From The Pastor

TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK
Dear St. Theresa Family,
“The poor you always have with you”… This line has often caused trouble. Some interpret it as meaning that fighting poverty is a losing battle, that God must want some people to be poor, or that what we do for God is more important than any other work we do. These explanations reveal a lack of understanding of who Jesus is and what he practiced and preached his whole life.

This really is John’s version of the story of the sheep and goats: “Whatever you do to the least of these your brothers and sisters, you do to me, and whatever you refuse to do for them, you neglect to do for me.” It’s as though Jesus is saying: “I am poor. I am already rejected, plotted against, and betrayed by my own. I will be left alone by my friends and betrayed by my own. I will be brutally beaten, cursed, mocked, and murdered. I am as poor as any one of you will ever know or meet. She has done me a kindness; she has been merciful to me now while she could. You will not always have me with you to be in my company and feast with, so I give you a gift…the poor. They will always be with you, for I am always with them, and whatever you want to do for me, do for them.

Jesus' words in the gospel are not an invitation to an either-or response. Our generosity to the church empowers it as the body of Christ to fulfill its mission in the world, enriching it with spiritual strength, including the response it gives to need.
Our generosity to the poor reveals to them an awareness of God’s love, mercy, and justice. This, in turn, enriches them with hope and promise in the face of need and despair, recognizing them as the contemporary body of Christ.

Saint Bridget of Ireland is credited with a spectacular insight into this as she wrote:
“I should like a great lake of beer for the King of Kings.
I should like the angels of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.
I should like excellent meals of belief and pure piety.
I should like flails of penance at my house.
I should like the men of heaven at my house;
I should like vessels of cheerfulness to be in their drinking.
I should like Jesus to be there among them.
I should like the three Marys of illustrious renown to be with us.
I should like the people of heaven, the poor, to be gathered around us from all parts.

This is a pragmatic understanding, mixing worship and the work of the kingdom of God. Whatever thankfulness we owe to God this day, we could give to the poor, knowing that we will be defended by Jesus, too: “Leave her alone! Leave him alone! They will get to keep it against the day of my burial.”

In His Name,
Fr. Larry Covington

Dear St. Theresa Family,
It’s all about remembering, and it begins on Holy Thursday.

This is the night when “we do this in remembrance.” Holy Thursday is a time for Catholics to remember the institution of the Lord’s Supper as our central act of worship, the Mass, and we also wash our feet.

Not just the feet of twelve men selected from the parish but whoever’s feet come through the door: The old and the young, the rich and the poor, the faith-filled and those struggling to find faith…everyone. Anyone who wants to wash feet or have their feet washed gets to do so that night, a powerful response to Christ’s command to “wash each other’s feet.”

This action is very sacramental in nature, and the grace that flows from this action is transformative. You only need to look at the faces of those involved to know. The celebration of the institution of the Eucharist follows where we truly “Do this in remembrance of him.” After the Mass, we process behind the Blessed Sacrament as it is taken to the Gym for adoration, remembering the words of Jesus when he said “Can you not watch one hour with me?” The Blessed Sacrament will be exposed until midnight, concluding with a service of Night Prayer.
 
Our journey of remembering continues on Good Friday. This is the three-part service of the Passion, the Adoration of the Cross and Holy Communion from the reserved sacrament. It is a simple and stark service reflecting the events of that day. There is an old tradition that states that the “Good Thief” who hung on the cross next to Jesus “stole heaven.” He did nothing to deserve it. In fact, he was utterly undeserving. But he knew a good thing when he saw it and made the request of Jesus: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He simply asked to be remembered. Jesus simply responded by saying, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” It was that easy. 

But somehow, we think that we are worse than that thief. We believe Jesus wants us to run a few spiritual marathons before we can qualify. Jesus makes it easy; in contrast, we can make it so hard. Like the “Good Thief” we need to learn to know a good thing when we see it. And maybe that’s another reason why we call this Friday Good. “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
 
Everyone is invited to great experiences of remembering this week. Put aside the comfortable and the competitive and the routine and walk with one another the path our Lord walked as together we embrace what he embraced and celebrate his victory and ours come Easter. Let us together celebrate a good and Holy Week.

