show us how to be meek and humble and merciful, how to hunger and thirst for righteousness, how to be clean of heart and make peace. The saints show us how to be more like Jesus.

Celebrating and emulating the lives of the saints reminds us that in the end, all that really counts is to be a saint . . . and to be a saint does not require great accomplishments or achievements, it requires just a little self-restraint, a little courage, small but daily decisions to think and act with the heart and mind of Jesus.

Without giving too much of the novel away, let me just say that be the end of the story Greene gives us reason to believe that perhaps the whiskey-priest didn't go to God empty handed after all.  Maybe, just maybe, despite all his brokenness and sinfulness he had indeed cared enough about the one thing that really matters.

May Our Lady, Queen of All Saints, St. Joseph, the Apostles, the Martyrs and the entire “cloud of witnesses” intercede for us and inspire us to live and die like they did, so that we may also reign with them in Heaven.

Veterans Day

Yes, of course I realize that today isn't actually Veterans Day, but it will be here before long and I am of a mind to celebrate it a little early this year.

Today I participated in an all day conference at the Oregon National Guard headquarters sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The conference was for members of the clergy from various churches and faiths and it aimed to train us in how to assist returning veterans and their families.

We don't have many active military personnel among our parishioners at Holy Redeemer, but given the presence of ROTC at Notre Dame and UP I certainly have many peers and friends who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. And given the expanse of these conflicts, it's safe to say that today's training will prove helpful to me for years to come.

The presentations today were very informative about traumatic brain injuries, post traumatic stress disorder, and many other issues surrounding a veteran's return to his or her family and career. But beyond being informative, the presentations were quite moving as well.  We had the chance to hear from veterans themselves and to see video clips that gave us some small taste of the kinds of experiences they endured during their service.

So today was a good opportunity to be reminded of the cost of freedom and of the debt of gratitude we owe to all of our nation's veterans.

Chrysanthemum Festival

This summer I was grateful to receive, as a gift from Brenda Greiner, a membership to the Portland Japanese Garden.  I think it's one of the prettiest "natural" areas in the city, and when it's not too crowded with tourists, it's a wonderful spot to sit and enjoy some peace and quiet.

This month the Gardens are celebrating their annual Kiku Matsuri, or Chrysanthemum Festival. Chrysanthemums are the official flower of Japan and have been grown in Japan since the 8th century. The crest of the emperor features a 16-petaled chrysanthemum, the seals of prominent families feature chrysanthemums, and the highest Order of Chivalry in Japan is called the Order of the Chrysanthemum.

Throughout the garden there were beautiful bright yellow potted chrysanthemums:

Not only were the flowers quite lovely, the garden's foliage was also near peak color. The Japanese maples were a perfect orange:

The weather over the past few days has just been amazing. So, after running a whole slew of errands on Monday morning, I spent the afternoon relaxing in the Japanese Gardens.

Later in the evening, I concelebrated the annual Red Mass for members of the legal profession at the University of Portland. Mass was followed by a lecture, cocktail reception and dinner. It was a very enjoyable event.

Welcome to Video-Dome

A few weeks ago I saw this sign painted on a bus-stop bench:

I wasn't sure what it was for, and I knew I needed to investigate, but I kept forgetting to look into it online.  When I finally tracked down that this was advertising a music and light show at the OMSI (Oregon Museum Science and Industry) Planetarium I was afraid I had missed it. Thankfully the show was still running, and I was able to attend a performance this afternoon. 

In high-school I saw a similar showing of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at the Hayden Planetarium in NYC.  As with video games, it seems the technology has come a long way. Back then I think they used lasers and were therefore only able to create outlines of figures, like line drawings.  

Today's show made use of other technology, so the projected images were much more detailed - like any other computer generated images in movies. The only disappointment with the U2 version was that, unlike the Pink Floyd show, the projected images didn't relate to the song's lyrics at all. The dolphin with eagle's wings really took the cake.  But still, it was a fun diversion for a Sunday afternoon and worth the $5 admission.

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in OT (A)

Having survived one trap last week Jesus faces another in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees put forth a scribe, an expert in the Law to trap Jesus with a question: “Which commandment in the Law is the greatest?”

