Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101815.cfm

Throughout Sacred Scripture, we can find numerous examples of God telling His Church how to live a life of holiness. We should always give thanks to God that whenever He gives us these commands and instructions He always gives us examples that we can live by. Sometimes it's the example of Christ’s life, other times it's example of someone from a Bible story, and other times it's the lives of the saints.

Today's readings remind us that to be a great leader means that we must give of ourselves to those we lead. This requires self-sacrifice. The Prophet Isaiah talks about the coming of the Messiah and that He will give “His life as an offering for sin”. The Gospel also gives a clear foreshadowing of Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion and warns the Twelve that they too will share in His “cup” and in His “baptism”. This leads to Jesus’ final point which is, “whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all”.

Christ is of course the prime example of what it means to live a life of self-sacrifice. And, as I already mentioned, God also give us the example of lives of many saints who gave their lives as a sacrifice for God and for others. I would like to talk about a couple of those saints.

Gianna Beretta was born near Milan, Italy in 1922. She grew up in the Catholic faith and later attended medical school. She graduated with a doctorate in medicine in 1949. She opened a clinic and soon became well known as a superb doctor and pediatrician. She was also well known for helping organize retreats and talks in local parishes and for reaching out to local youth. She married a man named Pietro Molla in 1955 and their new family began to grow from there. Three children were born to them over the next four years, but after that she sadly lost two babies before they were born.

In 1961 she was pregnant again and after two months she began experiencing pain. It was discovered that she had a tumor in her uterus. Such a tumor can result in complications which can be a risk for both the mother and the child. Gianna had a few options. One would be to have a hysterectomy and remove the uterus along with the tumor. This would of course lead to the death of her unborn child. Such a choice would be morally acceptable since the operation would be directed at saving the mother's life and not at ending her child's life. Gianna elected not to do this, but instead had surgery to remove the tumor while allowing the child to remain in the womb. Such a procedure was risky for both child and mother, but Gianna insisted that the surgeons do whatever was necessary to preserve the child's life. The surgery was successful and on Good Friday, April 20, 1962, Gianna Emanuela was born by c-section. Dr. Gianna's life began to deteriorate quickly after that. She developed an infection that medicine of that day was not able to combat. She died seven days later. Little Gianna Emanuela grew up to become a doctor like her mother and was present at her mother's beatification in 1994. St. Gianna is remembered today as a wife, mother, doctor, and a pro-life witness. She died making sure that her daughter would have life.

Another saint who is a great example of self-sacrifice is St. Maria Goretti. Another Italian saint, Maria was born in 1890. Her father died when she was just ten years old, but she continued to help her mother with the farm they lived on and helping with the care of her younger siblings. Mass and the Sacrament of Reconciliation were of great importance to her, and she went to both on a regular basis even though the church was a two-hour walk away.

The Goretti family lived next to another family called the Serenellis who also worked as tenant farmers on the same farm. A son of that family was named Alessandro. During his teenage years he read a lot of violent and impure articles in newspapers. When Alessandro was twenty and Maria was only eleven, he began making advances towards her. Maria never gave in though, knowing that what he was suggesting should wait until marriage.

One day in July of 1902, everyone was working in the fields while Maria watched over her sleeping baby sister. Alessandro sneaked back to the house and grabbed a knife. No one else was at the house, so he grabbed Maria and tried to force his way with her. She was more afraid of Alessandro's salvation, then her own safety. She said, “No! No! No! What are you doing? Do not touch me! It is a sin – you will go to Hell!” Alessandro began stabbing her with the knife, at least fourteen times. Her cries for help could not be heard because of farm equipment being used in the field, but her baby sister awoke and began to cry. Alessandro hid himself as adults realized something was wrong and ran to the house. Doctors tried to save her, but couldn't and she died twenty hours later. On her deathbed she forgave Alessandro and prayed that he would repent. Her chief concern was for Alessandro even then. Alessandro was arrested and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He spent the first eight without remorse or regret for what he had done. One day he had a dream in which Maria appeared to him in a field of flowers as she held out white lilies to him. He finally repented begged God's forgiveness. On Christmas Eve, 1937, Alessandro visited Maria's Mother and begged her forgiveness. She said she could hardly refuse since her daughter had been so willing to forgive as well. They then attended Midnight Mass together. Maria's Mother was present at Maria's canonization in 1950.

