The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales is distributing one million cards (pictured above) in order to cultivate evangelization among Catholics. They are “credit card” size, and are intended to be carried in purse or in pocket. When the person carrying it sees the card, it is a reminder. In the event of an emergency, when someone else sees it, it is a request.
The pastor of St. Andrew, Milford (yours truly) has it in his mind that all parishioners at St. Andrew will eventually get something similar. It is one of those good ideas that gets tucked away to be used at a later time, when the time seems right – and ripe.
My card will be especially designed, with a slight change of words, to read: “I am a Catholic priest. In the event of an emergency, please contact a Catholic.”
When I was 16 years old, I failed the test for my driver’s license. It was parallel parking that got me, or rather, that I didn’t get. When the police officer told me that I would have to come back to take the parking test over, I could hardly believe it, “Did I hit the curb?” He was matter of fact with his response, “Son, you went over the curb.”
I was embarrassed. Mom drove me home. For two weeks I fretted. Mom drove me back. I passed.
As I typed the previous five, short sentences, it surprised me when I saw that between “embarrassed” and “fretted” was “mom.” And between “fretted” and “passed” was “mom.” My mother was right in the middle of my embarrassment, my fretting and my passing.
Later, when mom got much older, and she gave up her driver’s license, I was driving her everywhere. One night, yes, I know we should not have been out, we left the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home, where mom lived in Clifton. It was a rainy evening, with freezing temperatures. Going down Riddle Road toward McMicken Avenue, past the “s” turn, there is a significant hill. That night it was ice! Instinctively I said, “Mom, I’ll drive. You pray.” We got to the bottom of the hill just fine. My driving skills? My mother’s prayers?
Whenever we’d be out and about, mom was always praying for parking places. Maybe she was thinking that, if there were a good and easy place to park, there would be less chance that I would hurt her, while I was trying to park. Her prayer sure found good parking places. Amazing how often, when curb parking was necessary, mom found two open places right together, so I could just pull in and not have to do that back up thing. At a shopping mall she’d find a place that I could pull all the way through, so that I would not have to back out later. We older people love that kind.
Oh, who is “Mark” in the title of this post? He comes to Mass here at St. Andrew. He passed his driver’s test yesterday. (Shhh! It was his second try for part of it.) . His mom had put aside everything else in her day, and would not allow anything to get in the way of going with her son for that test. Nobody else was going to go with him but her. Congratulations, Mark, on having the mother you have, and on having the driver’s license you now have, too.
In the “Hail Mary,” we ask our Blessed Mother to pray for us “now” and “at the hour of our death.” Being our heavenly mother, just like my earthly mother and your earthly mother, she wants us to have and be happy with whatever God knows is best for us to have – and she especially wants us to pass the final test that comes to us at our passing. Amen.
On this date eight years ago I first met Issa, Tamer, Tamara, Ranim and Mary in the schoolyard in Beit Jala. I had gone to the Bethlehem-area school to meet their families to give them my assurance that we would take care of their children. I thanked the five sets of parents for trusting me with their 8th graders, the youngest of them just 12 years old.
The Palestinian Christian children left their homes in the West Bank, came to Milford, stayed for just six weeks, and changed my life forever. They are all now back home, in their fourth year of college. I am as proud as any grandparent could ever be.
Happy anniversary, kids. I wish that I could say it to you in Arabic, but this is the best that I can do …. You raise my head!
Many of us remember where we were – and what we felt and what we did – on the morning of September 11, 2001. What follows is my journal entry from that Tuesday morning, ten year ago, at St. Andrew.
On September 11 we were all taken aback by the announcement that there was a horrible accident in New York. When there was a second plane into a second tower, we knew it was not an accident. When we heard that the Pentagon was hit, with what little breath we had left, we groaned, “We’re in big trouble.”
I left the parish office, crossed the street and went into each classroom of our parish school, and told the children what was being shown on television. We did what was natural and expected: we prayed. We prayed for those who had died and those who were dying. We prayed for those who were rescuing and ministering. We told God that we were afraid. We asked God to keep us safe from harm and from the hatred of other people. We asked God to keep us from hating and from wanting to harm others in return. Toward the end of our prayer we even brought ourselves to pray for those who hated us so much to do this terrible thing.
