For His Friends

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

There was a nice convergence this week-end in my life which does not always happen when a bishop flits from one thing to another and then to another. On Saturday at the Bethany Center about 250 people gathered who are involved in the various ministries of mercy in 0ur parishes. We get them together once a year to thank them and to share with them not only our own hopes and aspirations but also some “best practices and programs” which are being utilized throughout the diocese. In two hours, max, they leave with a sense of renewed mission, or so they tell me. We also provide them with a nice free lunch. This year the organizers at Catholic Charities brought a welcome new wrinkle to the day by asking representatives of seven parishes to take about ten minutes and visually and verbally share their particular ministry of mercy.

A project initially begun at St. Stephen’s parish in Valrico and now spreading throughout lower counties of the diocese called San Jose Homemakers Ministry recounted how two women responded to a need to furnish an apartment for a homeless or migrant family and now it has become a major ministry. They have grown from collecting and storing furniture in their home garages to two warehouses (soon) with furniture, dishes and flatwear, etc., which are used when someone moves from homelessness to a stable house and has no money or access for outfitting their new residence. It is an amazing story. Prison Ministry in the diocese was presented by a representative from Prince of Peace parish in Sun City Center where their work at the Women’s Faith Based Correction Prison was outlined in detail. Holy Family parish in St. Petersburg shared their story of twinning with a parish in Haiti, helping that parish before and after the tragic earthquake. Espiritu Santo shared their experience running a Sick and Homebound Luncheon Ministry where elderly an physically challenged parishioners can come for Mass, communal Anointing of the Sick, and a lunch and sense of community. Respite Ministry was presented by a lady from Catholic Charities and we were informed of their experience in providing respite for alzheimers caregivers. Parish Nursing is a program in some of our parishes where a licensed nurse visits the homebound whom the system might ignore and checks on their health. All of these various ministries of mercy form an amazing mosaic of  love, kindness and service. I am always so proud of what is done in the name of Jesus.

Those of you in Church this week-end know that two of the readings (the first and the Gospel) focused on the thematic of humility. Both Sirach and Jesus in his parable in the Gospel make it clear that only after we have imitated his love and concern for our brothers and sisters can we expect a place at the heavenly banquet table. Humility suggests that those who work in the shadows seeking neither fame or acclaim have a better chance in heaven than those who puff themselves up and proclaim, look at me and what I do for others. Sirach suggests that humility is not something one assumes in order to become a “casper-milktoast” but there can be genuine strength in humility. Certainly there is strength of character. Those gathered for the convening of the Ministries of Mercy in the diocese on Saturday were living and breathing examples of holy humility placed at the service of others, sometimes demanding great strength and patience.

Finally, I let last week come and go without mentioning the 100th birthday of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. What a week to celebrate the centenary of her birth, when the liturgical readings focus on humility. Make no mistake about it and take it from someone who was in her presence four times in my life, she was no push-over! Yet with unrelenting humility she preached, practiced and lived a life of humble service for God and God’s people. She lit up the world in which she lived even if the owners of the Empire State building refused to light up the sky in her memory. A brief but wonderful tribute to Mother Teresa can be found on the “mother of all church blogs”: Whispers in the Loggia.

Finally, I celebrated two Masses in a parish yesterday which was in need of a priest for that purpose. I thought I had “nailed” the readings in my homily. The pastor inquired of me, “what did you preach about” and I responded “humility and boy was I good!” The pastor appropriately suggested that after that comment, I had better continue to meditate on humility in my own life.

