Do you love me more than these?

In today’s gospel, Jesus asks Peter three times “Do you love me more than these?” and again, “Do you love me?”, and then again.

We know why Jesus asked three times, in order to forgive Peter’s denials.  But what did Christ mean by “these”?  Some might say the other apostles, some earthly things.  I think Jesus was asking Peter “What are you willing to sacrifice for me?” and “Are you willing to give up “the world”?”  One reason this passage points to Petrine Primacy is that, ever since, Popes have been sacrificing the world in order to lead Christ’s church.  Benedict XVI gave up his teaching career, JPII gave up his acting career and his freedom, JPI gave up his life, Paul VI gave up his dignity.  And so on.  If we study the lives of the Popes, the Servants of the Servants of God, we can see real pastor-ship.

The Pope and all the bishops are referred to as pastors, and we know that in Biblical times, the sheep were more important than the shepherd.  The shepherd would sacrifice himself to protect the sheep, and this is, by and large, what the popes have done, even to the point of being crucified or martyred in other ways rather than lead the faithful down a wrong path.

Pope tells story of bishop who felt ‘unworthy’ :: Catholic News Agency #CNA#

Pope tells story of bishop who felt ‘unworthy’ :: Catholic News Agency #CNA#.

Vatican City, May 17, 2013 / 10:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis told the story of a man who felt ashamed of being a bishop to say that people should not worry of being sinners but should concentrate on allowing Jesus to transform them.

“He was ashamed because he did not feel worthy, he had a spiritual torment and he went to the confessor,” Pope Francis said at his May 17 daily Mass.

“The confessor heard him and said, ‘but do not worry, if after the mess Peter made of things, they made him Pope, then you go ahead!’” he recalled.

The Pope delivered his homily on the Gospel reading from John 21, which tells the story of Jesus asking Peter if he loved him three separate times.

According to the pontiff, people should try harder to encounter Jesus rather than focus on their own sins.

“Many times, we look the other way because we do not want to talk with the Lord or allow ourselves to encounter the Lord,” he stated.

“Meeting the Lord is important, but more importantly, let us be met by the Lord, this is a grace,” he added.

“Peter let himself be shaped by his many encounters with Jesus,” the Pope noted, “and this is something we all need to do as well, for we are on the same road.”

“Peter is great, not because he is good, but because he has a nobility of heart, which brings him to tears, leads him to this pain, this shame and also to take up his work of shepherding the flock,” he remarked.

The pontiff noted “the problem is not that we are sinners: the problem is not repenting of sin; not being ashamed of what we have done, that’s the problem.”

“The Lord makes us mature with many meetings with Him, even with our weaknesses, when we recognize them with our sins,” Pope Francis said.

“The point is that this is how the Lord is, that’s the way He is,” he said.

Referring back to the Gospel reading, Pope Francis said the questions Jesus posed to Peter are “a dialogue of love between the Lord and his disciple.”

He explained that the narration goes back to the history of Peter’s meetings with Jesus, from his invitation to follow the Lord, to his receiving the name of the Rock, “a mission which was there, even if Peter understood nothing of it at the time.”

“Peter was saddened that, for a third time, Jesus asked him, ‘do you love me?’” said Pope Francis.

Peter was a great man, the Holy Father remarked, but he was also a sinner and this question made him feel “pain” and “shame.”

“The Lord makes him feel that he is a sinner, makes us all feel that we are sinners,” but this shame and humility “brings him to a new encounter with Jesus” and “to the joy of forgiveness,” the Pope preached.

Candles and prayers

I don’t believe I’ve ever walked into a Catholic Church and not seen lit candles.  Lately, I contemplate the candles where I go to daily Mass, the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi.  Most days, there’s no more than four or five people at Mass, but when I walk in, there’s always at least 100 candles lit.  This is an old fashioned church with side altars, and paintings of St. Francis in various aspects, and even relics of St. Francis, St. Claire, and St. Anthony of Padua.

Since reading Revelation, lately, we know that the candles are our prayers, and the smoke carries those prayers to the saints in heaven, who present our prayers to God.  Just think of all those prayers. If there’s one candle lit in every Catholic Church worldwide, that’s a whole lot of prayers.

I’d like to ask you to remember that candles have another function-they support the Church.  I’ve heard it said of my weekday church that, were it not for the candle collection, the church would not survive.  And yet it does.  So I encourage you, any time you pay a visit to a Church you happen upon, really pay a visit. As Mother Angelica says, on EWTN, keep the Church between your gas and electric bills, so they can pay their bills.

I also want to encourage people to visit the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi.  If you come to San Francisco, it’s a little out of the way.  It’s in North Beach; if you walk through Chinatown on Kearney, you’re about three blocks from it.  As a bonus, two blocks more than that up Columbus Ave, there’s Sts. Peter and Paul, another of the beautiful churches of San Francisco.

The first novena

Today starts the commemoration of the first novena.  Jesus requested his disciples and his mother to convene in the Cenacle and pray for 9 days after His Ascension.  And, on Pentecost, their prayers were answered.

