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Homilies

March 8, 2011

Letter To My Bishop,

Feast of St.John Vianney - August 4, 2010

9:02 AM, Tuesday, June 29, 2009

Dear Father Bain,


My daughter is in severe pain again since last evening - just started on a dime again. I know somehow it is spiritual, and it is playing off the car accident that we were in April 19, 2008. She has been in pain since then, but now my daughter is really in tremendous pain again?? I, the mother, am starting to loose hope. I am at my last straw. I just don't know what God wants of me. It has been 20 years of a lot of angles and problems, different health problems, chaos, severe poverty- still going on, constantly counting pennies and dimes and nickels to survive.

9:50 am, Tuesday, June 30th.


I will say mass today for your daughter. The Holy Water was put in the mail last Friday. Don't give up hope. There is a reason why the Lord is allowing your family to go thru this suffering. In time He will turn it will around. Father Bain



Due to circumstances, I was not able to say Mass on Tuesday as promised. That evening during my Holy Hour it came to me that it would not be until Thursday that I would be saying mass for the daughter, but that was OK as prayer is NOT limited to time or space. Thus, it did not matter if the Mass were said on Tuesday as promised or on Thursday. Sounds crazy, does it not? But, read on!



6:34 AM, Thursday July 2nd.





Dear Father Bain,



Thank You!! My daughter immediately improved during your mass that you said for her. All of a sudden her pains greatly stopped and she became peaceful. I also felt the power of The Holy Spirit and felt great peace in the house. Also the holy water came a little later that day! Thank you so very much Fr. Bain! Where would we be without our great and merciful Lord and savior, our heavenly Mother and all of the angels and saint!





Mass was said for the daughter at 11:30 AM, July 2nd.



Response from a skeptic.



Dear Father Bain



The power of the placebo effect and positive thinking I think!



My Response.

Absolutely, it most certainly could be that. What got me to take a good look at it was the deep strong feeling I got during prayer that it was OK to say the mass two days later for the poor girl, in such pain, because the effects of the prayer would go back in time. But now that you mention the placebo I think I will write to the mother and ask if the girl knew I was going to say a mass for her. Father Bain

The mother’ response.



Dear Fr. Bain,

She was totally unaware of absolutely everything.



December 20, 2008, Saturday of the Third Week of Advent



In my mid to late twenties I was assistant corporate secretary of a utility company headquarteredi n San Francisco with gas, electric, telephone, and water properties in five western states. When my boss retired I would become the corporate secretary at the age of thirty- one. About six months before this was to happen, the president of the company died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. The new president did not take long to inform me that he felt only an attorney should be the corporate secretary. Not getting the promised position was a real disappointment, but the company made it easier by raising my salary nearly a third, letting me go to law school at night, and paying the tuition.

A few months later starting law school, I was offered a job in Honolulu with a construction company. They were building 600 units of military family housing at two military bases on the island of Oahu, and were looking for someone to negotiated contract change orders. The most significant was a change from wood stud to steel stud due to the termites in Hawaii.

It was a hard decision to make, leaving a secure job, law school, and my friends for a job for which I did not have the background or education – my degree was in psychology. Three things helped me make up my mind to take the job: 1. It paid more money than I would make as an attorney – at least for many years. 2. A friend of mine who worked for the company assured me that he would make sure I learned all I needed to do the job well despite not having experience in construction. 3. It came to me while praying that the Lord wanted me to take the job.

Two weeks after I began my new job in Hawaii, my friend who promised to watch over me was promoted to quality control manager, and I was given his job of production control manager. Now remember I had no experience in the construction business and took the job because my friend would be looking over my shoulder. Before he moved out of my office he had shown me how and why our company was asking too little for the change from wood studs to steel studs. He suggested that it looked like they were only considering the cost of the steel over the cost of the wood and forgetting that the greater difficulty and expense of attaching materials such as the drywall to the steel. As I pursued this in the way suggested by my friend, the Navy became surprised that we were suddenly asking for three times the original amount for the change. They requested for a meeting to discuss the rational for the drastic increase.

Representing the company at this meeting were our project manger, the owner of the company, who was personally worth over 100 millions dollars in 1973 money, and me; and representing the government was the Navy captain in charge of all military construction in the Pacific and an Army major in charge of the project for the government. I was the spokesperson for the company.

Walking up the steps to the captain’s office in Pearl Harbor I was scared to death that they would discover that I totally unqualified for all this. In my pocket were my rosary beads. I put my fingers around one bead and said one Hail Mary. Immediately my fear was taken away and replaced by sheer peace. In the office before the meeting begin, I remember looking around and being impressed with the long conference table, the gold on the captain uniform, and enjoying how all of it looked like something out of a movie. During the meeting I was keenly focused and articulate. With ease I held my ground again strong arguments from both the major and the captain, and I even corrected the owner. Our project manager couldn’t wait to tell me after what a wonderful job I had done. The owner was impressed too. A month or so later he decided that I should be sent around the country to oversee major change orders at his eleven other projects. Fortunately, my friend talked him out of it, as my lack of experience would have manifested itself for sure.

There is no doubt in my mind the one simple Hail Mary that I said before the meeting gave me the grace and peace to do what I could not do on my own. Mary is always here for us. As we draw closer to Christmas the Church ask us to turn to Mary our heavenly mother. She can help us be prepared and to open our hearts to all the graces of this holy season. In these next five days before we celebrate the birth of our saviors let us turn to her. Let us pray to her that the peace and joy that was present at her Sons birth be present to us this Christmas.

November 7, 2008, Friday of the 31st week in ordinary time.