In His Name,
Fr. Larry Covington

Palm Sunday Reflection

Dear St. Theresa Family,
St. Paul tells us, “Your attitude must be Christ’s.” It occurs to me, however, that our attitude, most of the time, is almost the exact opposite of Christ’s. Whether it is the man and woman in the Genesis story eating the forbidden fruit in an attempt to “be like God” or whether it’s the attainment of “self-realization” or “self-actualization,” the motive is the same.

We seek fulfillment through self-assertion and independence. The operant word is “self.” Everything is on my terms, even the worship of God. The exaltation of “self” is evident in the co-opting of language to serve a more fluid personal identity. We live in an age where people have decided that they can be identified by whatever pronoun they choose, be it individual, indefinite, demonstrative, and so on. Our desire for individuality at any cost turns out to be far more expensive than we could have imagined. There is nothing wrong with “self,” and I don’t understand that the notion of “self” is negative.  It is only so if “self” is the only thing. Self is fine, but usually “self” has a suffix attached. As “selves,” the suffix we choose describes our relationship to the world around us, whether it be “ish” or “less” or “fulfillment” and even from time to time “negation.”

Jesus’ quest for self-fulfillment was different than the one we engage in so often. He who was “in the form of God” …who was and is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful command who “did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at,” but “emptied himself and took the form of a slave.” This Jesus reached his self-fulfillment by self-negation coupled with total obedience. “He humbled himself obediently accepting death…”and because of this, God “highly exalted him.”

This Palm Sunday, we come together to be present to him in our devotion, our worship of God in Christ…but not as the Christ who reveals himself through inspirational speeches, miracles, transfigurations, etc. This is the Christ who has submitted himself selflessly to an event over which he had ultimate power to do whatever he willed. And he chose to empty himself in the most selfless act known to humankind.

At the beginning of Holy Week, we have an opportunity to imitate him. This is the week when we are invited to empty ourselves. Cease for a time being a consumer and instead produce, taking in but also giving out. But before we do that, we must look at our preferred suffix… Since today and in this place, we are supposed to bring our “selves," what “selves” have we brought?

In His Name,
Fr. Larry Covington

All Saints Day

The feast of All Saints which is our celebration of the Communion of Saints spoken of in the Apostles Creed focuses our thoughts on the heroes of our faith.  These that we call the saints have won the crown of victory and are now in a special relationship with God and intercede for us as well as give us an example of blessedness. The Gospel for the Mass of All Saints is Matthew 5:1-12 commonly referred to as the Beatitudes.  These saints we commemorate have as the Bible says: “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  The Lamb is Jesus, the one who takes away the sins of the world; their robes symbolize their souls. Conscious of their divine adoption as children of the Father in Christ Jesus, they have followed Jesus in his sacrificial pilgrimage of suffering service, a service detailed in the Beatitudes.
        
THE SAINTS EMBRACED THE BEATITUDES

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”  We remember Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, and Elizabeth Ann Seton, both of whose lives represent a story of riches to rags in the worldly sense, but rags to riches in the otherworldly sense.

“Blessed are the sorrowful: they shall be consoled.”  Rita of Cascia bore the cross of an abusive husband for eighteen years and her sons followed the way of their father.  Her faith prevailed and she won them all over to Christ as each one died in her arms reconciled to Christ.

“Blessed are the lowly.”  I think of Saint Patrick who was sold into slavery and in such a state discovered for himself the power of Christ’s love.

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for holiness.”  Nothing else mattered for saints like Francis of Assisi or the American martyrs Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf.

“Blessed are those who show mercy.”  Think of St. Vincent de Paul or St. Bertilla a nurse during WWI who cared for wounded and dying soldiers.


“Blessed are the single hearted.”  Maria Goretti, only 12 years old and like St. Agnes many centuries earlier, was stabbed to death for refusing to compromise her virtue crying out to her attackers “It is a sin and God does not want it.”

“Blessed too are the peacemakers.”  I think of St. Peter Claver meeting the slaves year after year in Colombia ministering to the those forcibly removed from their homes and countries. St. Peter Claver met them as they disembarked with food and medication. I remember others like St. Thomas More, the Martyrs of Uganda, of Ignatius and Cyprian and more.

