The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph

One time when I was a little boy, I said to my father, “Won’t it be exciting to see the year 2000?” Dad said, “Maybe for you, but I won’t be around to see it.” He explained that he would have to live to be 85 to see the year 2000 and that he didn’t expect he would make it. I reminded Dad of that conversation in 2009, on his ninety-fifth birthday. That just reminds us of how hard it is to know what the future will be like. The year 2000 came and went, and we still do not have the flying cars that we pictured as part of the future. On the other hand, hardly anyone saw how modern technology would change our lives, with cell phones, the Internet and the like.

As we prepare to enter a new year, we realize that the coming year is still a mystery. That is particularly true for us priests with On Mission going on in our diocese. But whatever happens, we have the promise of Christ that He will be with us always. That is why I always find it fitting that the new year begins at the Octave of Christmas. We are still celebrating the birth of Christ, even if all the stores are now promoting “after Christmas” sales. Our society tries to make the festive season start earlier and earlier each year, with the result that we are ready for Christmas to be over by December 26. But in the Church we go through a period of preparation called Advent that is not yet Christmas. So now that we have celebrated the big day, we realize that it is not just one day. This is our time of celebration. This is our time of recognizing that Christ our Lord came to share our human nature for our salvation.

At this time of the year, I often like to make the point that we do not have a God who is so far above us that He makes impossible demands upon us. Rather, we have a God who shared our humanity and who thus knows first hand what we go through. That point can be a good starting place for meditation as we prepare to begin a new year. When we have any difficulties over the next twelve months, we know that God understands our struggles and is there to help us. When good things happen, we thank God for His blessings and His support.

There are many ways to dedicate the new year to Christ. One is to recognize that January 1, as the Octave Day of Christmas, is the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. We are excused from the obligation on that day when it falls on a Monday, but for anyone who would like to come to Mass, we will have Mass at 9:00.

Another way I like to dedicate the new year to Christ is in prayer right at midnight. I was never much for New Year’s Eve parties when I was younger, so when I was ordained I had the idea of going to church for prayer right at midnight. I decided I would offer that same opportunity to parishioners one year, although I guessed that only one or two people would show up at that time – that anyone who was staying up had a party to go to. That again shows that it is hard to make predictions, for we had a nice gathering that first year and every year thereafter, in whatever parish I have been in. That time of prayer has developed into an annual New Year’s Holy Hour, with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and prayers and readings related to the time of year. So I invite you to join us in church at 11:30 Sunday night, at which point we will give thanks for all of God’s blessings in the past year and to place the upcoming year in His hands.                                   

                                                                                                    Father H  

Fourth Sunday of Advent - December 24, 2017

Christmas, they say, is a time of miracles. So rather than trying to offer a spiritual or theological reflection, I would like to offer a true story from about 2002 or 2003. You are welcome to take a spiritual insight from this story if you’d like, or to see it as my Christmas miracle. At the time, I was pastor of Guardian Angels Parish in the West End. Guardian Angels is now part of St. Philip, which is part of our “grouping” in On Mission for the Church Alive.

As a background, I learned as a young boy serving mass that each priest had his own chalice, and it seemed that a priest’s chalice was an expression of his own personality. When I first started thinking of the priesthood, I thought a red chalice would be a good expression of the Blood of Christ. When I was in the seminary and getting close to ordination, I saw a chalice that I knew was what I wanted. It was a hammered gold with a black onyx node around the middle. I had just ordered that chalice when the priest who had first inspired me to the priesthood, Fr. Robert Murphy, told me that he wanted to pay for it so that it would be his ordination gift to me. In my first two assignments, I used that chalice for just about every mass. In my third assignment, I was in a merged parish with four different churches, so I got in the habit of using it only on Sundays rather than carrying it to a different church every day. I did the same at Guardian Angels, where we had two churches. Then I had a chance to buy a red chalice from a seminarian who had decided not to continue to the priesthood. I could then keep one chalice (the gold one) at our St. James Church and the other (the red one) at our St. Martin Church.

On December 18, one week before Christmas, I went into our St. James Church in the afternoon to set up for a Penance Service we were having that evening. When I got into the sacristy, I found a total mess. Someone had broken in and taken whatever he thought was of value. The chalice Fr. Murphy had bought me for my ordination was gone. We called the police, but I had very little hope of ever seeing that chalice again. One of my parishioners said she was praying to St. Anthony and that she was confident I would have it back for Christmas, but I didn’t get my hopes up.

