2005-2006

• Christ the King - Nov 26
• Ordinary 33 - Nov 18
  Fr. Pat's 30th Anniversary
• Ordinary 32 - Nov 12
  Stewardship 2
• Ordinary 31 - Nov 5
  Stewardship 1
• Ordinary 30 - October 29
 Annointing of the Sick
• Ordinary 29 - October 22
• Ordinary 28 - October 15
• Ordinary 27 - October 8
• Ordinary 26 - October 1
• Ordinary 25 - September 24
• Ordinary 24 - September 17
• Ordinary 23 - September 10
• Ordinary 22 - September 3
• Ordinary 21 - August 27
• Ordinary 20 - August 20
• Ordinary 17 - July 30
• Ordinary 15 - July 16
• Ordinary 14 - July 9
• Ordinary 13 - July 2
• Ordinary 12 - June 25
• Corpus Christi - June 18
• Holy Trinity - June 11
• Pentecost - June 4
• Ascension - May 28

• 6th Sunday Easter - May 21
• 5th Sunday Easter - May 14
• 4th Sunday Easter - May 7
• 3rd Sunday Easter - Apr 30

• Lent and Holy Week 2006
     • Easter Sunday - Apr 16
     • Easter Vigil - Apr 15
     • Good Friday - Apr 14
     • Holy Thursday - Apr 13
     • Palm Sunday - Apr 9
     • 5th Sunday of Lent - Apr 2
     • 3rd Sunday of Lent - Mar 19
     • 2nd Sunday of Lent - Mar 12
        Annointing of the Sick
     • 1st Sunday of Lent - Mar 5
     • Ash Wednesday - Mar 1

• 8th Sunday Ordinary Time - Feb 26
• 7th Sunday Ordinary Time - Feb 19
• 5th Sunday Ordinary Time - Feb 5
• 2nd Sunday Ordinary Time - Jan 15
• Mary, Mother of God - Jan 1

• Christmas - Dec 25
• 4th Sunday of Advent - Dec 18
• 3rd Sunday of Advent - Dec 11
• 2nd Sunday of Advent - Dec 4
• 1st Sunday of Advent - Nov 27

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In preparing for this weekend’s liturgies, I ran across some quotes from Annie Dillard. She is a contemporary writer, born in Pittsburg, who went to school at Hollins College in Roanoke Virginia and is now living and teaching in Connecticut. She is a recent convert to the Catholic Church. In her book, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard comments on the proper attire for attending church:

“…we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews .”

This weekend, we welcome a large group of our high school juniors as candidates for the sacrament of confirmation. As you know, I meet regularly with our middle school and high schools teens. They recently asked why we are so insistent that they attend and take full part in religious formation. I told them it’s because we care about them.

A wealthy man brings a question to Jesus. The gospel writer notes the look on Jesus’ face before he responds. “Jesus looked at him,” the passage says, “and loved him”. The look and the response shatter the man. He turns around and walks away sad.

This was a good man. He had lots of possessions, but nowhere does it say he mistreated or even neglected those who had less. This was a religious man. He was doing all that his beliefs required him to do. While Jesus looked at this man with love, what he said and the way he let the man go off so sad don’t seem loving or fair at all.

I told you how I explained to the teenagers why I don’t want them skipping out on religious formation. I didn’t tell you how they reacted. Let’s just say there was no standing ovation. It’s a safe bet that not many were thinking, “Well, now that was a fair and loving answer”.

That look of love from Jesus could also be called a penetrating stare. The one who approaches Jesus is indeed a good and pious man, with enough riches to keep anyone happy for a hundred lifetimes. And yet, with the eyes of love, Jesus saw through the worthy acts and the worldly possessions to find the heart of a very empty man.

Jesus does not aim at shattering us, but he will not shy away from shattering our delusions about ourselves. It is not his goal, of course, to bring us down, but he does not flinch at exposing the sadness that aches in all of us. The saddest part is when we walk away.

The lie has been told to us, from so many quarters in so many ways. We’ve invested so much in its captivating claim that life is about what we have and what we do and what we achieve. There’s a sack of goals to meet. We give them every bit of time and energy we can muster. Nothing matters more than accomplishing them.

And Jesus looks at us, and he loves us and he says, “Life is not about what you own or what you do or what you accomplish. Life is about who you are”.

To give up on the lie and take Jesus at his word would turn our life upside down and inside out. For a ride like that, we better wear titanium helmets and strap in with flame resistent seatbelts. Yet, as jostling and perilous a ride as it might be, it will shake us loose from the lie; it will cure the chronic sadness and it will bring us safely home to an inner joy and peace that will not ever fail.

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ORDINARY 27 - October 8, 2006

Made for community
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Gen 2:18-24 ; Heb 2:9-11 ; Mk 10:2-16 or 10: 2-12

We can all be guilty of excusing our own bad behavior. Pride tempts us to deny responsibility for our own actions. We try our best to evade the fact that most of what we do, or fail to do in life, depends on the choices we make, or the choices we avoid making.

Pay attention, for example, to some of the phrases we use to describe major life events. Two people don’t conceive a child; they “get pregnant”. Couples don’t develop a relationship; they “fall in love”. Even we who are ordained talk about “becoming a priest”, as if we all of sudden just turned into a priest one day. And of course, there’s the handy phrase we’ve all used to hold ourselves blameless in one matter or another: “Hey, what do you want from me, I’m only human!”

While it might be inconvenient and even taxing, we can literally thank God that it’s not really in our nature to be so independent and so detached from reality. God did not make us that way at all. As Jesus asserts to his questioners in today’s gospel, God did not create us for isolation and estrangement, but for partnership and unity with one another. God, that is to say, made us for community.

In today’s gospel passage, Jesus underscores that truth when he refers to the children who are there with him. It’s no accident that there are often children in the crowd with Jesus. It isn’t because their parents can’t afford day care. These are in fact parentless children. They are street urchins, not babes in arm. Like so many others abandoned by their society, they gather at the heels of Jesus. They huddle there to find some recognition, to have the care and attention that they can find nowhere else.

No one has to coax these children into wanting to belong. They are already convinced of their reliance on others. They already yearn for community with those who care and take care of others. For this reason, Jesus singles them out as the first citizens of God’s Kingdom.

Our question of the week invites you to think about a time when an experience of hardship helped you to approach God with childlike wonder and trust. More times than I’d like to say, I’ve spoken with those who have strayed from their marriage vows. Sometimes they come on their own; more often, it’s at the insistence of their injured spouse. I listen patiently as they list the many reasons why adultery was not their choice, but something they were forced to do. When they are finished, I calmly remind them of one choice they made but failed to mention. It’s was their choice, I point out, to act like an absolute fool.