This is a question that rabbis and scribes of the day were regularly debating, and there was no easy answer. The Law contained a total of 613 commandments: 365 prohibitions (one for each day of the year); and 268 prescriptions (one for each bone in the body).

Almost whatever commandment Jesus selected for priority, there could easily have been an opening for debate – and worse He could have been accused of trying to annul some part of the Law by overlooking it.

But Jesus characteristically silences His enemies. He does not single out a particular Law as the most important, rather He goes to the very heart and soul of Israelite faith and gives the principle that is the foundation for the entire religious tradition of the Law and the Prophets.

His answer contains two parts. First, He quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, which is the Shema, the most important prayer in all of Judaism – the prayer that every faithful Jew says daily, and which is literally wrapped around their arms and forehead at prayer: “Hear O Israel the Lord your God is God alone. You shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”


Jesus then goes above and beyond. He gives his accusers a second commandment that flows from the first. This time he quotes Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Let’s take a closer look at these two commandments that Jesus tells us are the foundation of the entire Law.

The first thing for us to note is that the two laws are interrelated but not identical.

The first commandment is to love God with our whole heart, soul and mind. But it is sometimes hard to say whether we love God or not: unlike other people, whom we can see and touch, God is not tangible in quite the same way. We can be tempted, therefore, to rush past this first commandment and focus entirely on the second.

It’s certainly true that we can love God by loving others – and so it’s no surprise that Jesus immediately adds the second commandment which He says “is like the first.” In fact, later in Christian Scripture St. John (1 John 4:20) goes so far as to say: “those who say ‘I love God’ and hate their neighbor are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

But still, these two commandments are not merely conflated into one for a very good reason. “Loving God is far more than a matter of joining a voluntary organization dedicated to good causes” (George Weigel). There are many people who strive to love their neighbor who claim that there is no God at all!

God must be the most important person in our life, and our love of God must affect every single aspect of our lives. Loving God with our “whole heart, soul and mind” means that we must give over our entire selves to Him – our faith must be “a complete engagement of our entire person, and not just a superficial allegiance” (Sr. Diane Bergant).

This life-altering love of God begins when we strive to develop a personal relationship with God through prayer and the Sacraments. Though God is not tangible to us in the same way the person sitting next to us is, He is not entirely a mystery either. God has revealed Himself in a human face: Jesus His Son, who continues to live in the life of the Church and Her Sacraments.

For the Christian, to know and to love God is to encounter Him in His Church. It is to experience deeply the creating and sustaining love that God has for us, and in return to give God the praise and worship He is due.

Do we cultivate our love of God by practicing daily prayer and by frequently receiving the Sacraments? Do we allow God to be the center of our entire lives, or just of one hour on a Sunday morning? Do we honor God’s Holy Name, or do we use it in vain? Do we speak to others about God or do we let opportunities to evangelize pass us by in silence?

The second commandment Jesus gives his accusers flows directly from this experience of God’s love. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves because we have been loved by God first, and to be like Him, and to love Him in return, is to love what He loves.

Our first reading from the Book of Exodus echoes this second greatest commandment. Moses is instructing the people about how their covenant with God must impact their lives. They themselves have experienced God’s loving mercy: when they were in slavery in Egypt God heard their cry, brought them out of bondage, fed them in the desert and made them a people all His own.

Now, in return, their thoughts and actions must reflect to others what God has done for them: they must care for the alien, the widow and the orphan. In other words, just as they were defenseless slaves in a foreign land, they must now care for the most vulnerable, defenseless and disadvantaged in their society. Moses makes clear that God is listening to those in need, and the punishment for ignoring their cries will be severe.

What about us? Do we hear the cries of the alien, the widow and the orphan? How does our society care for the most vulnerable among us? Do you and I adequately hear and answer the cries of the immigrant, the refugee, the sex worker, the AIDS baby, the single mother, the unborn child, the physically and mentally handicapped, the victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence?

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it this way: “Do we know our neighbor, the poor of our own area? It is so easy for us to talk and talk about the poor of other places. Very often we have the suffering, the lonely, the unwanted, and they are near us and we don’t even know them. We have no time even to smile at them.”