+RNL

I am back from fishing and after a long day in the office found myself on a plane to South Bend and the University of Notre Dame. I had been invited to celebrate the graduation Mass, give out the certificates which precede the diplomas and preach for the seventeen members of the ECHO group who are graduating and those returning this week-end for their second year in their dioceses and those who will be beginning their two year service in the dioceses of the country starting, well tomorrow for some. We have had the privilege of three ECHO students in our diocese for the past two years who are graduating today: Anthony Paz who served at St. Jude Cathedral, Katie Muller who served at St. Paul parish and Holy Family parish, and Ellen Voegele who served at Blessed Trinity parish. Anthony is from Eureka, California and graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, Katie is a graduate of Marquette University and is from the Chicago area and Ellen is from Batavia, Ohio and graduated from Marian College in Indianapolis. The two young women are returning to continue to serve at Blessed Trinity as Director of Faith Formation and St. Paul’s as High School Youth Minister and Middle School Religion teacher and Anthony is joining the staff of St. Luke’s parish in McLean as Coordinator of Adult Faith Formation. Congratulations and gratitude and appreciation is extended to these three wonderful young people for their educational and pastoral accomplishments during the last to years of ECHO. When they are in the diocese of St. Petersburg, Brian Lemoi, the Director of Religious Formation is their mentor and thanks are also due to him. Father Joseph Waters attended the ceremonies in South Bend for Anthony who served one year with the new pastor of the Cathedral.

Happily, their places will be taken by three new ECHO representatives serving at Holy Family parish in St. Petersburg, at St. Jerome parish in Indian Rocks Beach and at Espiritu Santo parish in Safety Harbor. ECHO at Notre Dame is an activity of the Center for Catechetical Initiatives which itself is a part of the Department of Theology. During their two years in the program, its participants called “apprentice catechetical leaders” experience four important dimensions of growth: academic formation leading to a Master’s degree, professional ministerial formation, communal formation, and spiritual formation.

Our liturgy was lovely and what great readings for the Mass this week-end. One can count on the fingers of both hands the number of times in a three year cycle when all three readings can be tied together thematically and this is one of them. It was a great Saturday for me and for the ECHO program. Tomorrow I fly to Orlando for a meeting with my brother bishops of Florida. Who says summer is a time of rest and relaxation. In fourteen years I think I can prove that summer only sees a slight decrease in activities in our Church.

ET ALIA

Some readers have asked me to comment when I return on how successful I was at “fishing” the last few weeks. I caught nothing as my friends would expect but it was relaxing.

I was out-of-town when George Steinbrenner died and I regret that I could not be present to his family at the time of their great loss. I knew him as a very generous and great man whose love for his children and grandchildren was exceptional. He was generous to a number of Catholic institutions (the Academy of the Holy Names and St. Cecilia school to name two) and very generous in this community. I loved being with him as he constantly teased me about the high school which I graduated from in Columbus, Ohio (St. Charles) while he was coaching at our arch-rival, Aquinas High School. More than the Yankees should be mourning his loss. His heart was larger than his reputation was occasionally controversial. Rest in peace, good friend of the Bay area and great head of a family.

Finally, you should be reading new entries several times a week in the coming month. I missed the discipline which this exercise requires. It is nice to be back.

+RNL

Update 8/5/10: Anthony went to Amherst College, not the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Yesterday on my “day-off” I visited a property owned by the Diocese of St. Petersburg on the Rainbow River just outside of Donnellan. It is an interesting piece of property with an interesting story. Many priests know nothing of it because of its specialized use and while there has never been any attempt at secrecy, it is largely a secret for reasons I shall soon explain. The property has been called “Tomahawk Lodge” since its inception and here is the story.

In the early sixties, I believe, when all we today know as the Diocese of St. Petersburg was still in the original Florida diocese of St. Augustine, Monsignor George Cummins who was director of Good Counsel Camp in Floral City managed to convince the late Archbishop Hurley to buy almost two acres of land along the Rainbow River in Marion County for a lodge for the campers who would, he envisioned, canoe the twenty-two miles from the camp to the Lodge during their stay at Good Counsel. Archbishop Hurley bought the land which had a four room, two-story, two bath house on it. Th downstairs was all one massive room with a small kitchen and a small bath. The second story was one large bedroom and three smaller bedrooms with one bath. The house was largely constructed of Florida pine and its interior walls and floors were of the same unfinished pine. Campers in the sixties returned to Good Counsel just so they could take the two overnight canoe trips to Good Counsel, paddling from its lake to the Withlacoochie River and then to the Rainbow River and upstream to the camp. The journey took two days with an overnight along the Withlacoochie and then another overnight at Tomahawk.