I felt some curious assurance, when I looked out the school window and saw a Milford police car in the parking lot.
Please help God help me. Read the Scriptures for this weekend. Suggest to me a thought from your mind, an emotion from your heart or an example from your life, so that I can speak to the people of St. Andrew something that might connect with their minds, hearts and lives.
This is what I am thinking thus far …
As school begins for many students, we have Jesus quizzing the disciples. When he asks his question, Jesus finds out that some are saying that he is Jesus the Baptist or that he is Jesus the Prophet. Rightly, Peter says that he is Jesus the Christ. (BTW, Christ is not Jesus’ last name, like I am Rob Waller. He is Jesus the Christ, like me being Rob a Christian. He is the Christ. I am a Christian.) In saying that Jesus is the Christ, Peter got it right, well, almost. He knew that Jesus is the Christ, that is, Jesus is the Anointed One, Jesus is the Messiah, and for that answer the teacher gave him a star, “Simon, you rock!” Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ. He just didn’t know what it really meant. In next week’s Gospel, Peter says that it obviously means that Jesus will not have to suffer. Oops. He should have quit when he was rock. This week he gets a check mark for “participates well.” Next week he gets one for “needs improvement.” This week he is a rock. Next week, he is a stumbling block. Sounds like us, doesn’t it?
Now click on “comments” below, and tell me what stirs in you when read Isaiah, Psalms, Romans and Matthew.
Please help God help me. Read the Scriptures for this weekend. Suggest to me a thought from your mind, an emotion from your heart or an example from your life, so that I can speak to the people of St. Andrew something that might connect with their minds, hearts and lives.
This is what I am thinking thus far … When we buried Kimberly at much too young an age, we noticed something about those who arrived to grieve. They came from all walks of life, from all kinds of places and for all kinds of reasons. Their languages, their skin tones, their ethnic backgrounds, their jobs, their interests and causes were all so different, one from another. Many of them did not know each other. Some had to explain to Kim’s parents how they knew her. One flew in that afternoon, sat on the sidelines at the funeral home for several hours, and when the visitation ended, left directly for the airport to fly back home to Colorado that night. Kim’s father said it best, “Kim collected friends. The only thing that anybody had to do to be her friend was to want to be her friend, and that was it. You were her friend.”
According to Isaiah, all who join themselves to the Lord will be acceptable to him. The apostle Paul worked for the salvation of his own people and for the salvation of those who were not his own. Distracted and convinced by the thought of someone sneaking table food to a puppy under the table, Jesus reached out his healing hand to the outsider (and underdog) who cried out, “Have pity on me. Help me. Please, Lord.” That was enough for her to be his friend.
Now click on “comments” below, and tell me what stirs in you when read Isaiah, Psalms, Romans and Matthew.
When I am away from Milford and mention that I am from Milford, I hear, “There’s a Jesuit retreat house there.” I quickly add, “Yes, it’s within the boundaries of my parish, but I claim no responsibility for the Jesuits.”
Often a visitor to the parish, seeing “A.M.D.G.” in stone right under “St. Andrew” over the doors of our church, and knowing that “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam” is the motto of the Jesuits, asks me, “Are you a Jesuit”? I return, “No, I’m a real priest.”
The Jesuits are known and respected in our city, not only for the retreat house, but also because of St. Xavier parish, St. X. High School and Xavier University.
Somehow I stumbled on “My Life with the Saints” written by Father James Martin, S.J. It was so down to earth and uplifting, and got me believing, as Father Martin suggested, that maybe I was attracted and drawn to know and become devoted to St. Andrew, because Andrew had been praying for me long before I paid any attention to him. Fascinating!
Then comes along Father Jim’s “The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life.” I devoured it. It is so practical and applicable to everyone’s life, yes, even to mine as a diocesan priest. The book begs me to recommend it to anyone who is looking to grow in their relationship with God or their enjoyment of life.
I just left Amazon.com, where I pre-ordered his “Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life,” which won’t be released until October. I want to be among the first to read it.