Friends, we have our Lord’s assurance that He hears the cries of these lowly ones and when we ignore their needs we are really ignoring His. It’s essential that we remember this always and constantly strive to improve our care of the neediest among us.

Still, we have reason to rejoice in the good work God is already bringing about through us. The life of charity that the Church has always strived to live is rightfully a source of pride and hope for us.

In our second reading from the Letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul is overjoyed that the Thessalonians are living the Gospel so well that they have become models for all believers. They had seen the manner of St. Paul’s living when he was among them and now that they are imitating him, their discipleship is having the same effect on others: their good reputation has spread throughout Macedonia and more and more people are receiving faith and following the Gospel because of them.

Brothers and sisters, when we follow the example of all the saints and love God, and our neighbor as ourselves, then the word of the Lord sounds forth from us as well. Our children, our neighbors, our coworkers, indeed everyone we meet and everyone who hears of us, is invited to have the same faith, hope, and love that marks our lives.

As we receive the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love, may we be filled with a sense of urgency to spread the love we have received to our brothers and sisters, thereby ensuring that the “Eucharist becomes in our lives, what it signifies here in our celebration” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 89).

Sporting Priests

ESPN currently has a web-page article about Chase Hilgenbrinck, a professional soccer player who left the pitch for the priesthood.

Chase is studying for the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois which is the diocese shepherded by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C. who ordained me to the priesthood.

This is a nicely done article and video explaining a little bit about how Chase made his decision.

It also tells a bit about a seminary soccer tournament that is played each year amongst the East Coast seminaries. I never knew there was such a thing!

I was, however, very aware of the Midwestern seminaries competing in the annual basketball tournament in Chicago. . .

Here's the 2004 Mundelein Seminary Shootout Champion team from Moreau Seminary!

(That's Josh and Oscar Noem in the top left, right next to me. Fr. Nate Wills, CSC is to my left, and then down the line a bit are my classmates Frs. Jim Gallagher, CSC and Pete McCormick, CSC.)

Busy Week

On Sunday, after celebrating Mass here at Holy Redeemer, I also presided at Lewis and Clark College (pictured below) where Sr. Loretta is the Catholic chaplain. This is the second time I've had the chance to celebrate Mass for them, and though they are a small group they seem to have a great spirit. I was glad to be with them.

Monday was my usual day off. I visited the Holy Names Sisters at Mary's Woods and gratefully accepted their gift of a Paschal candle stand and a sanctuary lamp for our renovated church. The sisters also gave us the tabernacle we are currently using. I'll post pictures once I have the items refinished and they're in place.

Later in the afternoon I played nine holes of golf with Mr. Grant and Sr. Maureen from our school staff. It had been a crazy day of weather but we lucked out the entire time we were on the course. And it was my first time to play the Colwood course near PDX Airport.

Tuesday I spent most of the day at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center where I attended a workshop on marriage preparation put on by the Marriage Tribunal. Since my canon law class was pretty weak I was glad to have this continuing education.

Then yesterday evening I attended a lecture at St. Mary's Cathedral Parish (pictured above) on Annie Dillard's "Holy the Firm." The lecture and discussion was led by Fr. Charlie Gordon, CSC, whose class on Catholic literature I took at UP last spring and who moderates the GK Chesterton reading group I participate in. I enjoyed the book and the discussion very much.

Of course, those are just the "special" things going on - there's always the usual presiding, homily preparation, RCIA classes and the like. But all is well, thanks be to God!

Homily for the Twenty-Ninth Sunday in OT (A)

In today’s Gospel the Pharisees once again attempt to trap Jesus. This time the Pharisees, who did not approve of the Roman rule of Israel, asked Jesus if it was lawful for a faithful Jew to pay taxes to the Empire. The point of their question, and therefore of today’s Gospel, is whether or not it is possible to be faithful both to God and to a secular state.

This is precisely the question that has marked the experience of Catholics in America from the beginning of our nation until this very day.

Though the Catholic presence in this land pre-dates the establishment of the United States, for much of the past 232 years our fellow citizens, especially those from Protestant backgrounds, have questioned if Catholics could truly be loyal Americans. Our commitment to democracy was questioned and our loyalty to the Pope in Rome was held suspect.