My dad belonged to the Father’s Club when I was in High School. He loved and highly respected the priest whose full time job was to oversee the club. This priest was a real man’s man, and not only my father but all the other dads looked up to him. When he was asked why he became a priest he would answer that it was for one reason and one reason only, “to save my soul.” My dad thought that was really great, and he was not shy at all about telling others why Father O’Gara became a priest.



With the dearth of vocations to the priesthood today it seems very few young men and woman of today factor such a reason into their decision as to what to do with their life. I suspect the lesson in today’s Gospel was emphasized more back in the 1920s and 30s than it is today.



The lesson in today’s Gospel is very simple. Christ wants the Christian to be as ingenious and give as much attention to the things which concern the salvation of his soul as the man of the world does to attaining money and comfort.



This is what St. Ignatius of Loyola suggested in his Spiritual Exercises:



Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.

From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.

For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created

November 5, 2008, Wednesday of the 31st week in ordinary time.

Today my tinnitus is especially bad. My psychiatrist suggested that it might be the excitement of the elections. I told him it is interesting that he would bring that up. Last night, early on, I felted peaceful watching the elections returns. A few days before, with the reports that a third had voted early, and nineteen percent more had voted for Barack Obama than for John McCain, it became clear to me that the election to all intents and purpose was over - Obama would win for sure. At around 7:30 PST, as the networks were waiting for the polls to close in Washington State, Oregon, and California, CBS said that their combined 77 votes could give Obama more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Still, I was peaceful.



Then, at exactly eight PM PST it was announced that Barrack Obama was the new President-elect of the United States of America. Suddenly, over a quarter of a million people in Chicago’s Grant Park set off a gigantic explosion of excitment from utter elation. The networks began to show this same kind of emotional response in various parts of the country. Seeing in these crowds so many beautiful faces of African Americans beaming with joy as tears flowed from their eyes, I myself began tearing up. As I continued to watch this utterly joyful response, more and more tears came streaming down my face. Before I knew it I was crying uncontrollably. Going deep inside myself to get in touch with the place the tears were coming from, I discovered a feeling of pure joy. It felt so good seeing my African-American brothers and sisters, who had for so many years been the victims of massive, inexcusable, and grievously sinful racial prejudice, rejoicing over the election of a man of color to the most powerful office in the world. After sharing this with my psychiatrist, he said that he had exactly the same reaction as mine.



In the Gospel today we are told that there is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine who have no need to repent. We as a nation may not be fully repentant of our all our racial sins yet – there were sections of the south that voted more Republican this year than four years ago – but we sure came a long way last night.



The tears of joy that were shed last night by so many of us were, I believe, reflecting a similar joy in heaven. Our heavenly Father, who sent Moses to free the Israelites from the oppression of the pharaoh, must be delighted with our election results.



A few months ago a pro-life parishioner shared with me that after her daughter had asked her to listen to one of Barack Obama’s speeches, she went outside to pray under the stars. As she was praying she thought of Obama becoming president, and asked the Father if this was right. What she received may surprise some. A voice came to her, “I am very please with this man.” After what my heart felt last night, I believe God is indeed very pleased with President-elect Obama.





November 2, 2008, All Souls Day



A little two or three year old boy was playing with a ball as his uncle and mother sat on a near-by park bench. The uncle was watching the boy play while the mother was reading a book. When the boy’s ball rolled under the bench and disappeared in a gutter below, the boy immediately lost interest in the ball and turned to something else. The uncle became concerned that there might be something wrong that he lost interest so easily. He pointed this out to the mother. Her reply was, “Not to worry, Billy does not yet appreciate objective presence.” What she meant was that for Billy, if you can’t see it, it does not exist.



Do you believe in ghost? Friends of mine lived across the street from an old abandoned winery they plan to restore. It was haunted by the ghost of the original owner who was killed there well over a hundred years ago. One night after a nice dinner in their home and a few glasses of wine the husband took three potential investors to see the winery. It was dark so they had to use flash lights. The men taunted the ghost. The following night the wife was home alone asleep when she heard several very loud explosions coming from her kitchen. She was too scared to go look at what it might be; she felt it had something to do with the ghost, and she was right. The next morning she discovered pieces of exploded flash light batteries - only the ones used the night before - scattered all over the kitchen floor.



While they were telling me about this I could sense that my friends had become fearful of the ghost. What they once saw as harmless, and maybe something that made the winery more interesting, was now seen as a problem. I told them that I would offer a mass for the ghost and that I was confident he would disappear for good. The only thing I asked was they tell no one about this. After Mass was offered for the proper repose of the ghost, if it did indeed disappeared and people no longer saw or felt the ghost when they visited the old winery, I wanted us to know the ghost’s disappearance was due to the power of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and not due to some psychological dynamic such as, “if you believe it is gone, it is gone.”



That was over a year ago. No one since then has seen or felt the ghost’s presence. It is gone. This is far from the first time in my twenty-eight years as a priest that a ghost has disappeared for good after I said a Mass for him or her.



I believe it is very important that we pray for the dead. St. John Vianney was often asked to pray for love ones who had died. Sometimes he answered that he would, and then sometimes he would say there is no need to pray for him or her, she is in heaven praying for you. We do not have the great saint’s gift. We do not know if our loved ones are in heaven or not. Why take the chance of not remembering our deceased loved ones in our prayers, Masses, sufferings, and sacrifices. I have no doubt that when we ourselves enter eternity, one of the first things that will be revealed to us will be how are prayers helped our relatives and friends who had been suffering in Purgatory.