There are times when we are victims of circumstances beyond our control. Most of the time, though, we don’t just fall into things or get things done to us without our cooperation. When we go off course or when things get out of control, Jesus urges us not to abandon ship. He calls us to turn back to each other, to rely on him and on one another and to work together to put things back on track.

Today’s gospel provides a perfect opportunity to turn your attention once again to the upcoming elections. There is, in particular, the proposed marriage amendment. You need to have a clear understanding of the Church’s role here. Otherwise, you can fall victim to a lot of political spinning which, motivated by partisan interests, paints a wrong picture of the Church’s involvement and its true aims.

To help, let me quote directly from our Bishop and the Bishop of Arlington in their join pastoral letter: “…marriage did not originate from either church or state, but from God. The only authentic understanding of marriage, therefore, is the one that God inscribed in our human nature.” This is not the Church is not handing the task of defining marriage to government officials. Our bishops continue: “The proper role of both church and state,” they say, “is one of stewardship…” which they say is “to preserve” and, quoting from the Second Vatican Council, “to recognize, protect and promote (the) authentic nature (of marriage and the family)”.

We have and will continue to provide written materials to help you prepare to vote as responsible Catholics. There are materials also in the Catholic Virginian diocesan newspaper and you can get to them on our website. You don’t have to rely on the interpretations that others might propose. You can and should do directly to the sources.

Our Church has not become, and makes a conscientious commitment not to be “political”. This does not exclude our duty to bring the values of the gospel into personal discernment over issues and into the public debate of those issues. In the words of the Bishops of the United States, from their document Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility : “The Catholic community is a diverse community of faith, not an interest group. Our Church does not offer contributions or endorsements. Instead, we raise a series of questions, seeking to help lift up the moral and human dimensions of the choices facing voters and candidates”.

Let’s return now to today’s gospel. When real troubles befall us, it’s usually when we decide to go it alone, when we don’t trust in God and won’t entrust ourselves to work things out with those who share our faith in God. We are not being human at all when we push the community of faith aside to go our own way. God made us for community, fashioned us to live in community, and did not create us to be alone.

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The question of the week: When has an experience of hardship helped you to approach God with childlike wonder and trust?

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ORDINARY 26 - October 1, 2006

Opening the doors wider
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Num 11:25-29 ; Jas 5:1-6 ; Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

The southern Italians have a saying that might help us get a handle on today’s liturgy: Quanno ‘o peducchio saglie ‘ngloria, perde ‘a ragione e ‘a memoria. ‘O peducchio, literally, means “louse”, a parasite.

So the adage says, “When a freeloader comes into his glory, he loses his mind and his memory”. Once living off the good graces of everyone, the rascal now has no time for anybody. It’s a colorful way of saying we should never forget where we came from.

With that in mind, let’s go back to the disciples and the way Jesus deals with their indignation. Forgetting that they too were once “nobodys”, the disciples are miffed that mere common folk are intruding on their territory. They are under the delusion that the work of salvation is reserved to them alone. Their feathers are ruffled. They want Jesus to put a stop to this flagrant assault on their authority as his disciples.

Jesus gives them another way to look at things: “Whoever is not against us,” he tells them, “is for us”. Listen again: “Those who are not against us, are for us”. Are you seeing that something’s wrong with this picture? Have you figured out what it is?

It seems like Jesus has misplaced his copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. He’s got that quote backwards, doesn’t he? We know how it really goes: “If you’re not for us, you’re against us”. Jesus must have it wrong. He’s definitely misquoting here!.. Or, then again, maybe not. These are Jesus’ words. We are quoting him; or better, quoting him incorrectly.

We turn Jesus’ words around; we misquote them to justify our awful tendency to exclude. We twist these stunning and demanding words into a weak and ugly excuse for turning people away, for labeling them as outsiders, for refusing to acknowledge their value in our company.

And all the while, here is Jesus coaxing us to make our judgments more broadly. He encourages us to put aside our self-importance and open the doors wider, to become much more inclusive and to exclude a whole lot less of the time.

We reflect this month on the dignity and sacredness of all human life. Our world is plagued with a disdain for human life. It is not confined to one or another phase of life. From the abortion clinic to the battlefield, blood is spilled like water, as if human life can be kept or tossed away in accord with our viewpoint, or our personal interests. From the womb to the threshold of the grave, we see price tags put on human life, as if the value of someone’s life rises or falls on our assessments, or on how that life helps or hinders us.

We must come to see and to admit how we, in our own ways, contribute to this culture of death whenever we devalue others and over-inflate ourselves. Each time we insist on getting on our way, no matter what, or whenever we treat others as objects to obtain our own ends, we put another bullet in the gun of the culture of death. Our private behavior can model the same attitudes, in far yet serious yet contributing ways, where having a child can be avoided no matter what or new life can be destroyed in pursuit of personal goals. We deny the irrevocable value of the human person when we beat down sinners as if they were the sin, and put another bullet in the gun of the culture of death.

We cannot say one thing and then do another. Can those who in their personal life use intimidation, or are hostile or cheer on violence then go and protest at an abortion clinic? Can we act contrary to life’s sanctity in our daily dealings and be credible when we stand up for the right to life? When we foster or tolerate a climate in society where people cannot dialog, or discuss or even argue civilly, but can only meet disagreement by crushing the opponent with verbal attacks, we do not uphold and protect the value of the human life, but only degrade and erode it.

Our question of the week asks us to think of times when we have found Jesus where we would least expect him.

People often bring to a priest what they can’t bear to bring anywhere else. They come to me weak and ashamed; they come, hiding from the harsh judgments of others. But they often come in one valiant attempt to recover something good in all that has been damaged, to search for some path out of the darkness and back into the light. They come wanting to do for themselves what Jesus has come to do for us all, to save what is lost, to lift up what has fallen, to breathe life into the places of death. They come to me looking for Jesus. I find Jesus in them.

The disciples discovered others doing nothing other than what Jesus had done. Yet, they could not see Jesus in what those others had done. They had fixed their eyes only on themselves. Let’s not any of us ever forget where we have come from. If the Lord has found room in his embrace for the likes of us, then even more should we spread our arms; even more should we fling our doors wide open.

It’s only the scoundrels, only the ungrateful, who lose their minds and their memory when they come into glory.