The sons of Catholic American immigrants answered this question with their self-sacrifice on the battlefields of the Second World War, but little over a decade later, when a Catholic senator from Massachusetts ran for president, the old prejudices remained.

Sadly, John F. Kennedy’s answers to his challengers opened a Pandora’s box for Americans of faith. In defending his religion, and a Catholic’s ability to be president, Kennedy argued that faith was an entirely private matter and he “disavowed the influence of his Catholic faith on his political choices” (Colleen Carroll Campbell)

While this reasoning appealed to many, and Kennedy did of course become the first (and thus far the only) Catholic President, serious Catholic and Protestant thinkers alike were troubled by Kennedy’s argument that “one’s religion and decision-making can somehow be kept in two watertight compartments” (Episcopal Bishop James Pike).

Unfortunately, this is precisely the way that a majority of Americans, including American Catholics, currently understand the separation of Church and state. Many today would like to trap us, as the Pharisees attempted to trap Jesus, by making us believe that one cannot be faithful to God and a secular state at the same time; they would have us believe that faith has no place in the public discourse of a pluralistic society.

Following the lead, sadly, of another Catholic politician, Governor Mario Cuomo, they would have us believe instead, that bringing our faith to bear on our citizenship is an attempt to “force our faith” on other citizens.

But the obligation of democracy is that all citizens bring their opinions to bear on public discourse, and it is simply a fact that no one comes to the public square without an agenda, a worldview and a set of values. “Our nation’s tradition of pluralism is enhanced, not threatened, when religious groups and people of faith bring their convictions and concerns to public life” (Faithful Citizenship, 3).

So, when Catholics work in the public square for the rights of workers, for a just wage, and for the stewardship of the environment, we are not forcing our faith on anyone, we are advancing a more equitable economy and acknowledging the dignity of human labor and of God’s creation.

When Catholics work in the public square for the rights of immigrants and refugees, we are not forcing our faith on anyone, we are helping others experience the blessings of freedom our own forebears came to this country to find.

When Catholics work in the public square to fight terrorism and support principles of just war, we are not forcing our faith on anyone, we are working for the day when all people might live in true freedom and lasting peace may reign.

When Catholics work in the public square for adequate health care and accessible education, we are not forcing our faith on anyone, we are recognizing the dignity of the human person and insisting on equal opportunities for all people.

And when Catholics work in the public square to defend chastity and the institution of marriage, we are not forcing our faith on anyone, we are defending the dignity and stability of the family, the nucleus of all healthy societies.

It is also true that there is one issue that stands out even among this most important list, because it is the issue upon which all these others must be based (Christifideles Laici, 38).

When Catholics work in the public square to end the killing of unborn children through abortion, we are not forcing our faith upon anyone, we are defending the right to life, the right upon which all other civil rights are based, and without which no other rights can matter.


Even many Catholics find this particular teaching to be difficult. While holding that abortion is regrettable, they argue for a “moral equivalence that makes no ethical distinction between different kinds of issues involving the dignity of human life” (Faithful Citizenship, 28).

It’s true that Catholics face many life issues of grave concern: “immigration reform, healthcare, the economy and its solvency, care and concern for the poor, and the war on terror” are all important life issues that demand our attention and action. However, “there are many possible solutions to these issues and there can be reasonable debate, even among Catholics, about how to best approach and solve them.” But let us be clear: these are “issues of prudential judgment and are therefore not morally equivalent to issues involving intrinsic evils” (Bishops Farrell and Vann – 2008).

“No matter how right a given candidate is on any number of other issues, it does not” and cannot “outweigh their unacceptable position in favor of an intrinsic evil.” (Bishops Farrell and Vann – 2008).

That’s why in 1962 Archbishop Joseph Rummel of New Orleans was forced to excommunicate three lay Catholics, including a politician, for publicly organizing opposition to his desegregation of the Catholic schools in his archdiocese. Racism is an intrinsic evil, and it was the central civil rights issue of that era.

Since 1973, "the right to life is the fundamental civil rights issue of our time" (Archbishop Edwin O'Brien). “The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life at any moment from conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed” (Faithful Citizenship, 28).