At the time we had some Franciscan Sisters living in the former St. James rectory, and one of them was doing some last minute decorating in the church on the morning of Christmas Eve. There was a back hallway that we never used, and there was no reason for her to go back there. But she decided to see if any Christmas decorations might have been stashed there. Something shiny caught her eye, and she bent over to find my chalice. I suspect that the thief was walking out when someone came in to pray. He must have figured that it would be hard to explain why he was carrying a chalice. What was he going to say, “Someone said I could have this”? So he apparently threw it into the hallway and ran out. Meanwhile, there was no reason for Sr. Margaret Ann to go back there on Christmas Eve, but I think that St. Anthony must have pushed her in that direction.

I still use both chalices, but I will definitely use the gold one on Christmas. When you see it, know that I am very thankful for my own Christmas miracle. With that story, I offer my wishes to all of you. May you have a blessed and joy-filled celebration of Christ’s birth. And if God sends you a Christmas miracle, may it help you to remember how truly blessed we all are.                                      

                                                                                             Father H                  

Third Sunday of Advent - December 17, 2017

When I was younger, I always loved when Christmas fell on a Monday. It makes for the shortest possible Advent, which made Christmas seem to come faster. Christmas may always fall on December 25, and in a year like this Advent simply doesn’t start until later. But to my mind, a shorter Advent made it seem like Christmas was coming faster.

Today we light the rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath and wear the rose-colored vestments. We call this Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin word for “rejoice.” It is a day when we begin to feel that Christ’s coming is close. This year, with the short Advent, Gaudete Sunday is also the day when our attention shifts from preparing for Christ’s second coming to preparing for our celebration of Christmas. With Christmas just over a week away, we can start to feel the excitement.

As part of that preparation, please do not forget that we still have the Fourth Sunday of Advent next weekend. Recently word has been getting around that Catholics could be excused from the obligation of attending the Sunday Mass since they would then have to go to Mass on consecutive days (or perhaps even twice in the same day for those who attend a Christmas Vigil Mass). The Diocese of Pittsburgh sent a letter to every priest reminding us that no such dispensation has been given. Only the bishop can give such a dispensation, as would be the case with something like a major blizzard such as we had in 2010. No such situation is present simply because Christmas falls on a Monday.

I feel rather odd saying that one must go to Mass on Sunday. With Christmas coming, I would hope that we are not thinking of our faith in terms of obligations. It would be as if a husband were to ask if he had an obligation to buy his wife a Christmas present. I would rather hope that their relationship would be such that he would be eager to get her whatever he could. Particularly with the major feast of Christmas coming up, we should want to prepare as much as possible for the joy of welcoming Christ into our world.

Meanwhile, you will see our church looking more festive by that point. As I said, the focus of the season of Advent, in the prayers and readings, is now on preparation for Christmas. So while we are not yet at Christmas, we can begin to put up preparations in anticipation. I can think of two analogies to use. On the one hand, it is like a couple expecting a child. When they get to the ninth month of pregnancy, they generally have purchased the crib and everything they need, and the baby’s room is all set up. So while we are not yet putting out flowers or turning on the lights, notice those things that are soon going up. Think of how close we are, and consider what we can still do to prepare for Christ’s coming. The other analogy is of decorating our own homes. When my older siblings were young children, my parents would come home from Midnight Mass and only then put up the tree and all the decorations. By the time I came along, that was a bit much for them, and they had it done ahead of time. So when our committee wondered how they were going to do everything between next Sunday’s 11:00 Mass and the 4:00 Vigil Mass, I said there was no reason why they could not get a head start.
                                   
                                                                                                      Father H                 

Second Sunday of Advent - December 10, 2017

One memory that comes to my mind frequently at this time of year is of the Christmas tree we had when I was a child. In addition to the tree, we had an HO scale train set complete with a miniature village. Dad had made a large platform for the train, which we kept in the basement most of the year, hidden away in the back room that had originally been the coal cellar. To set it up in the living room, we had to clear out the area around one full wall. There were things we had to do without, and the living room still got a little cramped for that time, but it was worth it. And occasionally my parents would realize that there were some things that were simply cluttering up the living room that we could do without altogether. Setting up the tree platform became a time to get rid of some things that we were better off without.

Advent is a time of preparation. We are not only preparing for the holiday called Christmas. We are also preparing for the coming of Christ, both in the celebration of His birth and in preparation for His second coming at the end of time. In Advent, then, we try to rearrange our lives to make room for God to be more completely at the center of our lives.