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The question of the week: When have you encountered Jesus outside the Mass, in an unlikely person or event?

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ORDINARY 25 - September 24, 2006

Living by the rules
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Wis 2:12, 17-20 ; Jas 3:16—4:3 ; Mk 9:30-37

We have very penetrating scripture passages for our liturgy today. And there is a penetrating question for us to ponder this week, coming straight from today’s gospel passage: “When have you struggled between following the world’s rules and Jesus’ command to be last, a servant to all?”

I’m not sure the question is an occasion for me to share an engaging story from my personal experience. It is, though, an opportunity to admit how difficult it is for me to prepare homilies for you with the way things are going in our society these days.

This week, a group of us – our search committee – interviewed an applicant for our new position of Minister for Adult Formation. This poor fellow had a pat answer for every probing question we presented. Every response included a quote from one book of the Bible or another. It was as if he wanted to make sure he got no arguments from us. Predictably, there is still no announcement about a new hire.

The approach to life that always looks for simple and unquestionable answers to life’s complicated realities is not only a sad thing; it is much too typical. Fundamentalists thrive on it. And fundamentalists are thriving in today’s culture. I often hear how they frequently bombard you and even our youth. Truth be told, though, you don’t find fundamentalism, whether religious or political, rooted in confidence or faith. When you scratch the surface, you find only doubt and fear.

The disciples in today’s gospel are deathly afraid about their future. Yet, ironically, their only real security is walking right in front of them. They aren’t worried for each other; they don’t care what befalls anyone else. They just want Jesus to tell them that all will fare well for them ‘in the great by-and-by’.

We do the same thing. We are involved in a war. We console ourselves with a view that it’s not happening here. It’s as if the troops that fall slain or return to us wounded are not our own flesh and blood. It is as if those others who suffer the violence with them have fallen off our radar screen as brothers and sisters in Christ. The mantra has become, “As long as I’m Ok; as long as we are safe”.

We sing today at Mass, and in our liturgies, “We are the body of Christ”. We sing in Spanish, “somos el cuerpo de Cristo”. In Spanish or English, in Latin or Greek, we are supposed to mean what we are singing. It is our oldest tradition as Catholics, and we should not let anyone cause us to veer from it: Whenever there is an assault on any human person, on any member of God’s people, a wound is inflicted on the Body of Christ! That is our rule.

As I said, with the “rules of the world” as they are, preaching can be a difficult thing to do nowadays. There is so much pressure on all of us just to conform, to keep our mouth shut, not to raise difficult questions, to let others do our thinking for us and even to tell us not to think, not to trust each other in a genuine search for what is right and what is wrong.

That’s why Catholics set aside the month of October to reflect on the dignity of human life, and on our duty to uphold that dignity when it’s convenient and when it’s not. That’s why we start this month at Saint Gabriel’s an ongoing series of “voter registration weekends”. We have an obligation to bring our values as Christians to the ballot box.

You will notice that those behind our voter registration booth are there only to serve your needs – to register to vote or to vote absentee. There will be no one there to tell you how to vote, or to say, “Elect this candidate if you’re really Christian, or if you want to stay Catholic”. There will be information from our Bishops on faitfhful citizenship, a duty that is ours. There will be no partisan politics dressed up in sheep’s clothing. A major reason: that would cost us our tax exempt status, a good enough reason in itself.

But it is much more than that. It is so you and I can exercise our duties as believers without fear. It is so we can do our duty without the fear of being labeled conservative or liberal, or being fingered as disloyal, without someone talking down to us as if we cannot think, or as if we do not know how to pray or work together as children of God to do what Jesus asks us to do: serve the needs, and uphold the value of all God’s children and of all God’s creation.

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Question of the week: When have you struggled between following the world’s rules and Jesus’ command to be last, a servant to all?

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ORDINARY 24 - September 17, 2006

Actions are the best teacher
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Is 50:5-9a; Jas 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35

It’s clear from today’s gospel that the idea of a question of the week has been around a lot longer than we might think.

But, we shouldn’t think that Jesus poses his question as an icebreaker. I don’t deny that it’s difficult to sit and discuss our faith, especially with people who know us well. I also know it’s harder when we get stubborn and insist that my faith is nobody else’s business but mine. Yet, it’s a safe bet that Jesus wants more than faith sharing here.

“Who do you say that I am?” Take that question to heart, and it does more than to start people talking; it can actually start a revolution. Let’s put the question in context, and take it apart some to see how.

Jesus begins by asking what other people are saying. Then he makes the question more pointed: “What about you?” he asks.

Now, I’ll admit, that sounds like a point for the “faith is a private matter” team. Jesus doesn’t say (in Northern style), “Whadda yous guys think?” or (in Southern style), “Whad’ y’all have to say about it?” It’s clear: Jesus isn’t looking for a compiled response.

Jesus wants a response from each disciple. Yet, he doesn’t say, hold those answers until we can speak one-on-one. So, the question isn’t private; but it sure is personal.

It wasn’t too long after I came to Saint Gabriel’s that parents were telling me that their kids enjoyed my preaching. In all honestly, I couldn’t figure why, except that my roly-poly stature is good material for passing time while I ramble on. But that wasn’t the reason. The parents said it was the fact that I actually talk about Jesus.

The disciples could only answer Jesus with rhetoric because they had not yet walked in his shoes. He tells them to keep their notions about him to themselves, not to be secretive or private, but because their faith had not yet come to maturity.

Knowing Jesus fully would only come to them gradually, only as they would find themselves where Jesus could always be found. Their knowledge of Jesus would grow only as they became vulnerable, as he was vulnerable – with those who could not do for themselves, for the ones who had no voice, who had no champion, until they found their voice in Jesus, until they had their champion in Christ.

Today is catechetical Sunday. Our bishops tell us that the best way to learn faith is to do faith. With his question about who he is to us, Jesus is telling us the same.

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Our question of the week: When has your faith in Jesus made you vulnerable to God and/or to others?

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ORDINARY 23 - September 10, 2006

God leans close to us
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Is 35:4-7a; Jas 2:1-5; Mk 7:31-37

It’s amazing to me how the message of the gospel is always so universal and so timeless. What’s not so surprising, though, is how people often don’t hear the gospel speaking to their situation right here and right now. That’s because it takes a little extra effort to unlock the connections.

When Jesus finished with the deaf man, the fellow could hear what he had never heard before. And more than that, he was able to speak clearly; finally, others could hear and understand what he had to say. That must have been the greatest part of the miracle for that fellow: now he could be heard and understood.