And this is not just a tenet of faith; it is the high founding principle of our nation! We are a nation built upon the belief that “all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (The Declaration of Independence).

Can a faithful Catholic be a faithful American citizen? A Catholic is never a more faithful American than when they are first true to the faith of the Church!

We can be made to feel otherwise. We can be trapped into believing our faith has no rightful place in the public square. We can feel “disenfranchised, sensing that no party and too few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment” to the dignity of human life.

In turn, we can argue with, or simply ignore the Bishops for articulating these hard truths of the Faith. We can even despair, and fall into the trap of the Pharisees, by thinking that the only way to be faithful to God is to abstain from all involvement in the political realm.

Or on the other hand, we could make a different choice, and “work for a different kind of political engagement:” Rather than being shaped by our attachment to political parties we could be shaped by sound moral convictions. We could work to transform the political parties and the very political system of this country and no longer tolerate being forced to choose amongst candidates and platforms that fail to protect human life and advance the common good.

Brothers and sisters, “this is not a time for retreat or discouragement; rather, it is a time for renewed engagement (Faithful Citizenship, 14). This Mission Sunday can convince us of the truth of our faith, and of the ideals of the American experiment – and it can also strengthen us in our work to spread that truth and to defend those ideals.

Fruit Loop

Fall is here in Oregon, and that means that Hood River apples and pears are in season! On Columbus Day the Noems and I took a trip to the Hood River Fruit Loop and did some apple picking at the Mountain View Orchards.

Along with the apple picking, Simon and Lucy had the chance to feed a few of the animals . . . 

. . . and watch the local workers make home-made apple cider:

Back home in Portland, the Noems hosted Kristina and me for dinner, and dessert featured two delicious apple pies that Josh had baked with the apples we picked.

We also made were sure to buy plenty of extra baking apples for an evening of pork-and-apple pie with Ken Hallanius and crew! More on that later.

Announcing: "Captive Audience" by Dave Reidy

I am most excited to announce that Dave Reidy's forthcoming collection of short fiction is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.

Dave is a dear friend from Notre Dame days who pursued an MFA in creative writing at the University of Florida. He now lives and works back home in Chicago, but he has continued to write on the side.

Obviously I haven't yet read the stories, so I can't exactly do a book review, but knowing Dave, having read some of his previous work, and reading the reviews he has gotten so far, I am quite confident that this will be money and time well-spent.

Head on over to Amazon and show him some love.

Ave Maria

A tip of the biretta to The Anchoress for posting this video of a men's schola from Goshen College singing my single favorite piece of classical music: Franz Biebl's Ave Marie. Beautiful!

PDX Priests' Convocation

After returning from South Bend last Sunday afternoon, I re-packed my bags and on Monday drove south to Newport, Oregon for the annual clergy convocation for the Archdiocese of Portland. 

This was my second clergy convocation and I must say they have both been really wonderful experiences of priestly fraternity. This Archdiocese is particularly blessed to have a superb archbishop in John Vlazny, and it also has a great group of young priests who, I'm very grateful to say, have always been most welcoming to me. So spending time together as a presbyterate is always a joy.

It doesn't hurt that these days are spent in Newport, and that we have had really good weather both years - despite the fact that the convocation is always in October.

Newport is a coastal town, with a a sizable harbor for its fleet of commercial fishing boats. Here, some of the boats are docked beneath the Highway 101 Bridge:

The hotel and conference facility we use is directly on the Oregon coast. Here's the view from my hotel room window:

And just north of the hotel, on the headlands you can see from my window, there is the Yaquina Head lighthouse:

There is a very nice interpretive center there about the life of light house keepers.

Back down in Newport's harbor-front downtown, I enjoy visiting the Rogue Brewery. They make Dead Guy Ale, which Fr. Drew Gawrych's dad and I like to refer to as "the official beer of historians."

After having lunch and a couple of pints, I made the most of the good weather and enjoyed a walk along the waterfront. Apparently some of the local wildlife had the same instincts:

Friday Night Lights

Last night Josh Noem and I enjoyed a little guys' night out, attending the Jesuit High School football game against the Aloha High School Warriors. Now, high school football in New York isn't nearly as big a deal as it is in much of the rest of the nation, but once you see a game in a state that lives and breathes high school football, it's hard not to be taken in by the whole experience. 