Advent is not Lent. Lent is our penitential season, while Advent is more a time of preparation. Yet as my parents would find some things to throw out when preparing to set up the platform, so our preparation should help us find aspects of our lives that do not fit with our faith and our vocations to live holy lives. Thus there is a penitential aspect to this Advent season. So while we do not have the same penitential practices as in Lent, and while we do not ask one another what we are giving up for Advent, still it is important to ask God to “clean up” our lives during this season of preparation. The best way to do that, of course, is through the sacrament of Reconciliation, commonly known as Confession.

Among the opportunities for Confessions during Advent, our parish is taking part in the diocesan event, “The Light is On for You.” Twice each year, once during Advent and once during Lent, the diocese asks every parish to have Confessions on the same evening. Between 6:00 and 9:00 this Wednesday, December 13, you can go to any parish in the diocese and know that there will be a priest available for Confession. Part of the idea is that Catholics have a wide choice of confessors. Some people are comfortable going to a priest they know. Others, however, are a little nervous talking to someone they know. One good way to get over that nervousness is to go to a parish you do not belong to. On Wednesday, you know that priests are available all over the diocese.

An option such as we have on Wednesday can be particularly helpful for those who have not been to Confession in a long time. I hope we can encourage people to come back to the sacrament. Some of the best Confessions I have ever heard have been of people who have not received the sacraments in years. Some have committed serious sins, and some have just gotten out of the habit. In either case, it is an indescribable joy to see the person come to a deeper understanding of God’s merciful love.
                                               
                                                                                           Father H                   

First Sunday of Advent - December 3, 2017

The season of Advent is the beginning of the Church's liturgical calendar. Thus the First Sunday of Advent could be considered the equivalent of New Year's Day. We may not make this our time of resolutions, but we certainly can consider it as a time of new starts and fresh opportunities. So I would like to take a look at some of what can be new with this year. Some things are big, and some are small, but the new year is the unifying theme.

One change you will notice right away concerns our hymnals. We are no longer using the two volume series in which the front portion is changed several times a year. The Breaking Bread books are a single volume that will last the entire year. They contain almost all of the hymns we have used, and they have all of the Sunday and holy day readings. They will serve our purpose, and they save us money over the multi-volume edition. In fact, since the new books do not use the blue covers, we are saving more money. The blue covers are designed to last for several years, and we have certainly gotten our mileage out of them. They were wearing out and falling apart. However, and these new books save us from buying new covers.

Speaking of saving money, I will admit that I can be cheap at times. One example comes with the prayer we have been saying for the On Mission for the Church Alive initiative. When the diocese gave us the prayer and told us to pray it at Masses, I had copies made while we inserted in the blue covers. Meanwhile, a number of people complained that the prayer was too long. The diocese gave us a new, shorter version. I didn't want to waste the cards we had printed. Yet even with the blue covers, many of the cards have been misplaced. So with the new hymnals, we had to find a new way to keep the prayer available. Just when we were discussing possibilities, I found an office supply store that was closing. I took advantage of the going-out-of-business sale to get a good price on self-adhesive labels. That gives is an opportunity to start using the shorter version that most of the diocese is using. There are a few distinct differences, so please pay attention to the labels stuck onto the front cover.

Before too much of this new year goes by, we will be making a major upgrade to our sound system. As I write this, we are still not sure of when the new speakers will be installed. When it happens, though, I am confident that it will be easier for more people to participate fully in the Mass. I certainly hope that those who attend Mass in the cry rooms come out into the main body of the church. We should all come together as a single community, which is not as easy when some of our members are in a separate room.

Most importantly, this year will be the time for On Mission to take its next big steps. In April, Bishop Zubik will make the official announcement. In October, the new clergy assignments will take effect. There is a chance I may be part of the new configuration, though I strongly suspect that I will be going elsewhere. In the meantime, I will be praying that the Holy Spirit can guide the process, helping Bishop Zubik to choose good priests for our grouping, and giving me an assignment where I can best use my gifts in service to the Church.
                                                                                              Father H                 

Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe - November 26, 2017

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. That’s a real mouthful, so let’s just call it by its common title of Christ the King. As important as this feast is, there are some interesting facts behind it that can give us an insight into what the feast is all about.

