SENT AS AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST TO GO ABOUT DOING GOOD

Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord

He went about doing good and healing those oppressed

 by the devil, for God was with him.

Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38

2020 is a very special year for me. I will be celebrating my 50^th anniversary as a priest. I was ordained right here in this Cathedral at the hands of Archbishop McDonough fifty years ago this coming May 16. (Yes, we will have a celebration here at the Cathedral that weekend and you are invited.)

As important as that ordination is for me, it is not as important as this year’s 76^th anniversary of my baptism at the hands of my country midwife grandmother, right there is the bed a few minutes after she helped me come into this world on April 28, 1944.  This year is also the 66^th anniversary of my Confirmation at the hands of Bishop Maloney, down in my home parish in Rhodelia in 1956. Here, I am reminded of something Bishop Maloney used to say all the time. “My baptism was more important than my ordination as a bishop!”  

What is so special about my own special three days, is that they are the days when I committed myself to “going about doing good” and “healing those oppressed by evil,” as the Acts of the Apostles said about Jesus.  Let me be clear! These three anniversaries are not some personal sentimental nostalgic moments, they are days when I made serious commitments that I plan to keep, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death do I part – the commitments to “go about doing good” as an ambassador of Christ! In the same sense, your baptisms are more important than your marriages!

In a few minutes, I will baptize another beautiful baby.  Today this baby will commit to be a partner with Jesus in “going about doing good” and “healing those oppressed by evil.” The baby’s parents and godparents will speak for this child and teach this child to honor this commitment until Confirmation when she will personally take over the responsibility to live out this commitment.

Why do we baptize infants? We baptize infants because the practice of infant baptism has been a consistent tradition in the Church, both in the East and in the West, since the very beginning. It was challenged, of course, during the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th century when the practice of adult or “believer baptism only” was adopted. That was  just 400 years ago. The practice of infant baptism precedes that by about 1500 years. 

  

The Scriptures, of course, say very little about infant baptism because the New Testament Scriptures were written at a time when adult Jews and Gentiles were being converted to Christianity. However, there are several passages in Scripture where we are told that “whole households” were baptized. The stories about Stephanas, Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer are cases in point. The language of the New Testament was Greek and the word used when “whole households” were baptized is oikos which has traditionally included infants. There are no examples in secular or Biblical Greek of the word oikos being used which would restrict its meaning only to adults.  

Even more amazing are some of the extent writings outside the Scriptures. Hippolytus, in his manuscript “Tradition of the Apostles,” writing 1800 years ago, only about 100 years after the Gospel of John was written, describes, in detail, a typical baptism in 215 AD.  It is amazingly close in detail to what we will do here again today. Listen to his 1800 year old description of a baptism.

At dawn a prayer shall be offered over the water. Where there is no scarcity of water the stream shall flow through the baptismal font or pour into it from above. If water is scarce, then use whatever water is available. Baptize the children first; and if they can speak for themselves, let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them. Next baptize the men and last of all the women.

It goes on to describe the anointings, the rejection of Satan and the profession of the Creed.   Remember, he is describing the way baptisms were celebrated in the church 1800 years ago!

Writing a few years later, Origen wrote this:“The Church received from the Apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants.” For the Apostles…knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit.” 

What we do here today is not very much different from what was done at baptisms very, very early in the church: rejection of sin, profession of faith, the pouring of water, anointings for men, women and children in the presence of a congregation!

Let me point out a couple of things that are especially important in the baptismal ritual. (1) Even though parents and godparents “speak for the child” in infant baptisms, they are asked point blank, “Do you accept the responsibility of training the child in the practice of the faith?” The emphasis is on training the child in the practice of the faith! How sad it is when parents and godparents bring their children for baptism without themselves practicing the faith or being seriously committed to training the child they present for baptism in the practice of that faith! It can be a lie of sorts, especially when they stand there holding that baby while they publicly renew their own baptismal vows! (2) We do this baptism in public, in the presence of the whole community, because we are all responsible to be that supporting community where the Christian ideal is lived out and in which this child will be raised. In that sense, there is no such thing as a “private” baptism.

(3) When the child is anointed on the top of the head with the perfumed oil called chrism, the same oil used in the coronation of kings and queens of old and used even today to anoint the hands of priests when they are ordained, poured on the heads of bishops when they are consecrated and used to anoint the baptized at Confirmation, they are designated as royal children of God and royal heirs to his kingdom.  