It was a great fall evening, clear and cool, and the Jesuit Crusaders dominated on both sides of the ball. Josh and I fortified our hot chocolate and enjoyed reminiscing about our own high school days . . . Josh being a high school grid-iron veteran.

And look: even football players and Jesuit high schools want to look like Domers!

Homily for the Twenty-Eighth Sunday in OT (A)

In our first reading today we hear Isaiah’s beautiful prophecy about the end of time. Isaiah gives us a vision of heaven that is compared with a great banquet, “a feast of rich food and choice wines” that God is preparing for all people.

Of course we have hints of this heavenly banquet throughout the life and ministry of Jesus. From the moment he is born in Bethlehem (a name which means “house of bread”) and is laid there in a feeding trough, to the night before He dies, when He gives His own body and blood as food and drink, Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom regularly involved the context of a meal

So we shouldn’t be at all surprised that in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus once again uses banquet imagery. Jesus compares the Kingdom of God to a wedding feast, and this time the parable contains two crucial allegories. We’ll want to consider both of these allegories, how St. Matthew intended them for his audience, and how they can still inform our discipleship for today

The first allegory involves the history of Israel, and revolves around those who refuse to come to the banquet.

Clearly, the wedding feast is the Kingdom of God, and God is Himself the King. He sends out his messengers, the prophets, to invite His people to the feast but many refuse to come. The King sends other messengers, only to find that they are beaten and killed, just as so many of the prophets were.

In anger, the King sends His troops to destroy and burn their city – and by the time Matthew writes this Gospel, Jerusalem and its Temple had indeed been destroyed by the Roman army in the year 70 AD.

The second allegory, involves the community of the Church, and revolves around the guests who are gathered from the streets, and the guest without a wedding garment.

The Gospel makes it clear that the guests who are finally brought into the banquet are no better and no worse than the first set of invited guests. The king’s servants, it is said, gather the “good and the bad alike.”

This reflects the reality of the Church that Matthew was writing for. Already in the early days of the Church it was clear that the Church was made up of saints and sinners, good people and bad people. In particular, there were some people who had joined the Church for the wrong reasons, or who had the wrong attitude or disposition. These people are compared to the guest who is found without a proper wedding garment – they will not be allowed to remain at the feast.

Having established what these two allegories are, and how St. Matthew intended his audience to understand the words of Jesus, we can begin to apply them to our own situation.

It’s true that for all time God’s invitation is open to all people. But just as in the parable, it’s simply true that not everyone chooses to accept this invitation.

As incredible as it may seem, some people simply refuse to come to this marvelous banquet of peace and prosperity that Isaiah speaks of in the first reading. They either ignore God’s invitation completely, or more commonly, they become so involved in their own concerns, in their own individual pursuit of happiness, that they simply don’t have time for it.

Just as in the parable, a certain number of others actually attack those who have been sent to deliver the invitation. They would prefer not to be told that the true fulfillment for which they long is found in something other than their own desires – and so, feeling threatened and unsettled, they attack.

But lest you think I am speaking about people other than you and me, let’s honestly ask ourselves how we respond to the invitation.

Do we find ourselves making excuses for not going to Mass, for not making time to pray, for not contributing our own efforts to inviting others to share in God’s banquet?

Do we find the biggest sporting event, or the latest movie, or some other social engagement, or even our work obligations more interesting and compelling than the invitation offered to us by God?

Sadly, from time to time we too seem unable to find the time and energy that God’s wedding banquet might require, so we simply send our regrets and do our own thing.

But we must realize that when the end comes, and we experience the vision that Isaiah foretells, we will realize that all of life was in fact moving toward God’s wedding feast. All our worries and concerns, all our other distractions and interests will fade to absolute nothingness and only God’s banquet will remain – and we will have turned down our invitation.

Friends, the single most important question in our lives, the question that really matters most in life is not what career you will pursue, or even who you will marry – the single most important question is whether or not you will accept God’s invitation and come to His feast.