Whatever you do, please, please be sure you arrange for a funeral mass for your deceased loved one – no matter what he or she may have requested. And, don’t forget, November is traditionally the month when Roman Catholics pray for the souls in Purgatory. St. Padre Pio wrote, “The holy souls are eager for the prayers of the faithful which can gain indulgences for them. Their intercession is powerful. Pray unceasingly. We must empty Purgatory!”



November, 1, 2008, The Feast of All Saints.

The first reading on the feast of All Saints ends with, “Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven will be great.” My brother, who happens to be a priest too, suffers from phlebitis. Last week it was causing him a lot of pain. During his Holy Hour he brought his concerns about this to the Lord and was told, “Have the doctor threat this. It is not time for you to go to heaven yet; you still have work to do. Last night a good friend of mine, a priest from Atlanta, called to tell me his best friend, another priest, died yesterday. His friend was only sixty- nine. He was a really great priest – hard working, wise, and very loving. It was his time to go to heaven.



Many years ago I invited a priest from New York by the name of Dennis Kelleher to come to the Bay Area to do a series of Masses for healing. When he prayed over people sometimes they would fall backwards into the arms of a catcher who would gently allow them to fall to the floor – see the links on the left for a fuller explanation of this. Once when I was resting in the spirit after he had prayed over me, I found myself having a conversation with Jesus. He told me that since the time of my ordination I have been retired so to speak. By this he meant that when I function as a priest it is not I who am working; it is He. So, when I am in the parlor giving someone spiritual direction, it is not me doing the directing but Him, when I am preaching it is not me preaching but Him, and so on. Then He said the understanding that it is all His work and none of our own is the secret of the saints.



It seems that when we died we get a reward not for what we have done, but for what Jesus has done though us. And, so today as we honor the saints, we are really not honoring them; we are honoring God who worked in them and though them. Praise God!

September 25, 2008, Thursday the 25th week in ordinary times



At the VA Hospital in San Francisco on Wednesdays I visit the patients in the pre-op room before surgery. I usually will walk up, identify myself as the chaplain and ask the Veteran if he or she would like a prayer before surgery. Well over fifty percent of the patients want prayers, and the vast majority of those who do not are very polite in their decline. A few do get a little defensive and have to let me know they do not believe in prayer or God. Yesterday, a Veteran’s response was to laugh hardly as though he was hearing a good joke. So, I responded by laughing myself and agreeing that what I said was funny” The Vet obviously felt prayer was useless.



This morning’s first reading from Ecclesiastes we hear Qoheleth saying, “All things are vanity” - in other words, “All things are useless.” He said this because he did not believe in an afterlife. For him there was nothing is new under the sun.



Why would this passage from Ecclesiastes be in the Bible, and why would the Catholic Church use it in the Mass? I can only guess. Perhaps it is to help us see how differently things look when we believe in an afterlife. St. Ignatius felt that things have value in so far as they aid us on our path to salvation. If they do not, then they are useless. The things that are of value we need to keep, and the things that are vanity we need to avoid.



Think of it this way. You are swimming down a stream. You come to a vortex in the middle of the river that can pull you under and so you swim around it. In the same way, we need to use – and certainly not laugh at - the things in our life that lead us to salvation, and to avoid the things that do not, for they are vanity.



May 26, 2008, The Feast of Corpus Christi

The feast of Corpus Christi was the doing of Juliana of Liege, a thirteenth-century nun, who claimed that God had been instructing her to establish a feast day commemorating the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper. In 1237 her local bishop in response to her vision ordered a celebration of Corpus Christi to be held each year thereafter. This celebration spread to other dioceses in Europe and on September 8, 1264, Pope Urban IV established the Feast of Corpus Christi as a universal feast of the Church, to be celebrated on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday. Today in the United States the feast is celebrated on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday.

For centuries after, the feast was also celebrated with a Eucharistic procession, in which the Sacred Host was carried throughout the town, accompanied by hymns and litanies. The faithful would venerate the Body of Christ as the procession passed by. I remember in the 1940s going to my grandmother’s parish with my family and joining in the procession of the Blessed Sacrament around the streets of San Francisco. As a small child I can’t begin to tell you how much that impressed me. In recent years this practice has almost disappeared, though some parishes still hold a brief procession around the outside of the parish church.

Today the celebration of Corpus Christi, which means the Body of Christ in Latin, is needed more than every. Less than thirty percent of Roman Catholics still believe that the consecrated host and wine at Mass are truly the Body, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

About fifteen years ago I was preparing our second graders to receive their First Holy Communion. At one point I asked the class of thirty seven year olds if the next day they would actually be receiving Jesus when for the first time they received Communion. Six or seven of the children did not think so. I was startled.

I asked the young children why they did not believe they would be receiving Jesus. Most of them had been instructed by their parents, or an aunt or uncle, not to believe. Some were told it was good to believe it was really Jesus, but actually it is just a piece of bread.

As you know, the definition of theology is faith seeking understanding. I decide to turn these second graders into theologians. I suggest that the next day immediately after receiving the consecrated host they return to their pews, kneel down, place their hands over their eyes, go into their hearts, and try very hard to tell if what they had just received was a piece of bread or Jesus Christ.

On Monday when I asked how many felt it was just a piece of bread they received on Saturday, not one hand went up. When I asked how many felt it was Jesus whom they received on Saturday, all thirty hands shot up without any hesitation, high and strong. Each and every one of them had no doubt whatsoever it was not a piece of bread but Jesus they received. A price of bread simply cannot make you feel like that inside.

If you read the description of the early Christians long before a Eucharistic theology was developed or the word transubstantiation was used, you will see they had the exact same faith in the Eucharist as those second graders at St. Anselm’s Church.