(4) The words used when a lighted candle, taken from the big Christ candle, is handed to the parents is quite pointed. “Your child has been enlighted by Christ. He or she is to walk always as a child of light. This light is temporarily entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. We pray that, someday, he or she will still be carrying that light when they go out to meet Christ along with all the saints.”

Finally, my fellow baptized members of the church, as we bring yet another member into the church through baptism, please pay attention to the questions I asked the parents and godparents. Think of your own baptisms. Think of the times you have served as godparents. Was it just a cute ceremony or was it a real commitment to “go about doing good” and “heal those oppressed by evil” as our second reading today put it? Let’s use this day, and this occasion, to recommit ourselves to “go about doing good” and “healing those oppressed by evil” realizing that in Baptism “God is with us!”

DUCK BEHAVIOR

There is a pond in front of my condo that always seems to have geese, ducks, cranes, turtles and a few small fish doing their living. They supply endless entertainment and a good outlet for all my stale bread and old cereal. 

Geese are dirty, aggravating animals mostly - especially when they "do their business" everywhere they walk and begin honking at sunrise. I tend to forgive them in the spring when their goslings are born. These babies, usually five to seven of them, follow their geese parents everywhere they go. In turn, their parents never let their little goslings out of their sights. It is a beautiful sight to see every spring. As it is with all parents, it's amazing how fast the little ones grow up! 

Ducks, on the other hand, seem to me to be more interested in breeding or playing-hard-to-get. It is not uncommon to see a female duck trying her best to avoid the unwanted advances of male ducks. I don't know a whole lot about "duck love," but it sometimes appears that ducks "mate for life." This seemed to be validated recently when I looked out to see these two (husband-wife or girlfriend-boyfriend) ducks swimming together in the pouring rain, touching one minute and avoiding each other the next. It was a ballet of "can't live with you and can't live without you" movements!  

As I watched them, out there in the pouring rain, I was reminded of something my mother used to say to us kids when we seemed oblivious and clueless. Reaching the peak of her frustration, she would shout, "You kids haven't got sense enough to come in out of the rain!" As I watched the ducks that day, I stood there wondering if "duck love" doesn't do that to ducks? 

MY NEW PATRON SAINT FOR MY WORK IN THE ISLANDS MISSIONS

SAINT MARTIN de PORRES

Since retiring five years ago, I have worked in the Caribbean Missions as a volunteer, fund raiser, collector and distributor of goods to the poor, procurer of surplus medical supplies, supporter of orphans and abandoned children, whether Catholic or not. In the Caribbean Missions, where I volunteer, there are many poor people of mixed race backgrounds. 

The other day, I was reading about the life and work of Saint Martin de Porres. I decided, then and there, that he would be the Patron Saint of my Catholic Second Wind Guild. 

Juan Martin de Porres Velázquez was born in the city of Lima, Peru on 11 December 1579. He was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Don Juan de Porres, and Ana Velázquez, a freed slave from African Native American descent. He had a sister named Juana de Porres, born two years later in 1581. After the birth of his sister, the father abandoned the family. Ana Velázquez supported her children by taking in laundry. He grew up in poverty and, when his mother could not support him, Martin was sent to a primary school for two years, and then placed with a barber/surgeon to learn the medical arts. He spent hours of the night in prayer, a practice which increased as he grew older.

Under Peruvian law, descendants of Africans and Native Americans were barred from becoming full members of religious orders. The only route open to Martin was to ask the Dominicans of Holy Rosary Priory in Lima to accept him as a donado, a volunteer who performed menial tasks in the monastery in return for the privilege of wearing the habit and living with the religious community. At the age of 15 he asked for admission to the Dominican Convent of the Rosary in Lima and was received first as a servant boy, and as his duties grew he was promoted to almoner.

Martin continued to practice his old trades of barbering and healing and was said to have performed many miraculous cures. He also took on kitchen work, laundry, and cleaning. After eight years at Holy Rosary, the Prior Juan de Lorenzana, decided to turn a blind eye to the law and permit Martin to take his vows as a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic Holy Rosary was home to 300 men, not all of whom accepted the decision of De Lorenzana: one of the novices called Martin a "mullato dog", while one of the priests mocked him for being illegitimate and descended from slaves.