WE ARE ALSO CALLED TO BLESSEDNESS

These I mentioned are the famous ones of the great stories of faith.  But they were once as we are now.  The choice is ours as to how we embrace the grace of our baptism and live the message of the Gospel.  Of all the legacies we could leave behind only the enduring witness of a blessed life of graceful giving and selfless love will survive and serve to inspire others who in turn will rise and call us blessed.

The feast of All Saints gives us all an opportunity to recall the heroes of holiness whether they were the recognized saints of the church or our own blessed loved ones who by their example and faithfulness gave us inspiration.

Blessings,

Fr. Larry

 

Getting to Know Saint Therese

We start the month of October with the celebration of our patron saint. Over the past seven years I have been reading various books on our patron saint Therese of Lisieux.

If you would like to know more about her and why she took the world by storm here is a list of them.

The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of the Little Flower
                Edited by Mother Agnes of Jesus O. Carm
                Translated by The Rev. Michael Day, Congregation of the Oratory

This work was first published in French in 1899 and this English translation was created in 1950 from a French edition first released on the fiftieth anniversary of the death of St. Therese. It tops my list as it is a classic of Western Spirituality which I would place alongside The Imitation of Christ by St. Thomas a Kempis. Her candor and simplicity stand along side a spirituality unparalleled in modern times. It is intriguing how she alters her style for the three different recipients to whom she writes. For Mother Agnes one feels as if you are privy to her diary especially as she speaks to Pauline. The section for Mother Marie de Gonzague is more doctrinal and reveals a remarkable insight. The final section to her older sister and is truly a letter to of love and devotion to Christ. If you only seek one book, then this is it.

The Last Years of St. Therese Doubt and Darkness 1895-1897
                Nevin, Thomas. Oxford University Press. 2013

This is the second foray into the life of the Little Flower by Nevin.  His first Therese of Lisieux God’s Gentle Warrior Is an excellent read.  I hesitated to recommend this one without that one being read first, but upon consideration changed my mind.  First bear in mind that this is not a biography.  It is a study of the turbulent aspects of spiritual doubts and the struggles they entailed for St. Therese in the last years of her life.  It stands in contradistinction to the more typical approach which focuses on the “sweetness and light” we often attribute to her.  Here there is more of the Spanish spirituality of St. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross.  Perhaps not my first choice as an introduction to her life but of huge value in getting a more balanced picture of this towering saint.

Three Gifts of Therese of Lisieux
                Ahern, Patrick.  Image, (Random House) New York. 2014
This is a posthumous publication as Bishop Ahern died in 2011 at the age of ninety-two.  It is not, however his first work on the Little Flower.  In 1998 his Maurice and Therese: The Story of a Love hit the shelves following the declaration in 1997 by Pope John Paul II making St. Therese a Doctor of the Church.   This is a very accessible book and can almost be read in one sitting.  The author focuses on the “three gifts” of her universal appeal, her conviction, and her little way.  Recommended.

The Little Way for Every Day, Thoughts from St. Therese
                Broome, Francis CSP.   P aulist Press, New York. 1931
Just as the title suggests this is a daily devotional book filled with writings and quotes from St. Therese.
Very small format that fits in a pocket!

St. Therese: Doctor of the Little Way
                The Academy of the Immaculate.  New Bedford. Mass. 1997.
This is an edited compendium on the life and influence of the saint on the one hundredth anniversary of her death. Divided into five parts this is a valuable and even somewhat absorbing collection of writings and reflections compiled by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. 


The Truth about Therese    An unflinching look at Lisieux, the Little Flower, and the Little Way
                Gheon, Henri. Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, New Hampshire. 2011
                First published in Germany in 1934 by Sheed and Ward titled: The Secret of the Little Flower
From the back of the book, we read: “Scores of books have been written about St. Therese of Lisieux, but this is the first aimed at those persons, Catholic or not, who resist her, put off by all those roses and crudely painted statues…and even by her virtues…”
As readers will discover, the real Therese was an intense soul living a life of heroic grandeur amidst dull and worldly associates, a soul driven by a burning love of God even as she wrestled privately with great physical and emotional pain. 
“She is a model for those of us whom, whether we like it or not, God has called to hidden lives of quiet drama, desire, and holy sacrifice.”
This is one of the best.

