For His Friends

The new school year is about to begin in our diocesan elementary and high schools, in fact it has already begun in the high schools. The diocese has a new Superintendent of Schools and there are a number of new principals in the various buildings. In the last two weeks, however, I have been looking at some statistics on the measurement of success of transmitting the faith in our Catholic schools in the diocese which I wish to share with you. They are encouraging. But before getting into the results of the testing, I feel compelled to once again raise the question of “Why Catholic schools?” To my mind there is only one plausible and logical answer to this question and that is that Catholic schools are the most effective way of transmitting the faith from one generation to the next. If they fail in this regard, then there is little reason for the Church to spend so much money and energy in maintaining them.

But teaching the faith is only part of the equation, though it is that part that is the responsibility of the schools themselves. Practicing the faith at the same time it is being taught is the responsibility of the sending parents. Like love and marriage in the famous song from the musical OKLAHOMA, “you can’t have one without the other.”

Too often we hear, I don’t know what happened to the faith of my children? I sent them to Catholic schools and yet today they do not practice. It is so sad. Well I am here to tell you that the school alone is not and has never been enough. What is taught must be lived and that lived experience is up to the parents and/or guardians. One can teach the Fourth Commandment, “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day” till one is blue in the face, can teach the gift that is the Eucharist to the children, but when Mom and Dad could but choose not to attend Sunday Mass with their children, then all that is taught is in conflict with all that is lived. So I pray and hope that the opening of school this year will be accompanied by a firmer commitment on the part of parent users to accompany their children on the journey of faith and support what is taught in the classroom with what is practiced in Church.

Now, to what is taught and how effective are our schools in transmitting the faith. Each year our elementary schools administer in the fifth and eighth grades the Assessment of Catechesis Religious Education developed and administered by the National Catholic Education Association. Additionally, our four high schools administer a similar test to eleventh graders. Jesuit High School and the Academy of the Holy Names either do not administer the test or choose not to share the results with me and with the diocesan school office. The good news is that in every category tested, our students outperformed the national average, often considerably so. The “domains” which are tested are God; Church; Liturgy and Sacraments; Revelation, Scripture and Faith; Life in Christ; Church History; Prayer/Religious Practice; and Faith Literacy. There are also four “pillars” which are also measured and those are: Creed, Liturgy/Sacraments, Morality and Prayer.  Both knowledge and attitudes are measured and the “domains” mentioned above reflect key concepts of our faith while the “pillars” reflect the Pillars of Faith according to the Catechism of the Church.

One interesting note to me is that for the past three years while the diocese has been focusing on its “Eucharistic Initiative”, the students’ awareness, understanding of and appreciation for Liturgy and the Sacraments has increased – perhaps the first fruit of bring all the teachers of our young together for in-service education on this centrality of our faith. I have before me the scores for the past five years and they have been and remain substantially and significantly higher than the national average. I can also tell something of the effectiveness of each of our elementary schools but these raw scores must be interpreted carefully. Any standardized test requires basic reading skills and some of our elementary schools work with students whose reading aptitude is far below the norm for the year of study. All in all, I wish to compliment our elementary schools teachers and principals for a good year of transmitting the faith.

Our four high schools are also above the national average but not as markedly and remarkably as the elementary schools. I would like to see the results higher in the coming years and I will be communicating this hope to the high school principals soon. There are also some very remarkable variances and differences between the test scores of our four high schools with Tampa Catholic consistently outscoring her three sister schools (St. Petersburg Catholic, Clearwater Central Catholic, and Bishop McLaughlin). Again, I should also note that in the domain and pillar of Liturgy and Sacraments, there are also to be found better results in the last three years. I have reviewed all the results with our Director of Faith Formation, Brian Lemoi, and know that a careful reading, perhaps more careful than I have given which I would term more “cursory” than “careful” is required, but I can affirm to all parents reading this blog entry that I truly believe that in the area of faith formation and transmission, you are getting what you paid for. Now I plead with you to do your part.