St. Ignatius of Antioch: "I have no taste for the food that perishes nor for the pleasures of this life. I want the Bread of God which is the Flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and for drink I desire His Blood which is love that cannot be destroyed." 100 A.D

St. Justin Martyr: "This food we call the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake except one who believes that the things we teach are true, and has received the washing for forgiveness of sins and for rebirth, and who lives as Christ handed down to us. For we do not receive these things as common bread or common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior being incarnate by God's Word took flesh and blood for our salvation, so also we have been taught that the food consecrated by the Word of prayer which comes from him, from which our flesh and blood are nourished by transformation, is the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus." 150 A.D.

St. Irenaeus of Lyon: [Christ] has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own Blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own Body, from which he gives increase to our bodies. 180 A.D.

St Ephraim: And extending His hand, He gave them the Bread which His right hand had made holy: 'Take, all of you eat of this; which My word has made holy. Do not now regard as bread that which I have given you; but take, eat this Bread, and do not scatter the crumbs; for what I have called My Body, that it is indeed. One particle from its crumbs is able to sanctify thousands and thousands, and is sufficient to afford life to those who eat of it. Take, eat, entertaining no doubt of faith, because this is My Body, and whoever eats it in belief eats in it Fire and Spirit. But if any doubter eat of it, for him it will be only bread. And whoever eats in belief the Bread made holy in My name, if he be pure, he will be preserved in his purity; and if he be a sinner, he will be forgiven.' But if anyone despise it or reject it or treat it with ignominy, it may be taken as certainty that he treats with ignominy the Son, who called it and actually made it to be His Body.", 350 A.D.

St. Athanasius: This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine - and thus His Body is confected." 373 A.D.

Unfortunately, other Christian denominations do not share in this same rich Eucharistic tradition. A few years ago I went to Jacksonville for a week of healing prayer at Francis and Judith MacNutt’s Christian Healing Ministries. When the sessions were over at four in the afternoon, I would go immediately to Marywood Catholic Retreat House for a night of quiet prayer. For me it was a week of being prayed over for healing during the day and spending time alone praying with the Blessed Sacrament at night. I wanted to include in this the Mass, but unless I were to say it by myself, this would not be possible - I was the only guest that week at the retreat house. A few years before a priest friend of mine had told me that we priests now have permission from the pope to say a private mass, something that I had not done in all my years as priest.

The first morning at seven o’clock I celebrated Mass alone in the Marywood chapel. It felt very strange saying, “The Lord be with you” and having no one respond. All during the mass I keep wondering, “Is this a valid Mass?” After Communion I sat down and silently went into my heart, just as I had instructed the second graders at St. Anselm’s. I can tell you without a doubt the pope was right in allowing priests to say Mass alone. I found my heart was filled with the same loving presence of Jesus that it is every time I receive Holy Communion - a presence that cannot be given by bread, but a Real Presence. Yes, yes, it was a valid Mass.

Later in the morning at the healing center we were invited to celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. The celebrant was an Episcopalian priest. Before Mass he shared that he understood that Catholics were not allowed by their Church to receive Communion in a non-Catholic churches, but that many Catholic priests had been to these mass and received, and once even a Roman Catholic bishop received. He wanted the Catholics present to know they were welcomed to receive at this mass. Earlier I had introduced myself as a priest and I felt that after what this man had just shared, love demanded that I accept his invitation to receive at his Mass. After receiving the host and while going back to my pew I recalled the powerful experience of receiving at Marywood just a few hours earlier. I sat in my pew and again went into my heart, just as I had done at my private mass. What I felt at this Mass was different. I felt a spiritual, holy, and beautiful presence of Jesus, but it was not the Real Presence.

Suddenly, I become the great Eucharistic theologian. The Catholic Church believes that in the Eucharist the bread and wine are actually transformed objectively, and become in a real sense the body and blood of Christ. The consecrated elements retain the forms of bread and wine, but are in reality the actual body and blood of Christ. At my private Mass in Marywood that is exactly what I felt. The Protestant Churches has traditionally seen the Eucharist as being only a symbolic or spiritual presence of Jesus. And, that is exactly what I felt receiving in the Protestant Church a few hours later. My experience that morning in Jacksonville had perfectly matched the theology of the two Churches.

When I was pastor of a small parish in western Marin and at the same involved in a very powerful healing ministry, a famous Buddhist monk from Burma came to visit me. First, I took him around our buildings and grounds. When we walked into the small Blessed Sacrament chapel in our office building, the monk immediately dropped to his knees in front to the tabernacle in profound adoration. He remained in veneration for over a minute. The irony of the moment was inescapable: vast numbers of Catholics walk into church today without showing the slightest indication that the Real Presence of Our Savior of the world is right there in front of them. Yet, here was a monk from a completely different tradition and faith giving the most beautiful, moving, and powerful veneration to the Blessed Sacrament that I have ever seen.

Right now, at this very moment, and at every moment, the Person who loves us more than anyone else in the world is waiting to touch the depths of our hearts with His love. He can be found, literally found, in each and every Catholic church in the world. Yes, he is waiting for us in our own parish church. On this feast of Corpus Christi let us respond to His incredible passion for us by making a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. Let’s sit with the Lover for a good period of time. He will fill us with a love that is beyond description. We will leave thanking Him for His ineffabale invitation and for the grace to have accepted it. And, even better, let’s makes everyday the feast of Corpus Christi. For each time we visit the Blessed Sacrament we are drawn deeper and deeper into his eternal Love.