The Hidden Face
                Gorres, Ida Frederike.   Ignatius press, San Francisco, 2003
Originally published in 1944 as Das Senfkorn von Lisieux which went through 8 editions and was revised with the title: Das verborgene Antlitz: Eine Studie uber Therese von Lisieux published in 1959 by Herder and Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau. 
Richard and Clara Winston for Pantheon Press in New York prepared this English translation.
At over 400 pages this is a substantial work and considered by many as the most important work on the saint’s life.  For those who want an in-depth work this is it.
 

Trinity Sunday

Dear St. Theresa Parish,

I’m home following doctor’s and PT’s orders. The Lord blessed me with a successful surgery which went well, and I should be back to work soon. I now have two new hips and both legs are now the same length! Many thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes. I am very grateful.

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. It has been said that you will hear more heresy preached on this day than any other during the year. Why? Preachers seem to feel the need to explain the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. It is a pointless exercise and any attempts at such will end poorly. First of all, it is a mystery. That means it is not something we are meant to comprehend. Unlike a Sherlock Holmes novel there is no last page where all the loose ends are tied up and the mystery is solved. So, suffice it to say there are mysteries and there are mysteries. 

Much like the mystery of the miracle of the Eucharist, the Trinity is a reality beyond our capacity to understand. I know. That irritates us. Ever since the Renaissance and the advent of humanism we have had the need to know and comprehend everything. We have decided that if the human brain cannot comprehend a thing, the thing cannot then be real. This makes us feel like we need a way to grab this mystery of who God is by the tail and tame it.

All attempts so far have been analogous with the results not only failing to embrace the divine nature of God but also inventing heresy. Theologians like Noetus and Sabellius attempted such using images like the three states of water, liquid, gas, and frozen. Indeed, they are all water, but steam is never ice and so one. All comparative analogies fall into one or more forms of modalism or giving God different job descriptions. The famous clover leaf fails in that the persons of the Trinity are not “parts” of God. The Trinity cannot be found in our weak analogies. As soon as a preacher launches into one raise your hand and say “Just a minute…”

Rather than digging deeper into who God is not, I want us to celebrate Trinity Sunday recognizing who God really is. The answer is given to us in 1 John 4:16 where we read “God is love…” Notice that it does not say God loves which is an action. No, it reads “God is love” pure and simple. You and I both know that that statement is problematic. I can love. I can be loved, but I am not love. Love implies relationship. I need another in order to love. So, for the Bible to say that “God is love” is to imply that God is relationship. He is in relationship with himself as a community of love. The Father loves the Son who loves the Holy Spirit who also loves God and the Son and on and on. And since love finds its fulfillment in being shared it only makes sense that God wanted the essence of who he is to be imparted on his creation. God is the original community of love, a whirlwind of ecstatic delight generating the universe of being from the smallest critters to the planets in their courses.

What do we know from this? If we are made in the image and likeness of God, then we are made to be communities of love as well. You and I together, individuals, married couples who are the very model of Christ and his Church and all opportunities for any of us to bring about goodness. Anything less is not of God.

This is the Sunday when we are reminded to love as we are loved and thereby create more love as we cooperate with God in building the kingdom.

God bless you all,
Fr. Larry
 

May 13, 2022

Happy Friday everyone.   Get your bible out and read Revelation 21: 1-5.

I was waiting in line to check out at the car wash and my eyes fell on the rack displaying the “New Car Smell” things you can hang from your rear-view mirror. What is it about that fragrant combination of plastic, leather, paint, and other possibly hazardous chemicals? You can buy it and hang it up but that’s where the newness stops…it’s a shame that the new car smell doesn’t bring along with it a new transmission, tires and a paint job. I guess for those among us who want the illusion of newness, then here is the answer, at least for the car. It’s a great marketing idea because isn’t that the first comment you make when you get into a new car? It must be important, that sense of newness. Think about it. You can re-create that soul satisfying novelty with something you hang on the rear-view mirror! That’s when my mind started to wander as I imagined this concept being applied more broadly. Perhaps there could be other things that could as readily give us that same sense of newness. The olfactory sense being so closely associated with memory and emotion I thought that it would be great if someone could come up with “New Marriage Smell,” you could hang it over the bed … or “New Job Smell,” you could hang it over your desk or even “New Life Smell” something you could hang around your neck. It’s all about “new."