+RNL

As promised, the audio/video of the major presentations for last May’s Living Eucharist convocation are now available on the diocesan website (www.dosp.org). You can if you have the interest and the time click on the Living Eucharist page on the website and watch and listen to the entire, unedited presentations of Fathers Hehir, Radcliffe, and Murray. The several thousand people who attended the convocation in the flesh reacted most positively to the presenters whose theme was, borrowing again the words of St. Augustine, “become whom you receive” and be sent to bring and be Christ to our world. It was not our intention to record in video the presentations but they were recorded and shown simultaneously with the presentation on large screens so that those far away from the stage could watch the interaction of presenter and participants. The camera company then turned their recordings over to us and after several attempts to convert them to a usable format, we were able to put them up for all the view in their entirety.

I watched them again on a long flight this past week and enjoyed them once again so if you were unable to be present, you can now participate via your own computer and/or revisit the presentations if you were there. I gained so much more from listening to them on the plane than in their original presentation because I did not need to worry about anything except the plane safely landing.

Our efforts at communicating with you are increasing proportionately to our comfort in the technology available. You can now listen to major presentations given in the diocese at various times via podcasts and we are even using iTunes and YouTube to spread the word. Try us, I think you will like what we are doing to evangelize, share and spread the faith.

+RNL

This week-end, it seems to me, is definition week-end. It is the week-end when the liturgy calls our attention to who we are as baptized and practicing Catholics in a special way. It defines what separates us from most of the rest of Christendom and focuses on the unique gift we share as Catholics. It is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi which we translate as “the body of Christ.” Easter time has ended and before we get back to “Ordinary Time” we have one more special focus and that is on the Eucharist. When I was young there were two special days: Corpus Christi and Sanguinis Christi. The Church paused to reflect on the two constitutive elements of the Eucharist or the Mass, the body and the blood of Christ. If memory serves me right, one was celebrated on a Thursday after Trinity Sunday and the other was celebrated a week later. We had processions in my youth, of the Blessed Sacrament, mostly through the Church since I lived in towns where Catholics were such a minority that an outside procession in the streets would have occasioned taunts and ridicule from by-standers. And then there was the fact that fifty families, not all of whom would be able to attend, would hardly constitute a procession. The two feasts of the two parts of the Eucharist were combined after the Second Vatican Council into Corpus Christi and moved to the second Sunday after Pentecost.  In Rome there is still a procession of the Blessed Sacrament on Thursday from the Basilica of St. John Lateran to the Basilica of St. Mary Major and a younger and vigorous Pope would carry the Blessed Sacrament while walking. In recent years, the Pope still holds onto the monstrance (the gold vessel which contains the host) but is driven from one to the other – slowly, with great reverence, hymns and prayers along the way.

Part of our strategy these years here in the diocese has been to turn the spotlight back on the Eucharist as both gift and identifying mark of who we are as Catholic Christians. We are a Eucharistic people and if we do not understand that, then we are missing the source and summit and the central focus of our life with Christ. Through the transformation of bread and wine into his body and blood, the sacrifice on Calvary is re-enacted every Mass in an unbloody way, and Christ comes to those of us who receive Him. We do not consider Eucharist or Communion simply a memorial or a sharing of common cup. That approach was a result of the reformation era. We have remained true to his command on the night before He died to take bread and wine, break it, bless it and then share his body and blood by our own reception and the communion of others doing the same.

It is such a gift and so much a part of what makes us Catholic that when someone leaves the practice of the faith to join another Church, I grieve because somehow we never got through to them that life without the Eucharist is like a day without sunshine, or worse. It is pedagogical failure. It is a liturgical failure. It is a pastoral failure. No one who truly understands and longs to receive the body and blood of the Lord can or should go for any extended period of time without approaching the blessed Lord and receiving the Corpus Christi. The Lord dwells under the “roof of the believer” for a brief but significant and powerful time. Our religious ancestors longed for this intimacy with God. Jesus gave it to us in Himself.

So this week-end, discover once more the greatest treasure of our faith after baptism – the body and blood of Christ. Then thank God for the privileged moment we share with Him in Eucharist. It must be a defining moment in our lives every time we approach the Eucharist.