First of all, this seems like an obvious celebration for our Church. Jesus spoke frequently of “the Kingdom of God” and let it be known that He was the one to bring about this Kingdom. He is clearly our Lord and Savior, fully divine and fully human, and it is through Him that the Father created all things. Thus it should be obvious that we acclaim His as our King. So it may surprise us to learn that today’s feast is relatively new, less than 100 years old. Pope Pius XI instituted the celebration of Christ the King in 1925. Pope Pius was concerned with the rise of secularism and atheism in the society. If that was a concern in 1925, imagine how Pope Pius would react to our age. In a world where our culture tells us to keep our faith to ourselves and that does not want us to influence public policy, we can reflect on Pius’ words, “If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth... it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God.”

When Pope Pius created this feast, he put it each year on the last Sunday of October. In 1969, Blessed Pope Paul VI moved it to its current place in the calendar, on the last Sunday of the Church’s year. Next Sunday begins a new year in the Chard with the start of the season of Advent. That seems appropriate because the Church traditionally takes the end of the year to reflect on the end of time. While we believe that Christ’s death and resurrection truly instituted the Kingdom of God in the world, we also see that the kingdom will not be fully realized until the end of time, when Christ will return and when He will join us to Himself in the eternal glory of heaven. Until then, this feast represents our certain faith in Christ’s victory over sin and death.

As we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, I remind you of the opportunity to spend some time in Adoration of our Lord in the Eucharist. We will have Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament after the 11:00 Mass until the solemn Benediction at 3:00. Please join us to worship our Lord and King.

Finally, as I was double checking on a few of the details of this column, I also found a little bit of trivia that I leave you as a bonus. A number of Protestant churches have picked up the feast, and the Church of Sweden informally refers to this feast as “Sunday of Doom” since it reminds us of the last days when the world comes to an end. Furthermore, there is a statue of Christ the King in Swiebodzin, Poland. That statue holds the record for the largest statue of Jesus in the world. It is listed at 33 meters high, one meter for every year of Jesus’ earthly life. That puts it three meters taller than the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I don’t know if that means anything significant, but you may be able to use it to impress your Catholic or Polish friends.
                                                       
                                                                                                Father H                 

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time - November 19, 2017

In the Peanuts comic strip, Charles Schulz did a series of strips in which Snoopy was so caught up in the beauty of the world that he just had to dance. In the midst of it, Lucy – ever the fussbudget – criticized him. How could he dance with so much trouble in the world? Snoopy paid her no mind but just went on dancing. Finally, after Lucy had offered her criticism, Snoopy stopped and sat down. Lucy said, “I’m glad you finally came to your senses.” After she walked away, Snoopy said, “It wasn’t that. I stopped dancing because my feet hurt.”

There is a little bit of Lucy in each one of us. Sometimes life weighs us down. It is easy to see the problems and struggles of life. It is easy to focus on the things that are wrong. But sometimes we need to be Snoopy. How often do we take time to recognize the blessings? How often are we so caught up in the beauty of the world that we just have to dance – or sing or laugh or whatever we do to express our joy?

This week we celebrate Thanksgiving. There are great rituals associated with this holiday. They involve eating so much that we fall asleep on the sofa while watching football. But let us not forget what this holiday is truly all about. This is our opportunity to give thanks to God for all His blessings. Giving thanks is not a way to appease God as though we were worried that He might get mad if we forgot Him. It is rather a way of accepting His gifts for what they are, signs of His love. By being grateful, we see His love in every moment of our lives. In that way, we take a cue from one of the Prefaces that we use for the Eucharistic Prayer for weekday masses: “For although you have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness but profit us for salvation.”

In my own prayer, I sometimes use a rather silly image to help me recognize how important gratitude is. I imagine trying to thank God for every gift we have received. I would start with each breath I take: “Thank you for that one, and for that one, and there’s another one.” And in the midst of it, I would begin to notice each beat of my heart. In fact, I would get so caught up in thanking God for those basic signs that I would never be able to move, and I would thus miss the opportunity to thank Him for every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine. The serious lesson I draw from that image is that we are so surrounded by God’s gifts that we cannot possibly thank Him sufficiently. But in trying to do so, we move from Lucy to Snoopy. We keep our difficulties in perspective to see that, above all and in spite of anything else we might face, God’s love and protection are with us.

For me, I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with my sister in Virginia. I will be gone this whole week, but please know that I will be keeping all St. Malachy parishioners in my prayers in a special way, for the opportunity to serve this parish is one of the gifts for which I am most grateful. So happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And if you take this holiday seriously, then be like Snoopy and dance until your feet hurt.
                                                                                           Father H