View of Tomahawk Lodge from the Rainbow River

In 1968 the dioceses of Orlando and St. Petersburg were created by Pope Paul VI and lo and behold Citrus County remained in the new diocese of St. Petersburg so Good Counsel Camp continued to be project of the new diocese but Tomahawk Lodge was in Marion County, just four miles inside the boundaries of the Diocese of Orlando so the property transferred to Orlando. No more overnight canoe trips to the camp’s offsite Lodge. It did not take Bishop Borders, the new and first bishop of Orlando, long to realize he had no use for this property along the Rainbow and Monsignor Cummings, still directing the camp wanted it back. But Orlando, who might have said, “take it off our hands” instead said “buy it” which we did. This property holds several distinctions: it is the only property owned by the diocese outside of our territorial boundaries, albeit only barely outside and we had to purchase it not once but twice.

It remains an outpost for campers during the six week camping season and does not get a lot of other use. The property is stunningly beautiful. The Rainbow River is spring fed and the temperature of the water remains at 76 degrees, winter and summer. It is so clear one can watch the fish swimming by and the banks are marked by large hanging cypress trees in many places providing a canopy from the sun’s rays.  So now you know one of the “hidden secrets” of the diocese which is not really a secret at all. The place is a gem. Outside of the camping season it is available for rental and some parishes in the diocese use it for picnics, outings and other brief retreats. Monsignor Cummings had wonderful foresight in many ways. This property was recently appraised in the present real estate market as being worth about $650,000, even with the generally unrepaired solitary lodge building. Father Jim Johnson who currently directs the camp this year invested in a new metal roof and new windows which are a great improvement. I trust you have enjoyed reading about this “gem” and hope sometime you can do as I did yesterday and enjoy the magnificence and beauty of northern Florida and its rivers and lakes.

One amazing view of the Rainbow River from the lawn of Tomahawk Lodge

Pope John Paul II celebrated a large Mass in Canada using the bottom of a canoe for the altar. I thought I might do the same.

Holy Name Monastery in St. Leo -- the home of the Benedictine Sisters of Florida

This morning the Benedictine Sisters of Holy Name Monastery in St. Leo invited me to come and celebrate Mass and the blessing of their new prioress. Sister Roberta Bailey who has been a number of years the Principal of St. Anthony School in San Antonio was elected by the members of her community to serve as Prioress for a term of, I believe, four years renewable for four more if she and they choose. Sister Roberta replaces Sister Mary Clare Neuhofer who was been the Prioress for eight years. The installation of the new prioress occurred this morning in a private ceremony at Morning Prayer and attended only by the community of sisters themselves. The Mass and Blessing which I attended saw about seventy-five additional people other than the sisters attending. It was simple, lovely and at times touching but then that is the Benedictine way. They devote their lives to prayer and work and sometimes their work is precisely praying for others. They are a monastic community but not of absolutely strict observance.

It is not the easiest time to be a religious woman in the Catholic Church in the United States. There is a Vatican initiated and controlled visitation of religious communities in this country which has been announced and is already underway and their national organization which is called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is also under scrutiny by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. I find the former to be interesting since the constitutions under which every religious community in this country lives have all been given the “good housekeeping seal of approval” by the same Congregation in Rome which now is investigating the sisters. Some time late summer and this fall, visitation teams will spread out across the US and visit the number of religious congregations and orders and then send a secret report back to Rome. If there is anything which the sisters dislike, it is precisely the secrecy of it all since they tend more than bishops or even men’s religious communities to do all their business in the proverbial “sunshine” or out in the open. We have only two possible communities which could be visited in this diocese, the Benedictines and the Sisters of St. Clare and neither of them will receive visitators.