Take a quiet moment and imagine not being able to speak. Try to imagine it (Pause). It’s hard to picture, isn’t it? We take the ability to talk for granted. Many of us, in fact, never stop talking. We just can’t conceive of opening our mouth and having nothing, or just a bunch of garbled sounds come out.

But, then again, most of us do have experiences just like that.

What about when we argue? Very often, neither party is hearing what the other is saying. There’s the nightmare of child-rearing gone amuck because a parent secretly craves a child’s approval and admiration. Eventually, the kid can only hear select words, like “yes” and “oh, alright” and can’t say much more than “I want” and “why can’t I?” or “you better let me”. It saddens me, as another example, to see a marriage crumble because words are spoken and heard, but deep emotions and critical needs are never exchanged.

So, we do know what it’s like not to be able to speak. And there are many examples of not hearing what’s being said. Deafness and speech impediments aren’t just physical disabilities.

This brings us to our question of the week: What people or events have opened (or continue to open) your eyes and ears to the gospel message? You’ll find it in the bulletin and, soon, we’ll have these weekly questions on our website.

I have a friend who is a therapist, and an expert on effective communication. She once showed me how differently I feel if the person I’m speaking with leans toward me a bit, and lightly puts a hand on my arm or shoulder. It helps me feel connected. It assures me that what I’m saying matters, that my feelings are valid, that I make a difference. It also helps the other person be attentive, pick up on my feelings and let me know that I’ve been understood.

What Jesus does with the deaf man, he comes to do for us all. Jesus is God, leaning in closer to us. Jesus puts his touch to our hearts; and we can hear God’s love as we’ve never heard it before. With the same touch, as the clear sounds of God’s love fill our ears, Jesus loosens our tongue so we can speak love more plainly than we ever have before.

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ORDINARY 22 - September 3, 2006

Being faithful faithfully
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Go back for a moment to last week’s gospel. There was a parting of ways. Many people concluded that Jesus wasn’t the Messiah they wanted him to be. So, they pulled up stakes and went their separate ways.

Some do not leave. Like faithful troopers, they hold their ground and remain with Jesus. While others walk away, they stand firm.

Right at that point, Jesus comes out with one of those questions that make you wonder what’s really going on. He wants to know, from the very ones who remained, if they are leaving too. Now, what kind of question is that?

This week, we are going back to what we call “the question of the week”. It’s been so long since we’ve done that, that I should say “the question of the year”. At any rate, we raise a question from the weekend scriptures. And we ask you to carry it home with you, to mull it over during the week.

Believe it or not, many parishioners have been successful in going one step further. They use the question for a weekly discussion among the whole family, or with their spouse, or with friends or neighbors. Our leadership people use it for a reflective discussion to start parish meetings.

The question is a tool to help us tell and share the stories of our own faith adventures.

The stories show us how faith is at work in us, even when we might not realize it. They also help us recognize how Jesus and his Spirit are present and active in everyday events and experiences.

This question this week is to think about, and discuss, a time when you have acted not so much out of sincere love for God, but more for the sake of appearances, or out of guilt or obligation. When have you acted out of a concern for appearances, obligation or guilt rather than out of sincere love of God?

As your pastor, I struggle with that tension frequently. I might have a gut feeling about what could be good for the parish, but I worry about how people will react. My first inclination is to avoid upsetting people and then having to listen to their complaints. It’s a lot easier just to make people happy and stick with the status quo. I have to remind myself that I’m not in a popularity contest. Then I’m able to bite the bullet and set about doing what I believe can truly bring you to a deeper place with your faith.

Jesus doesn’t pose an absurd question of those who remained. He tells them, and us: it’s not enough just to be here; the aim is not to look like we’re being faithful. When he hears that answer, “Lord, where else would we go?”, he wants us to know that faith is not a pretty word for desperation; it is rooted always in hope.

Jesus is very demanding. He refuses our lip service. He scorns any play acting at faith. But in his demands, there is wisdom and hope for us all. If we don’t live faith from our hearts, where God planted it in us all, we keep faith from ever changing our hearts, or the hearts of anyone else, at all.

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ORDINARY 21 - August 27, 2006

We do to do more
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b ; Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32 ; Jn 6:60-69

On Sunday afternoon, Eva and I will meet with the heads of all our liturgical ministries. Among the practical items I want to cover, I will emphasize that nothing is more important than the Eucharist we celebrate each weekend. Done well, the Eucharist directs our life as believers.

The gospel passage for today’s liturgy follows the passages where Jesus speaks of becoming Eucharist for the people. The people find those words hard to take. No doubt, Jesus has confused them. Much more than that, he leaves many of them terribly disappointed. So disappointed that they withdraw and sever their ties with Jesus.

They wanted a Messiah; but only on their own terms, only in keeping with their expectations. Like all of us at times, they counted on a Savior to be there doing for them.

This Messiah speaks of becoming food and drink for them. He talks of having them become one with him. He’s using the language of a partnership. In this arrangement, they will not be the demanding clients, but colleagues and associates with Jesus in the work at hand.

Like us as well, these people were hoping for a go-fer, someone to do their bidding for them. The only item on their side of the agenda was to get saved; taking part in the work of salvation was not part of the deal for them.

When I say nothing is more important than the Mass, I don’t mean that carrying out a ritual trumps everything else we do. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be a church; we’d be a cult.

When we come each week to eat the bread that is Jesus, when we drink the wine that is his blood, we’re doing what only leads to doing something else. It’s not our aim to sit and grow lazy from what we eat; we don’t drink to doze off into a stupor. This time together is nourishment time. That is never an end in itself.

We frequently end Mass without a hymn. Please don’t ask when that will stop! Please stop thinking of our liturgical music as a gun that starts the race, or a whistle that signals half-time or a flag that marks the finish line. Our songs are not sign-posts; they are prayers.

Too often, in the safety of our gathering, the verses of our music come too easily to our lips. Truly prayed, and not just sung, the words are hard to intone. They set in motion a melody that we must carry away from here. We must make bold to chant our psalms and hymns out there…where lofty tunes are much more difficult to sing, where the songs of salvation will often fall on deaf and even hostile ears.

We do indeed need this Mass. This Mass, our Mass, never lets us forget just how much depends on you and me, on all of us together: nourished by the Lord, set apart for the Lord, joined as one in service with the Lord.