St. Maria sacrificed herself rather than to succumb to impurity. She sacrificed herself to save Alessandro from impurity as well. St. Gianna sacrificed herself so that her daughter could live. Both of these modern day saints teach us what it means to sacrifice oneself for the love of God. They followed in the footsteps of Christ and have shared in His baptism. They were servants on earth, but are now great in Heaven. May their prayers and examples lead us to Heaven as well.

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100415.cfm

We all have many different traditions in our lives. Some of them involve family traditions, especially around birthdays and holidays. Even meals at those celebrations can have traditions connected to them. There are community traditions connected around events and celebrations. Even parishes have certain traditions that are unique to them. As a priest, I have learned that there are a great number of different traditions at each parish that I have been involved with. I have also learned that it is important for me to understand those traditions and respect them. I shouldn't come barging in and change everything just because I think I know how to do things best. In fact, I've gained a great deal of knowledge and wisdom simply by observing various parish traditions over the years.

People in general seem to like traditions. We like that we can look forward each year to a certain way of doing things. We can't help but think of all the memories of the past and we hope and pray that we can repeat the positive memories and avoid the negative ones. In an otherwise constantly changing world, is good to have those reliable traditions to fall back on.

Unfortunately, even traditions eventually come to an end. When I was growing up, my family had a tradition of getting together with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins for Christmas and Easter. Now that my cousins are married and have children of their own, making my aunts and uncles grandparents themselves, the old family traditions have changed and have been replaced by new ones. Some of you may have experienced similar changes in family traditions.

Community traditions end and change as well. As a community grows or shrinks and as other dynamics of the community change over time, traditions may gradually change to adjust to the community. The same can be said of parish communities too. We have all been going through quite a bit of transition over the last two and a half months as we have been clustering. Already we have had to change a few traditions in our parishes, but my hope is that the majority of our traditions remain the same. My point is that traditions can and do sometimes change.

God is of course the one thing in the entire universe that never changes. The Earth is always changing. Even rocks can erode over time and be shifted around. The universe is still expanding, meaning that the stars we see at night will look very different a million years from now. But God is constant. His love and mercy never change. Because God is Himself so unchanging, He also made certain things which He intended to be true from the beginning of time until the end.

Jesus speaks specifically about one of those truths in the Gospel for today. He is talking about what we call the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. “From the beginning of creation”, Jesus tells us, “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” He refers to the very same passage that we heard in the first reading from Genesis. He is saying that from the very beginning, the Sacrament of Marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman. He is also talking about the permanence of marriage. Both of these statements fly in the face of what our society has been telling us. Many think it is okay to get married outside of the Church; many think that you can get a divorce and remarry as often as you like; many have come to believe that same sex marriages are good and the way of the future. But these readings show that God clearly has a interest in marriage (otherwise He never would have said anything about this topic), that it should be in a Church so that God can bless it, that it is meant to be a union that is for ever, and that it is meant to be between a man and a woman. Some things change in the world, but this teaching has not. It has been from the beginning.

Another truth that has not changed with the passage of time is the truth of respecting life. Sacred Scripture has a lot to say about respecting human life, and so the Catholic Church has long promoted respect for all human life from conception until natural death. October is respect life month and many people around the country are involved with 40 Days for Life and are praying outside of abortion clinics. When we say “respect life” in a Catholic Church, I get the impression that most people think of working to end abortions, but I would encourage us to keep in mind that we are called in other ways to respect human life as well. For instance, euthanasia is considered moral wrong, and the Catechism argues against the use of capital punishment. We are also called to respect the dignity of the human person. That means helping the poor and disenfranchised; helping the jobless to have jobs and workers to be given proper rights. It means visiting the sick and imprisoned. We don't have to all physically do each of these things, but we do need to support them and not try to stop our neighbors from doing their part either.

We are also called to take care of our common home. As you may know, Pope Francis released his latest Encyclical, called Laudato Si, this last May. The opening words in Latin are, “Laudato si, mi Signore”, which means, “Praise be to you, my Lord”. These words were taken from St. Francis of Assisi's famous prayer, “The Canticle of the Sun”. The Feast of St. Francis is October 4^th. As this encyclical clearly shows, our Holy Father not only shares a name with the famous saint, but also a deep desire to care for the Earth that God has given to us. We are asked to look at how can we avoid wasting our natural resources and avoid putting harmful chemicals into it.

Again, none of what I have talked about is anything new. It isn't a change from out of the blue. God has been asking this of us from the beginning. Yes it can be a challenge, but God is asking us to meet this challenge with faith in Him and with a love for others.