As a man who happens to be both a priest and bishop, I can say categorically that I love the sisters of this diocese. Their total number is down considerably since my arrival (no cause and effect relationship but an indication of the aging and dying of nuns in this country) but they still contribute greatly to the life of this local Church. Many parishes who have one or two sisters working either in the school or doing parish ministry treasure their presence as do I. They are golden and a platinum resource in our midst. The same is true for the Benedictine Sisters of Holy Name who have been teachers since their foundation in many of the schools and presence in other parishes in mostly the northern three counties of this local Church. Today we prayed that God would bless these sisters with new vocations so that their presence and ministry in our midst might continue. And lest anyone forget, may I remind you that the largest national collection taken up in this diocese in terms of money donated is the one in December for the Retired Religious. Catholics also love the nuns and despite the occasional jokes about rulers across hands, our memories of the sisters of our youth are a part of the great mosaic of our faith.

Sr. Roberta Bailey, OSB and Bishop Lynch pose for a photo in front of a painting of St. Scholastica

Thank you, Sister Mary Clare. Congratulations and blessings to you, Sister Roberta. And love, prayers and best wishes to all the other sisters of our five counties.

+RNL

Here’s another set of random thoughts while shaving……..

Vacation days are upon us. At our office we can tell when things begin to shut down in our parishes with pastors and associates taking their vacations and a dearth of phone calls and letters to be answered are the rule of the day here at the Bishop Larkin Pastoral Center. For we older generation types, the window of summer vacation weeks has been narrowed considerably by the earlier opening of school, now in early August instead of after Labor Day as  back in the “days of the giants.” This has it effects not only on parents of school age children and their teachers and administrators, but pastors and associates as well. Generally one can not get away until school is closed and must be back prior to school reopening. What was once a twelve week window for my brothers is now more like an eight week window at best and imagine the complications next year when Easter is on the last possible day it can be observed, April 24th, and Pentecost is not until June 12th. I am ready to resume a full confirmation schedule next year and am hoping that more parishes will choose a date prior to Ash Wednesday and after Christmas or at least the first five weeks after Easter. So we have the same challenges of “when to rest from our labors” as many of you do.

Finally, while on this topic, don’t forget Sunday Mass when you are away. I am edified at the number of people in the summer who fill the huge Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of the Universe at Disney. I am also edified by those who attend Sunday Mass on cruise ships when the opportunity is offered by a cruise line (now just Holland America and Crystal among the major players) and at our national parks. The rule of the Church has always been that you can be excused if you are actually travelling (read that on the road, plane, train or ship) during Sunday Mass times but must attend if at all possible otherwise. The Creator deserves our praise for the beauty of creation, after all.

For readers from the Diocese of St. Petersburg, four priests who were originally a part of our diocese but now minister in the Diocese of Venice (we call them “SOB’s” which means “South of the Bridge(rs)”) have been recommended by Bishop Frank Dewane to the Holy Father for receiving papal honors. Monsignor Edward Moretti, V.G. Vicar General of the Diocese of Venice and pastor of Saints Peter and Paul parish in Bradenton has been named as a Protonotary Apostolic with the title of Monsignor; Monsignor Gerard M. Finnegan, Pastor of St. Mary, Star of the Sea on Longboat Key,  and Monsignor Stephen Edward McNamara, pastor of Resurrection of the Lord parish in Fort Myers were both named Chaplains of His Holiness and Father Fausto Stampiglia, pastor of St. Martha in Sarasota and a member of the Pallotine Order has been given the  Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Award. Congratulations are in order to our alumni.

Monsignor Norman Balthazar, for the past decade almost the Director of Catholic Cemeteries is retiring at the age of seventy as is allowed and will be returning to his home on Buzzard’s Bay, Massachusetts,  next month. Monsignor has done an outstanding job of transforming Calvary Cemetery into a beautiful final resting place for our loved ones and has made all of us proud of what a Catholic cemetery can look like. I wish him well in his retirement.

Finally, stay off the roads at the end of next week because that is when all our priests who are changing assignments and returning to new assignments will be moving. There are quite a few this year but not nearly as many as my first Spring as bishop here when about thirty were reassigned and it was referred to, quite irreverently but comically as “the lynchings.” All the alia I can think of for now.

+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.