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ORDINARY 20 - August 20, 2006

Make the most of it
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Prov 9:1-6 ; Eph 5:15-20 ; Jn 6:51-58

Since late spring, we’ve been having the joy of welcoming one child after another to join us at the Lord’s Table for the first time. Each first communion is a happy and touching reminder to me of the youthful vitality of God. I hope they are the same for you, putting us back in touch, whatever our image of God might be, with how God’s desire to unite with us, and God’s delight in us, never grows old.

As you know well enough, if we are not careful, life can end up being just one series of lost opportunities after another. I’m not talking about the chances we miss for material advancement. I mean how being negative, or disgruntled or self-absorbed can put a barrier between us and those really great events and moments that we end up missing altogether.

Listen to Paul’s warning to today. And take his words to heart. “Be careful about the way you are living,” Paul says. “Don’t be foolish; wisely make the most of the opportunity”. I truly believe that if Paul were around today he’d put that advice into words something like this: “Cool it and get a life, or else life will pass you by”.

The grumbling that erupts in today’s gospel might sound foreign and irrelevant to you at first. Actually, it’s a perfect case in point. The whiners are hung up about how Jesus can possibly do what he said he would do. The fact is, however, Jesus hadn’t said a word about doing anything.

Jesus is offering to be something for them, something phenomenally good and valuable. Jesus is telling them about everything he is willing to become for them. And the fools miss the whole point. Their ship has just come in and is about to leave without them, and these know-it-alls are standing on the dock arguing about whether wood can float.

There is nothing more phenomenally good and valuable for you and me to do than come together for this Eucharist every week. If you’re foolish, you’ll come with your antennas tuned to grab whatever you say makes it something less for you. If you’re wise, you already know that antennas like that also block out the many frequencies where the truly good and valuable parts are happening.

It’s not that we ever really change the settings on our antennas. The settings we wear to Church are the same we carry everywhere else – in marriage, with the kids, at work, with friends and neighbors, in our politics and in the very way we live, day in and day out. The opportunities are always there for God to enter in. Whether that ever happens is a choice we make, foolishly or wisely, for ourselves and for others as well.

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ORDINARY 17 – July 30, 2006

When enough is enough
By Father Pat Apuzzo

2 Kgs 4:42-44; Eph 4:1-6; Jn 6:1-15

As products of our own culture, we rarely know when enough is enough.

I don’t mean that culture teaches us to go overboard with patience and restraint. If anything, our fuses get shorter and shorter as culture models all the wrong ways to get things done. Regrettably, we glamorize rudeness and applaud a hot temper while we see civility and self-control scorned as flaws and weakness.

But this is not what our liturgy addresses today in terms of the idea of recognizing when enough is enough.

The crowds misunderstood Jesus. This is why Jesus has tried to avoid the crowds. They so easily miss the point of what he says and what he’s come to do. They want something from Jesus that he has not come to give. They are so convinced of what they want to have, they won’t let Jesus show them how much they’ve already been given.

Listen to the disciples. They suffer from that same set of symptoms of not knowing when enough is enough. “There’s not enough money,” says Philip, “to buy enough food to give these people enough to eat”. Then Andrew chimes in: “There’s a kid here with some bread and a couple of fish. But to feed this mob? It’s surely not enough!”

This past week, 17 of our youth took 7 days away from their summer vacation to go work among the poor in Petersburg. Some others from the staff and I went down there to visit them on Thursday. We went to each of the 17 houses where they and their crew mates were doing everything from minor repairs to replacing ceilings and floors, putting in railings and ramps, building closets and sheds and painting entire exteriors.

(Invite forward any of the 17 present)

When our youth came to them, the residents of those 17 houses witnessed a miracle. And not one of them missed the point of it.

Many of them sick and elderly, they’ve lived for years with dingy walls and chipped paint. Holes in the ceiling and sagging floors are second nature to those troopers. The material improvements pleased them to no end, of course. But that’s not what astounded them. “These children are a blessing,” each of the residents said, each with welling eyes and the broadest smile I’ll ever seen. And there was the miracle.

It wasn’t in nails, or fresh plaster or a bright coat of paint. It’s not about how many loaves of bread, or the money it takes to buy enough fish. It’s in the hope we have from Jesus, and the hope we pass along.

When that hope is enough for us to have, it will always be enough for us to give. It was enough for 17 of our youth; it was more than enough, with much left over, for the residents whose lives your children, our children, touched with their care and with their love.

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ORDINARY 15 – July 16, 2006

Taking what we need
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Jesus sends them out, two by two. This is no incidental detail in the gospels.

We say more and more that faith is not a matter of the head. I know that my head can swell from time to time. Usually, though, there’s not enough room in my head for anyone else but me. The same for you; there’s only room enough in your head for you. That’s why faith can’t stop in the head. It has to move to the heart where there is room for others. Faith is about our relationships with others.

When I turned on the TV this morning, there was more bad news about the escalating crisis in the Mideast. I could not help but think back to when none other than the Holy Father himself, Pope John Paul II, warned about all this.

He wasn’t a politician, or a military strategist. He pleaded with our administration, “If you go into Iraq, you will destabilize the entire Mideast”. And here it’s happening just as he warned. The pope was speaking from his roots in the gospel; the shepherd called to be prophet. We heard about the treatment of prophets last week. As an expression of gratitude for the Pope’s advice, his emissaries weren’t allowed into the White House.

Jesus does not send us on a complicated mission. We make it complicated: “We are going to need this; we can’t go without that.” And then we add in all the things that we claim Jesus told us to accomplish: “We must give the world this; we must provide the nations with that and endow the world with this other thing.”

We need but one thing to take with us: the love that Jesus has given us. We have but one thing to provide: that same love that we now share with each other. We go two by two because there is no other way to take along love and then to give love than to do that together, as those bonded in love. This mission is nothing anyone does alone.

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ORDINARY 14 - July 9, 2006

Surprises for us all
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Even if we wanted to know, how would we determine whether or not we suffer from a lack of faith?

I’ve heard people suggest that when you have faith, you don’t grieve or crumble at the death of someone you love; or, you don’t get frightened or panic at the news that you or someone else is very, very sick. There are about as many rulers to measure faith as there are people who feel compelled to judge the faith of others.

Take, for example, the fanatics that lurk around in every community. Some call them “zealots”, a term that is much too complimentary in my estimation. They are the one-issue folks. Their cause will always be the only, one true cause worth your efforts. See what happens if you try to avoid climbing onto their bandwagon. Or, worse, take a shot at inviting them down off their high horse. Wham! They zap you with the usual sharp put down.