One of our favorite words in the English language is the word “new”. The word new often has hitched behind it a long train of other words like clean, fresh, bright, young,
you fill in the rest. New is the favorite word of anyone advertising anything. Politicians are always promising something new…a new society…a new frontier…new ideas or at least a new approach. This was driven home for me a few years ago, when I was celebrating the rite of Confirmation. After the anointing with sacred chrism, a highly scented oil, I overheard one of confirmands say, “I feel like a new Christian.”  His sponsor said, “yes and you even have that new Christ smell!”

Experience, however, has taught us that new is always temporary. Today’s shiny new car is tomorrow’s tired trade-in. The new house soon becomes just the house…and we all know what happens to campaign promises which raises the question: is everything advertised as new doomed to obsolescence?   The answer is offered in the imagery from the Book of Revelation. The one who sat on the throne said to me. “See I make all things new!” Great. But for how long? It seems to imply that this promise refers not only to the hereafter but also to the here and now as a foretaste. This is good news because it is an assurance that God is always with us. The passage goes on to say:  This is God’s dwelling among men. He shall dwell with them, and they shall be his people and they shall be their God who is always with them. That assurance that God is always with us evokes a response because deep in our hearts there is a longing for someone who will accept us for who and what with warts and all. Someone who will love us and support us in sorrow and hold us up in failure. That was the role our parents played for us when we were little. As children we all had the experience of being lost…that sudden loss of security draining from us leaving us feeling exposed and vulnerable. Sometimes that feeling came not from getting lost but getting betrayed. Children who have had their childhoods stolen or yanked away from them. By people they trusted, by those who themselves were lost.

These experiences are carried throughout their lives such that they are all secretly afraid of being hurt again or that their efforts at friendship and love will be rejected… that they will be let down, hurt, or abandoned by someone they love and trust. Afraid of when the old wound is reopened, and fear of loneliness is reinforced.

If this sounds at all familiar Jesus is saying to us: “See, I make all things new!”  
When no one else understands, there is one who does. When everyone else seems to ignore us, to reject us, to condemn us, there is one who accepts us. When I can’t find the other person to accept the love that I want to give, and to receive, there is one who does accept and receive and who loved me before I loved him and who loves me more than I can ever love him, who will go on loving me no matter what. And all this from someone who knew greater loneliness and more horrific betrayal than we can imagine. John records for us the departure of one of Jesus’ closest friends, who left to betray. The next words from Jesus’ mouth were not words of dismay but victory,” “Now is the son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.”

What gave Jesus this ability to view the cross of betrayal and pain as the place of triumph?  It was his faith in a God who does make all things new. God fulfilled that promise for his son, however, not by delivering Jesus from death but by raising him on the third day to a new life beyond death. In his resurrection Jesus experienced the fulfillment of the great promise contained in the Book of Revelation where we hear about no more death or mourning, weeping or pain, for the former world has passed away.

For us the complete fulfillment of those promises belongs to the future. We heard in Acts: “We must undergo many trials if we are to enter into the reign of God.”  As long as this life endures, God’s promise to make all things new means not preservation from trial, but rather support in trials. God’s promise to make all things new is not like all those other promises. It isn’t a subterfuge or a distraction…It is a glorious reality.  But it is a reality which is both present and future. We live at the intersection of the “already” and the “not yet.” Already God is with us, supporting us in many ways: through his word, his sacraments, the discipleship of others. Already God is fulfilling his promise to make all things new.

Complete fulfillment of that promise belongs, however, to the “not yet.” Only in future life will God wipe away all tears from our eyes. Only beyond death shall we truly know what Jesus experienced in his resurrection: “no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the former world has passed away.” Life really is not a cheat in which everything new today turns out to be tomorrow’s burden. At least life is never a cheat as long as we consent to living it in the heart of Christ… Jesus Christ makes all things new, and he can make your life new. He will never do it, however, without your consent.
His assurance is certain, but it comes with strings attached. A willingness to let go of the old. And in the letting go discovering a new heart. A heart that sees past pain and betrayal. A heart that forgives. A heart that does not give up. A heart that makes it possible to enjoy that new Christ smell for all eternity.