March 27, 2008, Thursday in the Octave of Easter

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostle we hear that the people, gathered at the Beautiful Gate, in response to Peter and John’s healing of the crippled man “hurried in amazement toward them.” Peter immediately set the record straight. It was not by his own power that the man was healed, but by Jesus’. “And by faith in his name, this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong, and the faith that comes through it has given him this perfect health, in the presence of all of you.” A few years ago my physician told me that I should not pray over others for healing because it was my energy alone, being transferred to the person by my touch, that healed them. This surprised me as I have always felt the way that Peter did, that if anyone was healed by my touch and prayers it come not from me but from Jesus. After I challenged his belief that these healings by touch were not coming from God, he decided to do a little experiment to prove that he was right.



He asked if the following week I would bring someone from my parish that I had been praying over for healing and he would measure the amount of energy coming from me as I laid hands on the person. This doctor had an unusual gift. He was able to measure his patient’s energy by slowly moving his hand towards the patient’s body. Where his hands felt the energy he would stop. If his hands were far from the body when this happened the person energy was high that day and if his hand got close to the body it meant the patient’s energy was low that day.



The following week I brought a woman from my parish with me who had cancer. The doctor first spent two or three minutes measuring my energy in various parts of my body. He used a ruler for this and then wrote the measurement down. Next he asked me to lay my hands on the parishioner and pray for healing. During this time he measured my energy again. Lastly he told me to stop praying and he measured my energy a third time. After, with a look of amazement, he studied his findings, suggested I sit down, and then he said, “This is not what I expected at all. Before you prayed your energy was about fifty percent. As you began to pray your energy dropped to twenty-five percent just as I had expected. But then suddenly it increased to seventy-five percent and stayed like that all the while you were praying. When you stopped praying it returned to exactly where it was before you began praying.”



I believe that when we lay hands on the sick and ask Jesus to heal them, His healing love begins to flow through us into the other person. And it is His love that heals. This gift is available to every baptized Christian. Why are you not using your healing gift for the good of your sisters or brothers? It is so beautiful, so simple, so easy, so loving, so Christ-like.





March 8, 2008, Saturday of the fourth week of Lent

A few years ago at a healing workshop in Jacksonville I had an interesting conversation with a Protestant woman. She attends daily Mass with a Catholic friend who told her that as a Protestant she was not allowed to receive Holy Communion, but she could come forward for a blessing. One morning at the very moment the priest blessed her the Holy Spirit revealed to her that the hosts in the ciborium were in fact the Body, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, most Roman Catholics – perhaps as many as seventy percent - don’t believe what this holy Protestant woman was shown by God during that blessing. They don’t believe in the Real Presence. So, it is good that Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith of the Congregation of Worship at the Vatican plans to set some new guidelines to bring back "dignity and decorum" to the Mass.

One change he is proposing may not be wise though. He wants to ban Communion in the hands and only allow Communion on the tongue. Today too many Catholics receive Communion too infrequently to know how to receive it properly on the tongue. Some have become what I call “snatchers”; they move their mouths forward as the priest attempts to place the host on their tongue and then they sort of snatch the host out of the priest's hands. The poor priest is left with saliva on his fingers and, unless he wipes it off on his vestments, the saliva can be transferred onto the next host and into the mouth of the next communicant.

Unfortunately, even some daily communicants are “snatcher”. But, at least the priest usually knows who they are and he knows to quickly move his hands back at the moment they move their mouths forward, thus landing the host squarely on the tongue without his fingers touching it. Let's pray that Archbishop Ranjith finds a more creative way of solving the problem of lack of respect for the Real Presence than bringing back mandatory reception of Holy Communion on the tongue. And please, if you do receive on the tongue, close your eyes for a second, keep your head still, and trust that the priest will place the host on your tongue without your help.



February 17, 2008, Sunday of the second week of Lent



Born to nobility in Florence in 1522 St. Catherine di Ricci was your typical Italian renaissance mystic. As a child she was considered a holy girl and at a very early age she wanted to join the Dominican Sisters in near-by Prado. He parents wanted her to marry but she refused and eventually she was given permission to join the convent. There she had many mystical experiences including the “Ecstasy of the Passion” every Thursday from noon until Friday at 4:00 p.m. for twelve years. This included the stigmata and all the pain of the passion of Our Lord.



Once, the local duchess came to Catherine and asked for prayers for her husband the duke. He had a mistress and was not a nice man. The duchess loved him nonetheless and wanted him to be saved and not to suffer too much in purgatory. When the man died Catherine asked the Lord to let her suffer the pains of Purgatory in his place. Her sisters, loving her so much, knowing how holy she was, and how much good she had done, could not stand seeing her suffer such extreme pain. One of the sisters begged her to ask for the pain to be taken away. Catherine replied to the sister, “Pardon me my sisters if I answer you. Jesus has so much love for souls that all we do for them is infinitely agreeable to him. That is why I endure any pain whatsoever it may be for the conversion of sinners as well as the deliverance of the souls detained in purgatory.”



Her brother Andrew lived a wild life and on his death bed refused the last rites. In a vision after his death Catherine saw that her brother had been condemned to Hell. But, then Jesus said to her, “I do not condemn anyone to Hell, I came to save the sinner. I did not condemn your brother to Hell. Your brother freely chose to go to there.” Catherine said that God honors our free will to the point that He even allows us to choose Hell.



The convent she lived in was built in the sharp of a cross, but the right wing of the horizontal portion was much longer than the vertical wing. Our Lord told her that the shorter wing was like his justice and the longer wing like his mercy.



In one ecstasy she received a wedding ring from Jesus when He made her his bride. He said to Catherine, “Take this ring as a pledge and proof that you will now and forever belong to me.” She described it as having small diamonds and a beautiful red stone. Some of her sisters saw what looked like a red ring under her skin – today some claim the sisters were only seeing an infection on Catherine’s ring finger. St. Catherine of Ricci practice of attending on the sick was usually performed on her knees and she tenderly cared for the poor over the whole country.