Their message is always the same: They possess faith in large abundance; your faith, on the other hand, combined with two and half bucks couldn’t buy you an eight ounce cup of caffè latte.

There’s another brand of faith evaluators. They say things like, “That parish isn’t very Catholic: they don’t kneel enough; they aren’t somber enough; they actually talk to one another before Mass begins; their facilities don’t look enough like a church.”

The message here remains the same: I have true faith; those guys over there don’t have any faith.

Never be fooled by another person’s spiritual weakness puffed up into moral superiority and neatly disguised as a challenge to your faith. Don’t ever be intimidated by what is only sanctimonious, and never let its smugness play-act in the role of genuine faith. We should recognize, above all, that those with genuine faith don’t call attention to themselves.

We should also be aware that when there is a true lack of faith, it’s usually because other things have taken the place of faith. Those substitutes for faith are the very things that we often mistake for faith; or they are what some people try to pawn off to us as faith.

From the remarks they make, there’s no doubt that the hometown critics of Jesus saw themselves as the epitome of those who have real faith, and lots of it. Jesus knew they were filled with a whole bunch of something – maybe self-assurance, maybe self-satisfaction, maybe self-righteousness. But, whatever it was, it sure wasn’t faith.

How did Jesus know? How did he figure it out?

Jesus had been preaching to them the way a prophet preaches. He wasn’t revealing or foretelling the future. He was pointing at, and opening up for them new directions, here and now. His teaching was packed with the surprises of the Spirit in store for those who trust God, and who find in that trust a real boldness and bravery for living.

But the hometown acquaintances of Jesus had no interest in any of that. They were quite content with themselves just as they were.

Faith is a willingness to venture out, to go where we’ve never been before. It is the courage to put aside those props and postures and pretenses that we’re so used to employing just to get by, just to survive.

Faith promises much more than survival. It holds out more than overcoming grief, more than accepting an illness, more than solving a pressing social issue, more even than becoming a perfect parish or a perfect Church or a perfect nation or a perfect world.

Faith holds out to us a way to discover and unleash new possibilities in every situation and for every person.

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ORDINARY 13 - July 2, 2006

We've been given life to give life
By Father Pat Apuzzo

There are a number of significant parallels between the two healings in today’s Gospel. They give us insights into where Jesus is directing the Church and its ministry.

In both cases, the ones who need Jesus are women. In addition to the stigmas already assigned to them because of their gender, these two women are both objects of further cultural and religious exclusion. One is bleeding and the other is dead. That makes both of them unclean. They are not to be touched by anyone. Finally, neither would have ever given birth to a child, one for the cause of her bleeding, lasting 12 years; the other because of her young age, 12 years, when she died.

It is the task of the Church to follow the lead of Jesus.

Jesus does not construct reasons or compose justifications to exclude any person from the circle of his love. He walks through prejudice; he pushes discrimination aside to make himself available to all. Jesus places no obstacles between himself and others, and he does not show deference or patience to those who do.

Jesus comes to no one simply to heal or to revive. He is neither a doctor nor a wonder worker. He gives what he brings not for us to have more, but so we’ll have more to give. He brings us back to life, not to live for ourselves alone, but to restore in us the ability to bring forth life.

This week we celebrate our history as a nation. Let it be a time to assess and pledge ourselves anew to the role we should play in that history. Let us make and keep a promise to be a Church that provides the leaven in the bread of our society.

Let us take the lead from Christ Jesus, teaching and urging, by word and action, a way of life that embraces, takes in and makes a home in the heart for every person.

Let us do more than mouth our allegiance to God, but as sons of daughters of God, let us stand up with God as the champions of life at all its stages and the enemies of death in all its forms.

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ORDINARY 12 - June 25, 2006

Awake to the presence of Jesus
By Father Pat Apuzzo

It has become routine, almost a craze, to bring God or religion into just about any conversation. Just when actual Church involvement is rapidly declining in this country, our nation is suddenly swamped with experts on every moral issue under the sun.

I wonder anymore, for example, why we continue to spend big money on theology degrees for lay leaders, and for our deacon and priesthood candidates. It would make more sense to get them passes to sit in on one or two sessions of Congress. Or, we could force them, for several hours a day, to watch those so-called “news networks” on cable TV.

Imagine how fluent they’d become in empty-headed religious gibberish. Think about the skills they’d gain in splitting moral hairs. In just a few months, with little effort at all, they too could pass themselves off as authorities on God and religion and all things upright and holy.

Here is the challenge of today’s liturgy: There’s nothing new, and certainly nothing virtuous in calling out God’s name in times of trouble, controversy and upheaval.

On the other hand, it takes real faith to awaken the presence of Jesus, quietly asleep in the ship of our stormy lives, and make our way confidently to shore.

When he wakes, Jesus does not flatter or praise us for putting our problems in his lap. He never applauds giving lip service to faith.

We live waiting for someone else to act. We panic and wring our hands in desperation for someone else to grab hold of the controls. No one could ever blame us. It’s all out of our hands. Nothing is ever our fault. Someone should write a law, or pass an amendment. Get the right party in place! Give us the perfect candidate! That should calm the storm; that will set us safely back on course.

And when the storm was over, Jesus asked them: “Why were you terrified?” Did he mean they should have rebuked the storm by themselves; on their own?

No; not at all. Jesus wants them to believe; not just to say they do. Had they awakened, in themselves, the strength that was theirs from the Lord, they most certainly could have rebuked that storm, and it would have been rebuked and it would have gone calm.

It is one thing, again, to shout out the name of Christ; or even to listen, frozen in our seats, to the howling storm of voices doing the same all around us.

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CORPUS CHRISTI - June 18, 2006

Communion is the end of isolation
By Father Pat Apuzzo

On the Feast of the Holy Trinity, last week, we reflected on the fact that our lives and the life of God are totally and intimately bound together. With today’s feast, we can see that the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, challenges us to let our unity with God and with each other make a difference.

The more modern living and society go their own way, the more we see that our weekly Communion is really something very radical. It’s counter-cultural, to be exact, because it goes against the grain of the isolated lives we live day in and day out.

Yet, we must make the connections. We must let the Body and Blood of Christ bind us together. Our Eucharist cannot be just another meeting of many persons, but detached and isolated persons.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the people who bolt out of Mass right after Communion each week. Do you ever wonder what could possibly be so important, week after week? If it’s that critical, you might think, why don't they get an extra edge and make the mad dash before Communion? Or just go straight from home to that next big thing on the agenda?