Blessings,

Fr. Larry

March 11, 2022

Dear St. Theresa family,

This weekend we encounter the Transfiguration of Jesus. The scripture is Luke 9:28-36.

The meaning of this extraordinary encounter can never be fully explained. The event on that mountain top is a mystery because, though it happened in time, it comes from beyond time. For a moment, the veil between time and eternity, between heaven and earth, was lifted. Jesus’ three friends caught a momentary glimpse of the invisible, spiritual world of God. The concluding words, “Listen to him,” express the significance of this mystery for Jesus’ friends: not only for the three on the mountain with him, but for all the friends of Jesus, including us.

Now, we are the company of those who listen to his words. Jesus does not grant us, any more than he granted to Peter, James, and John, the continuous vision of his Glory. We do not live on the mountaintop of great spiritual experiences. We live in the valley of life’s ordinary duties. We do not look for dazzling visions from beyond. Instead, we listen for Jesus’ voice.

Jesus speaks to us in many ways: in the Scriptures, in the teaching of his church, in the circumstances of daily life, and perhaps most importantly in those we encounter along life’s way.  In the world to come it will be different. There we shall see God. In this world, however, we live by faith, and not by sight.

This is the way Jesus lived. But how bitterly was his faith tested, as Moses’ faith was tested by the stubborn Israelites. But unlike Moses, Jesus would himself become the sacrifice that once and for all completes all other sacrifices.  His walk to that sacrifice was an uphill walk all the way.  This time it was not a mountain but rather a hill just outside of town.  There with his arms stretched out he fulfilled God’s will for him, and God’s own sacrifice was complete.

Just as Abraham listened to God’s voice and offered what was most precious to him on Mt. Moriah, Jesus summons us to follow him on the way of the cross: to endure whatever trials and sufferings life may bring.   

The way of the cross will lead us, as it led Jesus, through suffering to death.  But beyond death for us, as for him, is resurrection to eternal life.  Then faith will give way to sight. Then our earthly pilgrimage between a mostly overcast sky will yield to the uninterrupted vision of God’s glory.  We will have reached our true homeland, that heavenly city which needs neither sun nor moon, for as read in the Book of Revelation: “for the glory of God gives it light, and the lamp is the Lamb.”

Now, however, is the time not for seeing, but for hearing.  We listen to God’s voice and do what he says in obedience as he speaks to us those words first uttered to those three friends of Jesus on a mountaintop: “This is my Son, my beloved.  Listen to him.”

Have a transformed week,

Fr. Larry

March 3, 2022

Dear St. Theresa family,

At our parish council retreat last Saturday during discussion of the effects Covid has had on people, Ollie Zimmerman commented that many people are seeking some sense of hope.  And by hope I wondered if what was meant was the stuff of a meaningful existence.  In thinking about this my mind went to that trinity of words “faith, hope, and love.”  Ruminating on this I found myself reviewing the great philosophers to see what they considered as the most essential thing for meaningful existence. Socrates for all his wisdom had it wrong; it is not the unexamined but finally the uncommitted life that is not worth living. Descartes too was mistaken; “Cogito ergo sum” – “I think therefore I am”? Nonsense. “Amo ergo sum” – “I love therefore I am.” Or, as with unconscious eloquence St. Paul wrote, “Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”   I doubt if in any other scriptures of the world there is a more radical statement of ethics.  If we fail in love, we fail in all things else.

So, in considering this topic of a need for hope, faith seems to be the starting place.  What is faith?  Faith is being grasped by the power of love. Faith is recognizing that if at Christmas Jesus became like us, it was so that we might become more like him.  We know what that means: watching Jesus heal the sick, empower the poor, and scorn the powerful, we see transparently the power of God at work.  Watching Zacchaeus climb a tree a crook and come down a saint, watching Paul set out a hatchet man for the Pharisees and return a fool for Christ, we know that our lives too can become channels for divine mercy to flow out to save the lost and the suffering. I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.  