When Martin was 24, he was allowed to profess religious vows as a Dominican lay brother in 1603. He is said to have several times refused this elevation in status, which may have come about due to his father's intervention, and he never became a priest. It is said that when his convent was in debt, he implored them: "I am only a poor mulatto, sell me." Martin was deeply attached to the Blessed Sacrament and he was praying in front of it one night when the step of the altar he was kneeling on caught fire. Throughout all the confusion and chaos that followed, he remained where he was, unaware of what was happening around him.

When Martin was 34, after he had been given the religious habit of a lay brother, he was assigned to the infirmary, where he was placed in charge and would remain in service until his death at the age of 59. He was known for his care of the sick. His superiors saw in him the virtues necessary to exercise unfailing patience in this difficult role. It was not long before miracles were attributed to him. Martin also cared for the sick outside his convent, often bringing them healing with only a simple glass of water. He ministered without distinction to Spanish nobles and to slaves recently brought from Africa. One day an aged beggar, covered with ulcers and almost naked, stretched out his hand, and Martin took him to his own bed. One of his brethren reproved him. Martin replied: "Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness."

When an epidemic struck Lima, there were in this single Convent of the Rosary 60 friars who were sick, many of them novices in a distant and locked section of the convent, separated from the professed. Martin is said to have passed through the locked doors to care for them, a phenomenon which was reported in the residence more than once. The professed, too, saw him suddenly beside them without the doors having been opened. Martin continued to transport the sick to the convent until the provincial superior, alarmed by the contagion threatening the friars, forbade him to continue to do so. His sister, who lived in the country, offered her house to lodge those whom the residence of the religious could not hold. One day he found on the street a poor Indian, bleeding to death from a dagger wound, and took him to his own room until he could transport him to his sister's hospice. The prior, when he heard of this, reprimanded him for disobedience. He was extremely edified, however, by his reply: "Forgive my error, and please instruct me, for I did not know that the precept of obedience took precedence over that of charity." The prior gave him liberty thereafter to follow his inspirations in the exercise of mercy.

Martin did not eat meat. He begged for alms to procure necessities the convent could not provide. In normal times, Martin succeeded with his alms to feed 160 poor persons every day, and distributed a remarkable sum of money every week to the indigent. Side by side with his daily work in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary, Martin's life is said to have reflected extraordinary gifts: ecstasies that lifted him into the air, light filling the room where he prayed, bilocation, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures and a remarkable rapport with animals. He founded a residence for orphans and abandoned children in the city of Lima.

Saint Martin de Porres, please ask God to bless our Caribbean ministry through the efforts of the Catholic Second Wind Guild. 

DRIVEN BY A HUNGER AND THIRST FOR GOD

                                       

In the days of King Herod,  

behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,  

"Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled. 

Matthew 2:1-12

I suppose different things might jump out of this story for different people. If you are an immigrant, for instance, you might focus on the inclusion of foreigners from the East in the Christmas story. If you are poor, you might focus on the gifts - what they're worth and what Mary and Joseph did with them. If you are a mental health professional, you might focus on the paranoia of King Herod. If you are a police officer, you might focus on the evasive tactics of the magi. As a spiritual seeker, you might focus on the curiosity and courage of the magi. As a spiritual leader, the curiosity and courage of the magi as spiritual seekers is what always jumps out for me. These guys are certainly not your typical dabblers in religion! As spiritual seekers, these guys are driven!

I was ordained to be a spiritual leader in the Church, and according to the Church, preaching is the primary way I am called to do it. I am to preach conversion to unbelievers and feed the faith within the hearts of believers. I do that in a variety of ways. I preach at Sunday Masses and other celebrations of the Sacraments. I preach Parish Missions. I preach through my extensive writing of columns, articles, books and blog posts.  There is an old Latin saying that every spiritual teacher ought to have tattooed to the back of his hand. I have it memorized! Nemo dat quod not habet. One cannot give what one does not have. I became a designated spiritual teacher several years before I became a serious spiritual seeker. Institutionally, I was "on board," but I was not engaged in a serious personal search for my own ongoing transformation.  It did not take me long, however, to realize that if I wanted to lead people spiritually, I would to have to first be committed to my own intentional spiritual growth. Because I am called to preach, I feel driven to develop a ravenous appetite for my own personal spiritual growth. I understand completely that I cannot give what I do not have! I understand completely that what I give you each Sunday has to come through me and out of me, not just out of some book I read and recycled for you to hear!