Isolation is the culprit. The "next big thing on the agenda", and the Communion they wolf down before they leave, those things are about them. They aren’t about us.

Many, too many, in our culture have come to see real horrors as commonplace and acceptable. They have come, for example, to speak of the horror of abortion as nothing more than “a required medical procedure”. Is this really any wonder, in the same society where two weeks ago we heard someone bashing victims of the 9-11 terrorism and then admired because her vileness "will sell books"? Or, just this week, a representative of the Administration characterizes the thousands of soldiers slain in Iraq as “just a number”, and no one flinches? Or, many aren't even aware that the remark was made? Is it any wonder?

Isolation explains it. It is isolation that breeds a culture where there is no view but mine, no perspective that isn’t what I see and no experience other than my own.

Ah, but the Body and Blood of Christ, is not given just for you, or just for me. Jesus pours out himself, he hands himself over “for the many”.

There we have the end of isolation.

Jesus is not there just for me, or to fit my agenda, or to make my point, or to better my life, or to foster my candidate, or to uphold my rights to my body, or to my freedom or to my liberty.

Jesus is here for us all.

There is the beginning of Communion.

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HOLY TRINITY - June 11, 2006

Endowed with who God is
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Imagine a community of persons, bound together in pure love. In as much as pure love binds them, the circle of their love is never broken and yet it is also never closed. Its doors are flung perpetually open. Others enter freely, drawn into the ever expanding circle and made to belong and be at home there forever.

This is the Trinity we celebrate today. It is the mansion of God’s heart where countless rooms stand ready to receive an endless throng of adopted heirs. It is the household of Christ, where everyone has a place.

Grounded in pure love, once again, God’s aim is to give what belongs to God to those whom God loves. We are the recipients, not only receiving what God has, but endowed with who God is.

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PENTECOST - June 4, 2006

So much well done; so much better yet to do
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Pentecost is traditionally a birthday celebration. There was a time when there was no Church rooted in Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate its coming to be; we mark the anniversary of our birth as that Church.

As with any anniversary, we look back. We take in all that has unfolded since our beginnings. We reminisce; and we also take account of ourselves. We assess the good as well as the bad, with an eye toward progress and improvement for the future.

The Spirit of Pentecost, we say, is given to comfort us. Comfort has, oddly enough, come to signify making things go easily and smoothly. It conjures up images of coziness, safety and contentment. The heart of the word comfort, though, is fortitude, which is a term for the kind of strength that provides courage, boldness and endurance.

The Pentecost Spirit, which pours out on us from Jesus, is no sedative. Its effect is not to lull us into smugness and complacency. There is still much more to do, and more to do much better than we do it now.

We know, too, that the Pentecost Spirit is not given to trigger hallucinations. We dare not go tripping off to conquer the world and all its woes when there are battles yet to win in our own hearts, within our own households and among ourselves as a faith community.

Today we open ourselves to let the Spirit of Jesus be our Advocate, to go to work with us and within us. We turn to that Spirit for valor, so we can truly make an honest assessment of ourselves. We ask for sensitivity, to know and feel the pain we cause with contradictions, through blindness and because of fear. We pray for, and promise to use bravery, not only to extend welcomes and open doors, but to work hard to let nothing block those entries and to make those welcomes stick.

The Pentecost Spirit goes out to what has been driven apart, scattered and torn asunder to draw it back to wholeness, to mend and to repair it and to fasten it back together with strength and durability. Endowed with that Spirit now, we should not and no longer have to settle for anything less.

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ASCENSION - May 28, 2006

No mission in the clouds
By Father Pat Apuzzo

The strangest thing takes place in today’s scriptures.

Yes, Jesus rides out of sight on a cloud. Yes, he takes a seat at the right hand of God. This is all extraordinary; it’s more than astonishing. Yet, none of it tops the surprising event that takes place beforehand.

Before all this, numerous reports are streaming in from a variety of sources. All accounts claim that Jesus is back from the dead. Even so, the apostles don’t buy a word of it.

The Risen Jesus eventually gets to the apostles. When he arrives, he’s not exactly a happy camper. He is clearly ticked off with them, and he let’s them have it with both barrels for their failure to believe.

We’re not at the strange part yet. This is certainly not the first time Jesus has it out with obstinate apostles.

The really strange part is this: Jesus is no sooner done with scolding the apostles that he’s sending them out for ministry. He doesn’t skip a beat. He doesn’t ask or wait for a profession of faith. Jesus commissions the apostles, then and there, their mule-headed approach to faith notwithstanding.

Faith comes when we put our beliefs into action.

If the faith of the apostles had waited on weighing all the evidence, you and I would not know Jesus today.

Today, on the Feast of the Ascension, we extinguish the Paschal Candle. It isn’t a stand in for us; it cannot take our place. It does not burn to replace the flame the must catch fire and blaze in your heart and in mine.

We must practice the words we proclaim here. We must live the sacraments we celebrate here.

There is no mission for us up there in the clouds. The Lord seems distant and out of reach only if we hang back and keep the challenges of faith at arm’s length.

There is no next step. Nothing remains to be seen, or known or better understood. The Risen Jesus is with us here and now.

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EASTER 6 - May 21, 2006

The Spirit among friends
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Friendship is for grown-ups, not for kids. Children and the young have buddies, playmates or companions.

Only as we grow older do we begin to understand the full meaning of friendship. Only adults, truly mature and well put-together adults, are capable of being and worthy to be approached as true friends.

True friends know that the friendship is not about me and what I want, or what I think I need, or how I want you to feel about me; it’s about you and your best interests. Good friends count friendship to be a deeply appreciated privilege and they take on friendship as a profoundly solemn responsibility.

Jesus calls us to be his friends. That means our faith is not kids stuff. In calling us his friends, Jesus also calls us to friendship, true friendship, as a way of life. That means we bring ourselves to every relationship with the attitudes, decisions and actions that belong to people whose faith is well-developed and mature.

All of this means that personal agendas don’t rule for us. That doesn’t happen by itself; we have to make it happen. We have to choose to put our agendas down, and look at others with the eyes and heart of Christ.

This is something to stop and ponder, that the Spirit that Jesus pours out on us is friendship.

Remember that this Spirit has been given to you. You have it, and it’s yours to use.

Ponder it as a spouse, especially when times get rough, and things might be drawing you somewhere else. Use your spirit to be a friend. Ponder it as a parent; don’t settle for being a buddy to your kids, fearing the loss of their respect and frantically seeking their admiration. Muster up your spirit and be their true friend. Ponder it in the workplace, ponder it at school, ponder it in your political opinions and ponder it in your moral choices.