+RNL

For centuries the Church has put “funny” hats on its bishops. In our case, they are called mitres and zuchettas (Italian word for the purple beanie). The mitre can be traced back to a certain headgear that was worn by Jewish High Priests but in Catholicism is evolved into a front and back of somewhat triangular shape and various colors. I thought of the mitre today as I presided (without wearing one) at the first of six high school graduations and/or baccalaureate Masses. But we bishops do not have a lock-on distinctive headgear. The traditional headgear of a high school and college/university graduate can be even more distinctive and occasionally troublesome. Of course, I am speaking of the mortarboard or cap worn at graduation ceremonies. The graduate has worked hard at various levels of educational activity for the privilege of wearing a cap and a gown at their graduation. Unlike bishops, they only have to wear them a couple of times in their lifetime and in some graduation ceremonies they can not wait to toss them into the air. Bishops can’t do that – they cost too much for one thing. But in the history of civilization, headgear has often been a sign of accomplishment or office.

The graduation season at the six high schools in the diocese began this Sunday afternoon (May 16th) and for all but last year, I have tried to be present to the graduates and their families at this special moment of achievement. Some of my brother bishops have chosen not to attend graduation or baccalaureate Masses for a variety of reasons but I see it as one last opportunity to accomplish several goals: to briefly remind the graduates that they are being sent to the world to among other things make Christ more present; that the education they have received is a sign of the love for them which their parents or guardians and the Church have as today it comes at considerable financial sacrifice; and, finally, that at least in our Catholic schools, administrators, teachers, and staff also make a big sacrifice to be present to them and help them. It all has to  be done rather expeditiously because the graduating class just wants to get out, get on with the parties and celebrations and get on with their lives. This afternoon I tried to remember who spoke at my high school graduation, who were the salutatorian and valedictorian. Couldn’t! Could not even remember who did it for my college graduation either. So the “who” of graduation day and the “what” he or she said is very transitory.

I did look at the graduates however and I do have the feeling that we have done the best we can for them to prepare them for their next adventure. At least at St. Petersburg Catholic I see them arrive in their freshman year and grow, physically, emotionally, spiritually and educationally. I can tell that their Catholic school experience made some difference. Our schools compete against a lot in the culture and world which teen-agers experience today. High schools do not always win that tug-of-war, but I still think we make enough of a difference that we must be committed to keeping the opportunity available for future high school generations. A sometime endless debate centers on whether or not, if one could have only one, would elementary or high schools be the place where one deposits the greatest investment. At the moment and I hope up to the time I leave, it will never be “either-or” but “both-and.” The elementary schools after all are the principle feeders for the high schools.

To all the graduates of St. Petersburg Catholic, the Academy of the Holy Names, Bishop McLaughlin, Tampa Catholic, Jesuit, and Clearwater Central Catholic, I offer my congratulations but I save my greatest good wishes for those loving parents and guardians and faculties and staffs who make this day possible annually.

+RNL

Updated: Here are some photos of yesterday’s (5/16/2010) Graduation at St. Petersburg Catholic.

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Br. Jerry Meegan, SDB, Principal; Bishop Lynch; and Fr. Mike Conway, President before the St. Petersburg Catholic High School Graduation in the narthex of the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle.

Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP giving his talk on Saturday morning. (Photo: John Christian)

It took the workers and my staff at the Tampa Bay Convention Center on Saturday less than an hour to tear down what was built on Thursday for our third and final convocation on the Eucharist. What we have learned and interiorized in these three years will by the grace of God remain permanently etched in 0ur minds and  hearts. Nearly 3500 people came to the Center on Friday and Saturday to deepen their knowledge of Eucharist and what it means to be sent. Principal speakers, Fathers J. Bryan Hehir, Timothy Radcliffe and J-Glenn Murray brought together all the elements of the obligation of the Catholic faithful to “become whom they have received” and to take their faith out into the “marketplace” of the world in which we live. The attendees marveled at the wisdom and insights not only of our key-note speakers but of the workshop presenters as well. I attended a workshop on sports and spirituality in our parishes and schools and marveled at the presenter suggesting that sports can be incarnational, paschal, trinitarian  and redemptive if properly approached from a standpoint of faith. The 130 people who packed each of his two presentations remained to the end and acknowledged his work and insights with sustained applause at the end.