Because I am a spiritual seeker, who is serious about doing my seeking within the church, I often attract people who are threatened, for one reason or another, by my choice to do my spiritual seeking within the Catholic Church. Some lash out at me in anger, not only privately, but sometimes even in public! More common than an outright attack is the "humoring" I get from those who are mildly annoyed by my religiosity, but don't want to hurt my feelings. Others are like Herod, afraid of what they may find if they were to get serious themselves about finding God. They want others to do their seeking for them and when they have found it, come back and tell them so that they, too, might come to believe!

No matter where you are on the "spiritual seeker" scale, the magi have something to teach you! These guys didn't just sit around "discussing religion," they were willing to go to great lengths in their asking, seeking and knocking in their search for God. The magi set out from afar, following the path of a star, asking questions of the authorities, reaching dead ends and even exploring alternatives, before they finally found their hearts desire.

Fellow spiritual seekers! Religion has two sides - both important - sides that should never be separated. When they are separated, religion is distorted and can even be dangerous. It has an exoteric side. The exoteric side deals with the things of religion, from the way religion is organized to the religious objects it uses. It has an esoteric side as well. The esoteric side deals with the essence of religion, from the joys of inner transformation to the hardships of daily discipleship.  When the exoteric side is neglected, God's communal religion is distorted into some narcissistic "new age" individualism.  When the esoteric side is neglected, religion becomes idolatry - a worship of the temple instead of the God who lives in it!

My fellow believers! If you are a serious spiritual seeker already - and some of you are - let the magi inspire you to keep working your program and walking your path! If you would like to become a serious spiritual seeker, let the magi inspire you to get up off your spiritual recliners and get your butt to the gym, spiritually speaking! I must warn you that, even though such a search is definitely worth it, it isn't easy! You have to do a lot of asking, seeking and knocking! It is something you have to do personally! No one can do it for you! What you are looking for is an internal transformation. The Church, as a structure, exists to help you and the Church, as the family of God, is there to support you in your search.  The institution needs you to keep it honest and you need the institution to keep you honest on your search.

In short, don't just admire the magi, become a “magi” yourself!  In other words, maybe this will be the year when you become an even more committed Christian and an even more intentional Catholic! It is certainly not going to come looking for you! It is time to trade in your inherited faith for a personal faith - a faith that can sustain you no matter what call in life you answer!            

SECOND WIND GUILD EXPANDS INTO TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

FIRST BARBADOS,
THEN SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES
AND NOW TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

I am very happy to announce that my organization, Catholic Second Wind Guild, has been able to expand its ministry a bit more into the country of Trinidad and Tobago by helping my friend Archbishop Jason Gordon publish two books under the banner of my little publishing company, Sophronismos Press, here in Louisville. His books, like mine, can be found on Amazon.com 

I thank Timothy Schoenbachler, who does my books, for helping design the covers, complete the lay-outs, secure the Library of Congress numbers and gets them published at Amazon. 

Archbishop Jason Gordon

Archdiocese of Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago

It was then Bishop Jason Gordon who invited me to be involved in the Caribbean Missions. 

MY ANNUAL NEW YEAR'S EVE RETREAT

   

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

I love New Year's Eve! However, I love it for a completely different reason than many other people love it! 

I absolutely detest parties on New Year's eve with all their mandatory over-drinking, shouting, noise-making and feigned hugging.  I used to lie to get out of them. Now that I am 75, I just say "no" to invitations without even giving an excuse.  I do not judge or condemn others who love those things, but they are certainly not things that I enjoy - never have!  

What I enjoy is staying home in my cozy condo where I enjoy my own company in a long evening of prayerful reflection on the past year and the new year coming up.  I prepare for the evening like many people would prepare for a party. I clean my house, buy some nice food to nibble on, pour myself a drink, put on some nice music, read over last year's journal, start a new journal  for 2020 and write down my thoughts. I am one who likes to live "with purpose" and "on purpose," rather than "playing it by ear" and "going with the flow," so these New Year's Eve retreat serve a purpose - a time to lay out my plans for another year! I have been enjoying my "new year's retreats" for years and years now. Being the true introvert that I am, it is something to which I really look forward every year's end! 