Something like what St. Austin related in the life of St. John of Egypt happened to St. Catherine of Ricci and her spiritual friend St. Philip Neri. After having for some time exchanged letters, and to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each other, while he was detained at Rome, she began to appear to him in visions or while bilocating. This allowed them to converse with each other at great length. St. Philip Neri, who was most circumspect in giving credit to or in publishing visions, declared, saying that Catherine di Ricci, while still living, had appeared to him in visions. And this was confirmed by the oaths of five witnesses. When shown a painting of Catherine, Philip said she was far more beautiful in person.



Catherine prayed often to St Thecla, a first century martyr from Iconium who had received the faith directly from St. Paul. He taught her about the one, true God. Thecla also learned from him that a young woman can become the bride of Christ if she gives up marriage. By this time, Thecla desired nothing else than to give herself entirely to God. Thecla's pagan parents tried their best to make her give up her Christian faith, but she would not. Her fiancé, Thamyris, begged her not to break their engagement. However, Thecla had made up her mind. She wanted to be Christ's bride, not his. At last, in great anger, Thamyris accused her to the judge. When she still refused to give up her love for Jesus, she was ordered to be burned to death. St. Catherine was always going into ecstasy and her work was never getting done. She prayed to St. Thecla to help her with this. Thecla did some magnificent embroidering for Catherine. At the convent in Prato you will find her beautiful work of art. The detail and lines are absolutely perfect except for a small patch in the lower right hand corner which was done not by Thecla, but by Catherine.



After a long illness St. Catherine died on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the 2nd of February, in 1589 at the age of 76. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XIV in 1746. Her feast day is February 13th.



Anneli Rufus, a prize-winning journalist and poet, in her very interesting and worthwhile book Magnificent Corpses, writes this about Catherine di Ricci, “With her lifelong commitment to self-mutilation, begun when she was a young girl, Catherine exemplifies a whole genre of saints – most of them female. They share a penchant for childhood prayer, childhood penances such as sleeping on cold castle floors. She trains herself to withstand yet more pain, hair shirts, the whip, and no food.



As she grows, the saint cares for the sick. Often this means proselytizing individuals who are too weak to protest, too ill to ignore intimations of Heaven and Hell. It was not nursing as we know it. Part of the appeal lay in performing nauseous chores: swabbing the patients’ running sores, scrubbing their fetid lines. While kindness is to be commended, these saints found in such tasks a way to punish their own senses, perhaps even die.



Catherine lived in time when convents were the only outlet for a girl who felt and acted oddly. And she flourished in a structure that not only praised her odd behaviors but rewarded them with names. Starving is ‘fasting.’ Whips are ‘disciplines.’ Self-mutilation is ‘penitence.’ Suicidal tendencies are channeled into longings for martyrdom, such as those that inspirited Therese of Lisieux. Erotic daydreams, as in the story of Gemma Galgani, are “demonic temptations.” Altered states and what you might call hallucinations are ‘visions’ and ecstasies’.”



So, we have the modern speculations of a Rufus and the ancient straight-forward accounts of Catherine’s hagiographers. Which one is closer to the truth? Perhaps we can get a little help in finding the answer by looking at the Transfiguration (Mt. 17:1-9). I have never heard or read of anyone speaking of this event in the life of Jesus in these terms, but I believe the Transfiguration was a mystical prayer experience of Jesus in which three of his apostles, Peter, James, and John, were drawn in. And, if this is correct, then the Transfiguration may help us determine legitimate mystical experiences from neurotic desires and psychotic behavior, and so, whether Catherine was, so to speak, a true nut case or a saint.



And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light. Sometimes our perception of reality can change during prayer. We can see and hear things that are not ordinarily available to our senses or see a distorted view of reality. A mystical theologian would call the perception of the clothes becoming “white as light” a classical prayer experience; a psychologist would call it an illusion. Catherine’s visions and locutions would indicate some kind of pathology to the psychologist, but being that she was a cloistered nun whose very profession was to pray and to seek the numinous, her visions and locutions would indicated some kind of holiness to the mystical theologian.
And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him. Anneli Rufus does not comment on Catherine’s friendship with a dead person, St Thecla, but I suspect that this only gave her more reason to question Catherine’s sanity. Many Protestants would have difficulty with Catherine praying to a dead person too. In fact, most Protestant churches strongly reject all saintly intercession. The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England condemned the invocation of saints as "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.” Yet, in the Transfiguration, which comes from the Word of God, we see Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah – two dead people - not unlike Catherine conversing with Thecla, or you and I asking for intercessions from our favorite saint. Again, we have one interpretation from a secular point of view and another from a spiritual/Scriptural point of view.
“Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” This gives us the best clue as to whether a devotee’s numinous experiences in prayer are real or not. Does her prayer help her believe that Jesus is the only Son of God? And, even more important, is the person listening to Jesus? In other words, is she living the Gospels by loving her neighbor? We know that Catherine loved Jesus as her Lord and Savior and from this love came a tremendous desire to comfort the sick and work with the poor. Perhaps Ms. Rufus thinks this enthusiasm is only more proof that Catherine was neurotic, but the spiritual person would see this as proof that Catherine’s visions and locutions were real and from God.


Someone once said there is a very fine line between sanctity and insanity. Those of you with rich spiritual lives, perhaps you should take it as a compliment when other think of you are as a little strange – or as an indication that you need therapy.



February 11, 2008, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes

Today is the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Mary to St. Bernadette at Lourdes, France. I would like to share with you a few thoughts on apparitions.