 

From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope

Our faith is increased by the Lord’s ascension

At Easter, beloved brethren, it was the Lord’s resurrection which was the cause of our joy; our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven. With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still more marvellous when, in spite of the withdrawal from men’s sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.

  For such is the power of great minds, such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight. Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.

  And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment, exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Throughout the world women no less than men, tender girls as well as boys, have given their life’s blood in the struggle for this faith. It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed the sick and raised the dead.

  Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s passion and could not accept his resurrection without hesitation. Yet they made such progress through his ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of his Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realisation that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth, nor had he abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven.

  The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. For while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where, as the Father’s equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment.

Is God telling us something?

Notice, I didn’t ask “Is God TRYING to tell us something…”.  And maybe I should title this “God IS telling us something.”  But to the point.

 

I’ve been contemplating about the juxtaposition ($10 word!!!) of news stories coming to a head this week.  With the freedom of the three young women in Cleveland this week, and the case of the abortionist in Philly (I won’t even dignify this with his name…), I got to thinking how they’re related.  Do you realize that we have 50,000,000 missing children in this country???  That’s right, those children who have been aborted are a class, the largest class, of “Missing Children”.  Of course, nobody is looking for them.  They’re just gone.  Sort of like Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus.  Although two of the girls had family who have always kept their hope alive, the rest of the country did relatively nothing after the initial months.  Michelle Knight was dismissed by her family as having run away.  And it is evident that Amanda and Gina have loving families who are glad to have them home.  But what about the parents of all those 50 million aborted children?

I have heard it said that every mother carries cells from every one of her children, cells that are uniquely the child’s. (http://wdtprs.com/blog/2012/01/fetal-cells-integrate-into-a-mothers-body-with-important-positive-effects/)  It’s also known that, when a woman who’s had an abortion eventually has children, they know, somehow, that they have missing siblings.  But these are asides…

It seems that these two stories are put together to remind us of what a horror abortion is, and what a horror it is when a child goes missing, but it’s also a reminder that any child is missing when it’s not with its parents, regardless of who commits the crime.  That’s all there is to it.

 

Pope names Jesuit to lead Oakland diocese :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Pope names Jesuit to lead Oakland diocese :: Catholic News Agency (CNA).

 

Vatican City, May 3, 2013 / 04:25 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has appointed Jesuit Father Michael C. Barber the next bishop of the Oakland, California diocese.

Bishop-designate Barber is currently the Director of Spiritual Formation at Saint John’s Seminary in Brighton, Mass. and has been serving in that capacity since 2010.

The announcement of his appointment was made on May 3 by the Holy See’s press office. He will succeed Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone who now leads the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The bishop-designate entered the Jesuits in 1973 and was ordained a priest in 1985.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and history at Gonzaga University in 1978, completed his theological studies at Regis College at the University of Toronto in 1985, and obtained an ecclesiastical license in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1989.

At 59 years-old, Bishop-designate Barber has served in numerous capacities, including as a missionary in Western Samoa, an assistant professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, a tutor and chaplain at the University of Oxford, and as chaplain for the U.S. Navy Reserve.

During his time at the Gregorian, he taught dogmatic theology and conducted research on unpublished manuscripts of sermons by Blessed John Henry Newman.

His time as a military chaplain included being called to active duty in 2003 to serve the 6,000 troops in the 4th Marine Air Wing who participated in the invasion of Iraq.

He speaks English, Italian, Spanish and Latin.

There’s something about Mary…

I’ve been debating with some various flavors of Protestants regarding what Catholics believe about Mary.

It hit me that the scene of the Annunciation explains everything…You don’t even have to read the entire passage.  The Angel Gabriel greets Mary “Hail, Full of Grace! The Lord is with thee. Blessed are you among women.”  Those 14 words proclaim the entire Marian body of dogma.

If Mary was blessed among women, we can retranslate this as “Most blessed of all women…”  So let’s take some Biblical examples…We have Eve, Tamar, Ruth, Judith, Mary Magdalen, Mary Clopas, just to name some.  So what was unique about Eve-she was born without sin.  Being more blessed than Eve would indicate that Mary was also born without sin.  What makes her more blessed than Eve is that she obeyed God.  The others, we don’t know if any of them were mothers, but let’s take, for example, your mother.  If Mary is most blessed of all women, she would have special attributes, among them that she would not have relations with a man in order to have a child, and that child would be born without affecting her virginity.  And finally, all women would die, be buried, and their bodies would decay.  Mary being most blessed of all women, would be preserved from this.

And there you have it.  Blessed among women, as the Angel Gabriel states, means that she doesn’t experience normal human attributes-sin, sexual relations, birth pangs and death.

Protestants try to belittle Mary.  They don’t see her life of sacrifice.  Now, I know that some Catholics take it too far, but this is outside of what the Church teaches.  But there is so much more about Mary.  We know that she is foreshadowed in lots of places in the OT, and also appears again in heaven, alive, in Revelation.