If faith puts us on the road, hope keeps us there. It’s hope that helps us keep the faith, despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. Hope has nothing to do with optimism. Its opposite is not pessimism but despair.  And if Jesus never allowed his soul to be cornered into despair, clearly, we Christians shouldn’t either. 

 Hope criticizes what is, hopelessness rationalizes it. Hope resists, hopelessness adapts. How often it is that those furthest from the seats of power are nearer to the heart of things. Remember that listening to Jesus, seated on the mountainside were no Roman centurions, no King Herods, no Pharisees. These were ordinary folk, the kind likely as not to stone the prophets, to beg Moses to lead them back to Egypt. Yet it was to them that Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth”; “You are the light of the world.” Has common humanity ever received so high a compliment from so informed a source?

One of my favorite stories concerns a beggar in sixteenth-century Paris who, desperately ill, was taken to the operating table of a group of doctors.  In Latin, which they were sure he would not understand, the doctors said, “Faciamus experimentum in anima vile” (Let us experiment of this vile fellow.)  The beggar, who was actually an impoverished student, later to become a renowned poet, Marc Antoine Muret, replied from the slab on which they had laid him, “Animam vilem appellas pro qua Christus non dedignatus mori est?” (Will you call vile one for which Christ did not disdain to die?) If Christ did not disdain to die for any of us, who are we not to live for all of us?

And then there is the greatest of these, love. I believe that God dwells with those who make love their aim.  And there is no sentimentality in this love; it is not endlessly pliable, always yielding. Prophets from Amos and Isaiah to Martin Luther King Jr. have shown how frequently compassion demands confrontation.  Today tens of thousands of Ukrainians are all too aware of what love demands.  Love without criticism is a kind of betrayal. Lying is done with silence as well as with words.  And always the love that is of God lies on the far side of justice, never on the near side.  

It is clear that the greatest evils of humanity are due to lack of love and that the New Testament’s “miraculous catch” in Luke 5 was not the overabundance of fish Peter and the rest of them caught that day, but the fact that Peter and the rest were caught up, even as we are, in the net of Christ’s love.  The Bible is correct in stating that the opposite of love is not hate but fear.  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

Have a hopeful Lent,
Fr. Larry

March 2, 2022

Dear St. Theresa family,

Today is Ash Wednesday and I want to encourage you not to give up on giving up, but I do want you to give up on your idea of what giving up is all about. So, before you give up on this sermon let me explain. 

Lent always begins with the Church’s admonition to prayer, fasting, repentance, almsgiving and these are all important aspects of our Lent observances but fasting and what fasting represents is what I want to speak to today. 

Fasting has been such an integral aspect of Lent that we make it interchangeable with “giving something up.”   That’s the question we often ask one another this time of year: “What are you giving up for Lent?”  And why? The why is easy.  Jesus fasted in the desert and that gave him the clarity to see through Satan’s temptation.  We need that same clarity. Satan is standing by with all kinds of reasons why you should give up on your giving up.

The idea is that the sacrifice represented by whatever it is we give up brings to mind the sacrifice by which Christ won for us eternal salvation.  And that’s a good thing to do. The sacrifices we make during this season are meant to help keep this gift of salvation before us each day. We offer our sacrifice as a gift and as a personal reminder that we are indeed sinners and in constant need of redemption that event on the cross gave us.  The sacrifice we make and the penance we offer in reparation for our sinfulness gives us a share in the victory Christ won for us.   

But I am not sure that the “giving up” we usually have in mind meets that purpose.  What do I mean? First off, let’s look at “giving up.” Typically, when we give up it is a resignation. “I give up.” It’s the decision to let go of a dream, a hope, a career, a purpose, even a person because of some failure. “I give up.” Being human and accustomed to some degree of self-preservation, when we give up something we proceed to convince ourselves that our life is going to be better for having given it up.  Maybe that’s true and maybe it is just wishful thinking.