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EASTER 5 - May 14, 2006

Fruit for all, all of the time
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Today is Mother’s Day. I wonder how many might know how Mother’s Day got started. Like me, you’ve heard the claim that greeting card companies cooked it up as one more money-maker.

The theory sounds credible. For example, the pure economics of it – with so few priests around - surely explain why we don’t have a “Reverend Father’s Day”. In all seriousness, I’ve never been comfortable with such a cynical origin for Mother’s Day. So, I went and looked it up.

You’re not going to believe what I found out: Mother’s Day was started by a group of mothers.

Now, gentlemen, don’t run off to cancel your high-dollar reservations for Sunday brunch, say, at Aunt Sarah’s or Cracker Barrel. Hold just a bit. The holiday didn’t start as an act of self-importance and pride.

Mother’s Day was started in 1870 as a protest against the carnage of the Civil War, by a group of women whose sons were killed in that war. Here is an excerpt from the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870:

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts… Say firmly...
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”

As today’s liturgy illustrate, we are, each and every one of us, branches on a vine. Not some of us, or just a few of us, but all of us are meant to bear fruit.

Despite the trends of today’s society and culture, the kind of fruit we bear is not a matter of a multitude of personal choices: there is only one vine. Although we are millions of branches; we grow off a single vine and we bear a common fruit.

Jesus is the vine; he gives life to all the branches. That same life is the fruit of this vine. Life is the crop we are supposed to yield for others to harvest.

Too many branches are poisoned by what’s useful or popular. For them it’s only life sometimes. They put forth life for some; they hold it back for others. You hear them prize life in one instance, only to forsake life somewhere else. In one set of circumstances, revering life’s sanctity is a duty; in others, it’s just a flip of the coin or, even, something shameful and dishonorable.

It is not like that with life on the vine of Christ. From that vine it is all life, all of the time; from its branches life comes for all and for everyone.

Let us remember, as we mark this Mother’s Day, that it began as a protest in favor of life over death.

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EASTER 4 - May 7, 2006

We teach Jesus
By Father Pat Apuzzo

I met last Sunday afternoon and evening, as I do each month, with our Middle School and then with our High School youth. I come at the end of their monthly religious formation sessions to take and respond to questions from our youth.

Their questions are always refreshing because our young people are inquisitive and they pay attention to important issues. Their questions can get tough. This is often the case, especially when the issue is complex and the answer isn’t and shouldn’t be too simple.

Most questions about faith, like those I hear from our youth, begin with, “What does the Church teach about…this or that?” or “What does the Church have to say…about one or another issue?”

Today’s liturgy reminds us that all our responses to the “what?” questions about faith have to live and breath in the context of questions that begin with “who?” Before the first believers taught anything else, they taught Jesus; and they taught Jesus for who he really is – the keystone, the cornerstone that comes, not from among the favored and accepted stones, but the very stone that was rejected.

It cannot ever be only what the Church says or what the Church teaches. It must always be, both in the giving and in the receiving, first and foremost, who the Church teaches.

We teach Jesus here. We come here to learn Jesus. We go back outside, to our children, to our loved ones, to neighbors, to friends, to classmates and co-workers, to strangers and even to those we might fear and despise, and we teach Jesus to them.

We teach Jesus who is not merely the shepherd, but the one shepherd who is not like all the rest. We teach Jesus, not the hired hand who does for himself, but the trusted friend who is always on our side, who takes up our cause at all times and at any cost, who will never let us down.

We teach Jesus here and wherever we go, not simply by saying what he might say, or even by doing what he might do – but by saying whatever we say as he would speak it and by doing everything we do as he would carry it out.

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EASTER 3 - April 30, 2006

Jesus comes looking for us
By Father Pat Apuzzo

Who is it, that to this day shows himself to us in the breaking of the bread? What timeless words of his can still set our hearts on fire?

I read a footnote that says, in the entire gospel of Luke, the word sin does not appear once that it isn’t followed immediately by the word forgiveness.

The Risen Lord is the same Jesus who has pursued us all along. Even on the other side of his own death, Jesus comes for us. He let’s nothing stop him. Nothing stands in the way of getting to us.

Jesus comes looking for us. He finds us on the road. There he sways us in the right direction. He persuades to take the right path. Jesus does not track us down with vengeance and punishment. He pursues us with forgiveness, mercy and love.

This is our weekend to focus on social outreach. It is not enough to wait for those in need to pursue us. Jesus comes to find us in our moments of uncertainty and despair. So, too, he sends us after those who are desperate and disheartened to overwhelm them with attention, care and hope.

We, because of the Lord and just like the Lord, have nothing to fear. Nothing should stand in our way.

Our parish will not crumble tomorrow, or months from now, if we continue to extend some help today to a devastated parish in Mississippi. We will, as faith tells us, see our own faith become all the more durable.

If, in time, we partner long-term with a church in Haiti, it will not deprive us of the buildings and the programs that we might think we deserve to have first. It will, though, provide the only sturdy foundation upon which to build such things.

Just as we know Jesus in spoken word and broken bread, so can others come to know the Lord as we extend our care to them and as we open our hearts to them.

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EASTER SUNDAY - April 16, 2006

A future that's wide open
By Father Pat Apuzzo

In the earliest account of the Resurrection, from Mark’s gospel, two women come and discover the tomb empty. Here is how Mark describes their reaction:

“…they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

That’s how the story ends. No triumph, no joyful shouts; just panic, commotion, fear and silence. What kind of ending is that? It’s no ending at all.

During Lent we told and listened to many stories from the scriptures. Every story comes from the past. Each took place long ago, with people now long gone.

So, you could say our Lenten reminiscing is over. It would be good now to have a little closure for Easter.

Do you notice how important closure has become these days? A statue topples in Baghdad and, “crash”, all wickedness and corruption are behind us forever. Closure. We sentence a criminal to death and, “poof”, the loss is over, the damage is undone, the broken lives fall back together. Closure. The decision to abort a child, or to launch an attack, or to cut off funds, or to shut people out or shut them up – they all have their downsides, of course. But, above all else, they give us closure.

The Easter story isn’t as simple as all that. Again, there’s not much closure with an empty tomb.

On Thursday, Holy Thursday, a five year old girl sat in her wheelchair in a Boston courtroom. Sitting in front of her was the young man whose bullet had paralyzed her. She cried and cried, and then she took a sip of water. She looked at her shooter and said, “What you done to me was wrong