As the years roll by, I am becoming more and more aware of my age and my health. Seventy-five is not all that old these days when more and more people live to be a hundred or more, but the fact that I am only a little more than four years away from turning eighty is sobering indeed! I am pretty healthy for my age. I have no arthritis or joint problems, my heart seems fine, my blood pressure is good, my cholesterol is normal, my bone density is fine and I can do the treadmill test quite easily without getting winded. At my age, while still being in pretty good health, I am becoming more and more aware that I need to savor each and every day of health while I can. 

Last year I spent a good deal of time reflecting on my life up to this point. I put those reflections in a little book entitled BETWEEN COURAGE AND COWARDICE: Choosing to Do Hard Things for Your Own Good. When it was done, I tried to come up with a phrase to summarize how I feel about my life so far. I spent a lot of time editing it and correcting it and reworking it. I finally settled on four words - SIMPLY AMAZED - FOREVER GRATEFUL. The  more I go back and look at those words, the more convinced I am of their truth. That is exactly how I feel about where I came from and where I am today - so convinced, in fact, that I had them engraved on my new granite tombstone. To make sure I did not take myself too seriously, I ended the year with another book published, a book of humor, entitled I JUST HAD TO LAUGH, in which I collected together fifty years of personal humorous anecdotes. 

2020! Such a perfect round number! What would I like to be the focus of this "perfect" year? This will be my reflection question during the last evening of this year! After serving as a pastor in three places over 27 years, publishing over 32 books, writing a weekly column for 15 years, presenting over 160 convocations around "presbyteral theology" in 10 countries, offering at least 75 parish missions in 3 states, serving as a "vocation director" for 7 years, teaching in the seminary for 14 years, being a campus minister for 14 years and serving in the foreign missions for 5 years so far, what can I do next that will be life-giving and age-appropriate? 

So far, I can see 2020 as a year of less frantic travel and more carpe diem (seizing the day) right here at home. I have not advertised the priest retreats that I have been doing for several years. Invitations have mostly come  through "word of mouth." I have had no need to advertise. I actually turned down two invitations to archdioceses in Canada for 2020 because of the travel complications of getting there and back. I have long ago quit enjoying air travel! Because of that, for the first time in 20 years, I have only one priest convocation on my calendar at this point.- one down in the islands in March. I am not saying that I will never do another one. I am just saying that it is OK if I don't. 

God is ultimately in charge of my future, of course, but he invites a response of prayerful openness to his invitations. That's what my New Year's Eve retreat will be all about - listening and trying to respond.  Here are four things, so far, I feel that I need to reflect on and pray over. 

(1) The first thing I feel called to focus on in 2020 is to keep up my mission work down in the Caribbean, but focusing more on a "succession plan" for myself and fellow volunteer from Ireland, Fergal Redmond. I would like to get Catholic Second Wind Guild to the point that it could keep expanding its ministry without us, if necessary. 

(2) The second thing I feel called to focus on in 2020 is my heath and wellness - staying healthy and well as long as I can. The secret to this, as I see it, is fidelity to a good diet and regular exercise. I consider these "spiritual disciplines" very much like  prayer.  

(3) The third thing I feel called to focus on in 2020 is giving more focused attention to doing small thoughtful things for my family, friends and the total strangers who cross my path. I want to resist the urge that many senior citizens have to be self-focused as if that is something we deserve or earned. I believe that my legacy will be the good memories about me that I leave with them. I want them to remember me as a person who remembered to focus on them. If I do that, I believe that I will come to realize the deep satisfaction that comes from understanding that "it is in giving that one receives."

(4) The fourth thing I feel called to do in 2020 is to keep focusing on  the discipline of writing. I don't write these days because I believe the world needs to hear what I have to say, but because "I don't know what I think until I read what I say," as Flannery O'Connor put it. It helps me to write, to bring it out where I can see it and reflect on it. Besides, what better hobby can an old person have as they find themselves more restricted to their homes than writing? If it helps other people who read it, then that is merely icing on the cake! 

(5) I want to remember a poem that I heard quoted this year by Congressman Elijah Cummings who died just recently.  

JUST A MINUTE

Dr. Benjamine E. Mays

pioneering civil rights leader

I only have a minute.

Sixty seconds in it.

Forced upon me, I did not choose it,

But I know that I must use it.

Give account if I abuse it.

Suffer, if I lose it.

Only a tiny little minute,

But eternity is in it.

(6) Finally, I like to kneel down on both knees in silence as the clock strikes midnight and the New Year begins! 

I wish all of you a very happy 2020!

If you are my age or older, I want to end here with a little New Year's humor.

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