Because the “I give up.” is, in our minds an admission of inadequacy, we then justify it by advertising how much better off we are because of what we gave up even when it is not true. “That job was never right for me.” “That relationship was a dead end from the get-go, I just didn’t have my eyes open.” “I can live just fine without it.” If you want a simple way of evaluating your sacrifice, ask this question: “Is it something I value and is it something valuable in the eyes of the receiver?”  If you want to know how God feels about what often passes as sacrifice think about the couple who got a broken second-hand leaf blower for a wedding present. “Well, we didn’t need it anymore and we knew they didn’t have one and it will be easy for them to get it fixed.” Truthfully that’s what Lenten “giving up has become” for many. Knowing that changing the culture never begins with semantics, I’m going to offer another way of thinking about “giving up.”

Lent is a season of repentance. Recognizing what needs changing in our lives and making sincere and concentrated efforts to do it. Sacrifices are not always the things we “give up.”  They are offerings we make of something that is of real value to us given in recognition that there is something we need that is greater and worth the sacrifice. The giving up of Lent is the Lifting up of something we hold dear and saying this is not for me, it is for you.  

For 40 days I lift this up to you alone. Doing this redirects us towards God. Fasting is a conscious sacrifice of a good thing that reminds us of a better thing, a higher thing, an ultimate thing. Fasting, a real fasting and not a legalistic avoidance of something so we can check off one more obligation.  Fasting is not lobster instead of steak on Friday. Fasting is not a 40-day program to shed the results of the excesses of the holidays so we can look good in a swimsuit this summer. Fasting is not payment on an insurance policy.  So, what am I giving up? Am I giving up a something that is important to me?  Is it being lifted up as an offering that makes a statement about what is ultimately important? Am I giving up a sacrifice that is pleasing to God?

Unlike the fasting proclaimed by the Prophet Joel as an appeasement to God who would otherwise destroy the city of Nineveh, our sacrifice, our fasting is the preparation for a celebration of the fact that Nineveh was saved, that we are saved by the sacrifice of Christ who did his 40-day battle with Satan and won his victory over sin and death.

This year when someone asks you what you have given up for Lent offer a smile and tell them about the joyful, meaningful sacrifice you are making to smite the forces of evil that target you and proclaim the truth that Christ is risen from death.  In the meantime, we have the sign of Jonah, the sign of the cross in ashes as reminder that there is a greater than Jonah here and since we were worthy of the sacrifice he made for us, he is worthy of our own sacrifice.

In Christ,
Fr. Larry

February 28, 2022

Dear St. Theresa family,
Lent is upon us and the talk around the office is “what are you giving up this year?”  Some still say “It’s not what you give up but rather what you take on.”  While that sounds noble it is probably safe to say that many of us are so busy that there is no “taking on” unless there is first some “giving up!”

The three disciplines of Lent, almsgiving, prayer, and fasting as found in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6 includes Jesus’ instructions to his disciples on the need to exercises these disciplines with discretion.  No trumpet blowing, no letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing, no neglecting your appearance, etc.

This is reasonable and expected but then the text becomes transactional and that’s where I get a little bogged down. Each time the instruction is given it is concluded with “and your Father who sees…will repay you.”  Isn’t it more gracious when we do these things for their own sake rather than for recompense?  Perhaps it is because we are all children of God, a fact we often forget.  And any parent knows that to get a child to do anything you had better have a reward up a sleave as an incentive.  Are we that spiritually immature as to require a reward?

Apparently, yes.  What’s in it for me is the question we all ask when it comes to investing ourselves in God.  What’s in it for me is not about a commodity but a relationship and specifically a relationship of trust.  It is Christ pointing to his coming passion death and resurrection as a portal for our eternal salvation. This is something incomprehensible to anyone who refuses to see beyond their portfolio, their self-sufficiency and their creature comforts.  The righteous deeds that need to be done quietly, the prayers said in privacy, the fasting that goes unnoticed are all given for us to do for no other reason than to be reminded that all our trust must be in God and nowhere else.

We are given these weeks of Lent as an opportunity to reconnect with this saving act which God in Christ endlessly and selflessly offers for us.  We should give some thought in these next few days to our charity, prayer life, and self-denial.  Then when we come forward to receive the ashes and hear those words “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” it will spark the remembrance of the grace of our origin and the certainty of our destiny and in so doing be the impetus that draws us closer to who and what we are, trusting children of God.

A blessed Lent

Fr. Larry


2021 Messages From Fr. Larry

2020 Messages From Fr. Larry