A Marian apparition is an event in which the Virgin Mary is supposed to have supernaturally appeared to one or more persons, typically Catholics, in various settings. There have been more than eighty thousands reported apparitions of Mary worldwide, yet only nine have been officially approved by the Catholic Church. They are La Salette, Lourdes, Knock, Guadalupe, Fatima, Banneux, Beauraning, Rue du Bac and Pontmain. Their approval simply means that a Catholic may devoutly believe that Mary once appeared there. It does not mean the Church believes she did. Pope Pius X gave an explanation in Lamentabili sane exitu issued 3 July 1907, concerning Modernism: “In passing judgment on pious traditions. . . the Church uses the greatest prudence . . . Even then she does not guarantee the truth of the fact narrated; she simply does not forbid belief. . . On this matter the Sacred Congregation of Rites, thirty years ago, decreed as follows: ‘These apparitions and revelations [of La Salette and Lourdes] have neither been approved nor condemned by the Holy See. It has simply allowed that they be devoutly believed by purely human faith, according to the tradition which they relate.”

There is very good reason for this caution. Seventeen years ago thousands of people from around the world flocked to St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Colfax, California to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary on a stained glass window. This, despite the warning of the local priests that the apparition began the day after a tree was cut down in the church parking lot. Pilgrims were lined up around the block as the little church overflowed week after week. There were long lines for confessions, rosary beads were miraculously changing into gold, and many were being healed. A parishioner of mine had her back healed while praying before the apparition. Even the local bishop visited the apparition and said, “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary and for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.”

On December 11, 1990, after the first cloudy day in northern California in months, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “A mysterious light on a church wall that many believed was a divinely inspired image of the Virgin Mary did not appear yesterday amid heavy clouds, seeming to confirm the theory it was merely sunlight shining through a stained-glass window ... When the image failed to appear at its customary time, however, the worshipers trooped out, some in dismay.”

Perhaps the most controversial apparition in the history of the Church has been taking place in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina during the last twenty-six years. The Blessed Virgin Mary reportedly first appeared to 16-year-old Mirjana Dragicevic on June 24, 1981 as she was walking casually with her girlfriend Ivanka Ivankovic, 17, near a hilltop known as Podprado at a village called Medjugorje in what once was Yugoslavia. Since that time, both girls and four of their young friends have been seeing this vision of the Virgin Mary regularly, often on a daily basis.

Here is an eye-witness account of one of the more commonly reported miracles at Medjugorje. "I had just come out of Mass. The sun as over Mount Krisevac, a hill where people pray every day and where Mary has actually appeared. All of a sudden I saw a crowd of people with their faces in awe, and gold light on their faces. I turned and looked and the sun was spinning across the sky, with great rainbows of light coming out of it. Rainbows of light were most prominently on the cross. You could stare straight into the sun and you did not have to blink. It did not hurt your eyes. And then all of a sudden it came back and was a normal sun again.”

After three years of study, the former Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia on April 10, 1991 published their declaration. Among other things it stated: "On the basis of investigations up till now it cannot be established that one is dealing with supernatural apparitions and revelations." The Vatican will allow Catholics to visit Medjugorje on their own and to take their priest with them for confessions, but it has told bishops that their parishes and dioceses may not organize official pilgrimages to the site of the alleged Marian apparitions. The local bishop, Most Rev. Peric Ratko Peric of Mostar-Duvno, vehemently opposes claims that Mary has appeared in the village almost 40,000 times in the last 26 years. Just last year he complained personally to Pope Benedict XVI that priests from overseas were ignoring the wishes of the local bishops not to go on pilgrimages there. He said, "As the local bishop, I maintain that regarding the events of Medjugorje, on the basis of the investigations and experience gained thus far throughout these last 25 years, the church has not confirmed a single apparition as authentically being the Madonna.”

I have been to Fatima and Lourdes, the two most famous approved Marian apparitions. There is something very special about Lourdes. One might go so far as to say that if you could visit only one place in all of Europe it should be Lourdes. There is a tradition there that you might not experience a healing, but you will always receive a gift. My first time at Lourdes the gift was a powerful experience in the Reconciliation Chapel. The second time, while falling asleep the final night after a three-day stay, I realized that on this visit there would be no gift. However, the next morning I was suddenly awoken at exactly six in the morning. When the Holy Spirit wakes you up you know it. You are suddenly wide awake as though you had never been asleep. I got up and walked to the shrine where it is crowded with pilgrims during the day. Here, very early in the morning, I was all alone at the exact spot where Mary appeared to St. Bernadette. It was very powerful moment for me, my gift from Mary.

Fatima was quite a bit different from Lourdes. I did not feel anything special there and came away doubting. There was one interesting thing though. The two great miracles of Fatima were the dancing sun, which was seen miles beyond Fatima, and the instantaneous drying of the people’s rain soaked-clothes during the dancing sun. The first miracle is explained by the dynamics of mass hysteria and the second by the warm summer Portugal sun. Well, while at Fatima, I decided to test the second explanation. It was a very hot day in June, over 110 degrees. You needed an umbrella to sit or stand in the sun even for a moment. I used a fountain to soak my shirt with water. If the skeptics were correct, the hot sun would dry it immediately. An hour later my shirt was still somewhat damp, as one more well thought-out explanation from the skeptics slowly vanished in thin air.