Make no mistake about it: though the invitation is freely given, there are still standards for its enjoyment. The banquet is open to all, but it is guaranteed to no one. Our Lord Himself makes it very clear: “many are called, but few are chosen.”

So you might ask, how is it that we can be sure we have accepted the invitation and come prepared for the feast? What exactly is the meaning of the garment that the wedding guests are expected to wear if they wish to remain at the banquet?

I said earlier that Matthew’s Christian community had discovered that some people had entered the Church without the proper attitude or proper disposition. Although they were invited, and had even accepted the invitation, they did so without preparing themselves, without allowing the invitation to change them and their way of being.

And so the image of the wedding garment is symbolic of more than the baptismal garment we have all received – it is symbolic of the life of Christ and how fully we have clothed ourselves in His way of being.

St. Paul uses this imagery of clothing in several of his epistles. He says: “Clothe yourself with Christ and make no provisions for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14). “Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience . . . and beyond all these, put on love which is the bond of perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-14).

We can be sure that we have accepted the invitation, and put on the proper wedding garment when we allow our lives to be changed so that we more and more perfectly reflect the life of Christ Himself.

Through prayer and acts of charity, and especially through the Eucharist and Reconciliation, our lives can indeed be transformed – we can become a new creation and be clothed in Christ Jesus.

Put simply, we can come to realize that our own efforts to pursue happiness are fruitless, but that if we depend upon God alone we will be able to say with St. Paul: “I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me.”

As we gather around this sacred altar and celebrate the Eucharist, which is a foretaste of the wedding feast of heaven, may we be given strength and courage to accept God’s generous invitation and the humility to be transformed into images of His beloved Son.

"Cheer, Cheer For Old Notre Dame"

I had a wonderful and busy week back at Notre Dame . . . so busy I never got around to posting about my adventures! 

On Monday, Fr. Nate Wills, CSC picked me up at the airport and we enjoyed dinner together at South Bend's newest and trendiest restaurant: Trio's. I think Nate wanted to assure me that I could survive the change from Portland to South Bend - and while I enjoyed the meal, and especially the conversation, I still think my social life will take a major hit when I return to the Bend.

Each day I was on campus I made arrangements to have lunch with different friends and former colleauges and it was a real joy to reconnect with these people. I realized that not only had I not been to an ND game in three seasons, but that over the last two years the only time I spent on campus involved my own or someone else's final vows or ordination! It was good to have a freer schedule to relax with people.

I also had the chance to spend the afternoons walking the campus by myself, kind of reconnecting with the place. Boy has it changed, and it just keeps changing. There is a new Science Hall and a new men's residence hall since I left. And they are currently working on an expansion to the Law School, an additional Engineering Hall, a new women's residence hall, a soccer stadium and an addition to the Joyce Center.

Here's a picture of the new Engineering Hall:

While I was on campus I took the opportunity to meet with a couple of my former professors and to start some planning for my return to Notre Dame in the summer of 2009. I will spend a year at ND prepping for graduate studies in American history, and the meetings I had this week were most helpful in formulating a plan of attack. Though I'm still intimidated by the whole thing, I found myself really getting excited about it for the first time.

The highlight of the week, of course, was spending time with my brothers in Holy Cross. On Tuesday I had the privilege of celebrating Mass for the Old College seminarians, and throughout the week I enjoyed the company of my brothers at Moreau Seminary and Corby Hall.  

Here, my classmates Frs. Pete McCormick, CSC and Jim Gallagher, CSC treat me to a CJ's Super Pub Burger - a South Bend tradition!: 

The week wrapped up with the Notre Dame v. Stanford football weekend. I was glad to have the chance to spend an afternoon with Bill Palmer, and to join him and his son John for a tour of the ND locker room on Friday evening. Then on Saturday morning, with the seminarians taking a break from running the Moreau tailgater, Jim and his sisters Mary and Angela invited me to join them for a beer and brat:

Inside the stadium, we cheered the Fighting Irish onto victory and celebrated the 100th anniversary of the greatest of all university fight songs: The Notre Dame Victory March!:

It was a great week and I am grateful for the chance to have made this trip.