Molly Bryan, a member of the Diocesan Youth Council and several youth making sandwiches for the residents of Pinellas Hope during their afternoon service project. (Photo: John Christian)

About 800 young people joined us on Saturday morning and after a Holy Hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, then came to be “sent” as disciples of Jesus Christ. Upon their “dismissal” they proceeded to make four hundred peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fifty blankets and twenty-five wooden platforms for the homeless at Pinellas Hope. They could have gone right home. They stayed to share their commitment to be disciples. The wooden platforms, by the way, make it possible for the tents housing the homeless to be off the ground and out of the rainwater and mud during the rainy season.

We prayed, sang, and celebrated the Eucharist together, with reverence, full and active participation and most of the sixty some priests who concelebrated the Eucharistic Liturgy said after it was over that it was a stunning experience of the Church at its deepest prayer. If you live in the Diocese of St. Petersburg don’t take my word for it, ask anyone who was there what there what they thought.

A packed room for "Spirituality in Sports" a workshop given by Mike Zelenka, currently Assistant Principal at Christ the King Catholic School in Tampa and recently named Principal of Incarnation Catholic School, Tampa. (Photo: Walter Pruchnik)

There should be video of the main keynote speeches, more photos, and other multimedia from the weekend available on the diocesan website in a few days and failing that, we will have the keynote talks on podcast soon. I will let you know through this blog when they are ready for viewing and/or listening. If you were not there, you can learn a lot by watching or listening. Use of video and podcasts is yet another way in which this Church wishes to share our treasure with ourselves and others. Communicating the Gospel electronically and through the web is growing in its use and its value. But nothing will rival being there.

Vivi, Sharon, and Yvonne, all members of the Diocesan Pastoral Center Staff still smiling after two wonderful, but long days at the convention center. (Photo: John Christian)

How does someone like myself thank the corps of colleagues at the Pastoral Center who shepherded this project along from conception to conclusion yesterday? This much I know, they themselves know that they have hit a “home run” for their faith and they could tell from the expressions of gratitude and delight of those leaving the Center these last three years that this has been a major moment in the lives of many. A “core team” met countless hours preparing the programing, anticipating the challenges, and putting the whole thing together. Led by Deacon Peter Burns, they know how grateful I am and so many others for their talent and efforts, The were exhausted during the “tear-down” Saturday afternoon but it was a fatigue laced with satisfaction. If one stuck with the program the last three years, we should soon see a blossoming of understanding of and appreciation for the Eucharist. We should help the children understand it better in the years ahead and as God’s people here, we should become more involved in the work of justice and peace, in our families, our neighborhoods, our communities, our state and nation and our world. We are sent forth from Mass to love and serve the Lord and one another. Eucharist is not just an individual privilege of our faith, but  it is the bedrock of our duty towards others.

Watch this space and the diocesan website (www.dosp.org) for the presentations of this week-end. Love and thanks from this bishop to all who helped stage the last three years in many venues and to those who came. I am one lucky bishop, to be sure, proven again by the faith of our people.

+RNL

Webster’s Dictionary defines to preach as “to give moral or religious advice, especially in a tiresome manner.” In his marvelous new book Why Go to Church? Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP quotes Anthony Trollope as saying:

There is perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent and be tormented…He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God’s service distasteful.

I shall resist a number of temptations to retrace our journey from “gathered to sent” and spend these few moments, hopefully not boring, concentrating on what the Word of God says to us this afternoon. To provide a framework, allow me the liberty to use the four letters of the word “sent” and attempt to apply them to our lives.

When at the end of the Eucharist we are dismissed from the assembly or “sent” we are invited to take the Christ whom we have received into our particular worlds. We are as has been said so often in these last three years “to become who we receive.” Since Jesus defined His mission among us as coming as “One to serve and not to be served”, the “S” in sent might stand for serving our brothers and sisters – in our community, in our workplace, in our school, in our neighborhoods, in our book clubs and men’s clubs. In my busy world, you have every right to ask, how can I find the time to serve others? My response would be that there are many ways available right here in our local areas: preparing and serving a meal at Pinellas Hope as 170 of you did last Christmas morning, shaping the political priorities of our elected representatives through involvement in community organizing efforts like FAST and HOPE, devoting whatever discretionary time you might have to the ministries of mercy like life issues, shelter ministries, visitation ministry – to the lonely elderly, the homebound, the imprisoned. The early Church grew despite overwhelming risk and obstacles precisely because they cared for one another, they prayed together and celebrated Eucharist together and they SHARED with one another, as we heard in the first reading from ACTS.