February 8, 2008, Friday after Ash Wednesday



Several years ago I was the Catholic chaplain on a cruise ship from Puerto Rico to Lisbon. With me was a close friend whose business was suffering because of the real estate collapse of the early 1990s. Sitting across from us for meals was the rabbi and his wife. The four of us became friends very quickly. In one of our conversations about the poor economy the rabbi told my friend that there are always seven bad years and seven good years and that during the good years we need to prepare for the bad ones. In today’s Gospel Jesus says “The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”



There are times when the bridegroom seems to be in our lives and times that he does not. I think of Mother Teresa. Throughout 1946 and 1947, she experienced a profound union with Christ. On September 10, 1946 on a train to Darjeeling in India she received what she described as "the call within the call". Mother Teresa said, "I was to leave the convent and work with the poor, living among them. It was an order. I knew where I belonged but I did not know how to get there." From that intimacy with the bridegroom she quite the Sisters of Loreto and teaching school in Calcutta, founded the Sisters of Charity, and dedicate her entire life to working for the poorest of the poor.. But soon after she began her work among the destitute and dying on the street, the visions and locutions ceased, and she experienced a spiritual darkness that would remain with her until her death. In the midst of this dryness she wrote” “There are so many religions and each one has its different ways of following God. I follow Christ: Jesus is my God, Jesus is my Spouse, Jesus is my Life, Jesus is my only Love, Jesus is my All in All; Jesus is my Everything.”



It is important that we develop good strong spiritual lives when we experience the Bridegroom in our lives, for there will come a time when He seems to be taken away. It may not last as long as fifty years, as it did for Mother Teresa, but no matter the length it will seem long and difficult. Without the graces obtained when the Bridegroom is with us, we can lose our resolve. In other words, it is easy to practice and believe when we are enjoying spiritual fervor and the light, it can be very difficult when the well seems to be dry and darkness has come upon us. Be prepared you do not know when this is going to happen.





February 7, 2008, Thursday after Ash Wednesday



The other day a parishioner asked me why she was always getting her feelings hurt by friends, relatives, and even priests. Normally if someone were to ask me that question I would think the person had a problem, for few of us are getting our feelings hurt all the time. But, I had known this woman for many years, and knew her to be very well balance, spiritual, holy, and close to God. She has a big heart, and much to give, but it seemed that many people who did not want her love or gifts were always coming into her life and rejecting her. So, I told her, “It is because Jesus wants you to share in his sufferings and in this way have you draw even closer to him. You are a very special person in the Kingdom.”



In today’s Gospel Jesus said to his disciples: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” (Luke 9:25) We can read this over very quickly and not get the connection between the words “suffering” and “rejected”. We associate Jesus’ physical pain, such as the scourging at the pillar, the crowing of thrones, and the crucifixion with his suffering, but we sometimes fail to associate the emotional pain, such as being reject by the very people he wanted to save, with his suffering.



When our love is rejected, especially by someone we care about and want to make happy, we are suffering just what Jesus did. Our hurt it is an opportunity for us to appreciate what Jesus experienced, to associate our suffering with his, and to offer it up for the salvation of the world



March 21, 2007, Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent



A good, holy woman was asked to leave her sister’s home, where she had been staying for a few months while work was being done on her home. It seems that her sister and brother-in-law were upset because she questioned the fact that their twenty-four year old daughter was having sex with her boy friend in her basement bedroom. Her sister held that this is perfectly accepted behavior today.



What confused the woman most was that this was not the way their parents had raised them. Her sister and her husband didn’t have sex until they were married. But that was 35 years ago.



Who was right, the woman or the sister? The answer should be obvious. Would the sister get on a 747 flying from San Francisco to New York if the odds of it landing safely were the same odds as the birth control pill working? I don’t think so. No method of birth control works more than 98 or 99 per cent of the time. That is one reason why there are so many abortions



Would the sister want her grandchild aborted? Would she want her grandchild raised without the love of both a mother and father in an intact family? Would she want her grandchild put up for adoption and never be able to see her grow up? If there is any love in her, the answers are no, no, and no. Yet, she has no problem with her daughter having sex with her boy friend. She even provides the bed for them to do it in. And, when her loving sister questions this she asks her to move out. How can the sister’s behavior possibly be defended?



There is probably not too much worse in the eyes of the Creator that you can do than engage in the act that creates human life (having sex) when you and your partner have neither the ability nor the intention of nurturing to the fullest the sacred, precious, human life that may come form it. In today’s Gospel Jesus said, “I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” I think if we were more aware that at the judgment we will have to account for our actions before the Almighty, unmarried couples would think twice about having sex outside of marriage, and adults would insist that their children, no matter what age, live by traditional values, at least in their own home.



March 13, 2007, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent



If every time someone visits your home he insults your wife would you have to forgive him seventy times seven if he asked for forgiveness? Yes you would, but this does not mean you would have keep inviting him to your home. If you steal my motorcycle I will forgive you, but that does not necessarily mean you be given the keys once more to take it for a ride. If someone has hurt you in a relationship, and asked for forgiveness, you are called to forgive her. But you are not required to reestablish the relationship. Forgiveness has to do with what is in your heart. If the memory of the hurt is fading, no longer causes you to lose your peace, and you truly wish the person well, you have most likely forgiven the person. After that only common sense is required.



March 12, 2007, Monday of the Third Week of Lent







March 13, 2007, Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent



If every time someone visits your home he insults your wife would you have to forgive him seventy times seven if he asked for forgiveness? Yes you would, but this does not mean you would have keep inviting him to your home. If you steal my motorcycle I will forgive you, but that does not necessarily mean you be given the keys once more to take it for a ride. If someone has hurt you in a relationship, and asked for forgiveness, you are called to forgive her. But you are not required to reestablish the relationship. Forgiveness has to do with what is in your heart. If the memory of the hurt is fading, no longer causes you to lose your peace, and you truly wish the person well, you have most likely forgiven the person. After that only common sense is required.