The “E” in “sent” means we are dismissed from the assembly to evangelize, to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to win the hearts and minds of others not of our faith but also to deepen our own Catholic faith. Again from the first reading from Acts, simply living in happiness and joy, being sincere and praising God will win the favor of others and the number of believers will increase. In a world of increasing polarization, the Church must be on guard to preach the truth with love but not to alienate with public punishment. The early Church thrived after the Council of Jerusalem in 64 AD because it was inclusive – all were welcome then, all are welcome now in this place. The new evangelization means helping others as well as ourselves find Christ who was forgiving, loving, welcoming. risk-taking, and all-embracing. He saved his strongest words for those primary teachers of the faith who found it easy to stand in judgment of the failures of others, held laws and religious prescript above love and who attempted to define a religious elitism based on their own private interpretation of commandments and laws.

Sadly there is a tendency in our Church today towards drawing lines in the sand, defining those who “get it” from those who don’t. Evangelization means that we return to the practice of the early Church, draw our strength and our unity from “the breaking of the bread” and then share it with Christ-like openness to others who come to a sense of awe at the gift we share.

The “N” was the hardest of our four letters for me. Serving and evangelizing were relatively easy as was the “T” which I will get to in a moment. It was the Gospel of the Third Sunday of Easter that finally opened my eyes to something I have often overlooked. You know the story. Jesus appears after the Resurrection to the disciples along the Sea of Tiberias. He invites them to breakfast. They catch so many fish that their nets practically fall apart. It dawned on me then that as people sent, we still are invited to cast our nets into the sea of our lives and bring to the table the many. “N” then, at least for this moment, stands for “netting.” We also must learn to cast our nets more broadly.

Net fishing, as anyone who has ever watched The Deadliest Catch knows often brings up surprises – the unwanted, the scary, and the scavenger. Casting a net is an act of faith. There will be those times when nothing surfaces in the net and there will be those moments when the net seems full to the breaking point. Being sent means that we are willing to fish wherever the Lord directs us. We must be prepared for the mixed bag, or better yet, “mixed net” which sometimes brings disappointment but also can bring joy. When we feel sent to cast our nets, we know that not every cast will land a great catch. We place our lives, our ministry, and our service in the hands of the Lord Himself. We fish for others and at the end of the day, we gather to share as St. Paul says to the Corinthians the one bread, the one body, the one loaf. We cast our nets for the unity of the world in the one Lord. Our very Eucharistic Initiative, Gathered, Nourished and Sent of these last three years has been an experience of casting our nets to appreciate even more our catch.

Finally, the letter “T”. Since most of you here today are teachers and catechists of our Catholic faith, you and I are sent to teach. I suggest we conclude this reflection with a moment of study of the pedagogy of Jesus with his disciples along the road to Emmaus, our Gospel. You know the story so well that I will only concentrate on the methodology of Jesus. To bring them to a full recognition of who He is, he first unpacks the Scriptures for them. Patiently, plainly, and repeatedly he teaches them the meaning of what they have already heard if not yet learned and interiorized. Through His teaching, they grow in their trust of the stranger; they suspend their suspicions and open their hearts and minds for Him. It is only when they reach their destination and he remains for dinner that they finally connect the dots and come to full realization of who they are talking to.

The Lord sends each of us from his table, this table, into the world to teach by word and example what it means to be a Catholic Christian. It takes time and patience. It takes repetition and repartee which I define as respectful dialogue. It is my hope that after these three years of focusing on the great gift of self which Jesus gave us in the Eucharist, we are better able now to feel called to be sent, sent to serve, sent to evangelize, sent to cast our nets, sent to teach. Sunday Eucharist will cease being an obligation and become more an exciting moment when heaven and earth join as we participate in the body and blood of Christ, recognizing and becoming like Him in the breaking of the bread – this to me is precisely what it means to be SENT.

The text of the homily is available as a PDF document.