Yesterday Father Martin, bravely and in good humor, sat across the desk from the host of the Colbert Nation, explaining God’s job and defending God’s approval rating. That’s brave – and that’s using a pulpit to reach many who might not usually sit near a pulpit.
“The purchase of this ticket and attendance at this concert will mean that you grant permission for your image to be visually recorded and broadcast in all media now known and to be invented, including the world wide web throughout the world in perpetuity.”
Celtic Woman, a group of three Irish women singers and a fiddler, is taping a live concert at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, during the first week of September.
“You must be seated by 7:15 pm EST” … That makes sense. I’d like to have everyone seated in church fifteen minutes before Mass begins on Sunday, too … “Please be prepared, as this is a TV and DVD filming, that the performance may stop and start at any given time” … Okay, that one is understandable. But hear this one … “You grant permission for your image to be visually recorded and broadcast in all media now known and to be invented … in perpetuity” … That’s a long time.
Knowing that I was in Ireland two years ago for the taping of Celtic Woman’s last DVD, some have asked, “Well, are you going?”
My standard, evasive McAnswer is, “Atlanta is closer than Dublin.”
Standing at the graveside I could have sworn I smelled chili. It could have been. It was Price Hill, you know. We were at “new” St. Joseph cemetery, the Irish one, as the locals say, not to be confused with “old” St. Joe’s, which looks much newer than the new one, and in which the Germans are buried.
After honoring our parishioner Mary with the Catholic prayers of committal, I took four of her pink roses, after asking her family, of course, and headed over the hill to find the graves of my parents. It is a curious thing, maybe just in my heart but maybe in many hearts, that I remember dad, as I stand there, but I miss mom. Really miss her. I remember those rattling bottles that dad put up with behind him in the truck for our sake, as he went delivering milk house to house. And I remember that because of that job, which I am embarrassed to admit now embarrassed me when I told others what he did for a living, dad was able to come to everyone of my high school tennis matches. I remember dad. But I miss mom. I miss her patting me on the chest with the back of her hand, as she did until the day she died, whenever I kissed her goodnight or goodbye. There is still a hole in my heart, as I wish that I could hear one more time our exchange, “Hi, momma … Hi, baby!”
After clearing a few weeds away from dad’s music notes and mom’s bingo card, I went to Price Hill chili. Whenever one makes the trip “all the way over to that side of town,” one deserves to have goetta and eggs for lunch.
Slipping away from our group of pilgrims in 2000, Father Jim and I took a patriotic walk to the American consulate in West Jerusalem. From across the street, we watched guests coming out of the 4th of July bash, looking on as children not invited to a friend’s birthday party. Coming out of the consulate in a “relaxed” mood, and unable to convince the Marines at the gate to allow us in to eat the scraps that had fallen from the table, the archbishop insisted that he and his driver give us a lift back to our hotel. On the way to the Notre Dame Center we chatted and laughed with ease, me sitting in the back seat with him, feeling so comfortable in his presence that I was, by the middle of the short ride home, patting him on the hands, referring to him as “my friend, Pietro!” Getting out of the car that had, by the archbishop’s insistence, pulled up on a sidewalk, so that we would not need to cross traffic, I gasped to Father Jim, “What just happened? That was Pietro Sambi, the Papal Nuncio to Israel and Apostolic Delegate to the Palestinians.”
Two year later, my journal notes that it was September 20, visiting with some Christian friends and parish priests in Palestine, I asked the Palestinian young man and woman, who were my companions and escorts, to drive us to the Apostolic Delegation in East Jerusalem to see the Archbishop. With true Palestinian-Italian hospitality, he welcomed us into his home for juice, candy and conversation. He spoke of the Holy Father’s visit to the Holy Land, the challenges for the people and the churches of Israel and Palestine, the beauties of the American Church – and, with the warmth of a spiritual grandfather, he spoke with hope and encouragement to Vanda and Rudy, and more significantly, listened to them with affection and admiration in his eyes. We left the building with a rosary for my mother and a photo of our visit, and with that same “what just happened” expressions on our faces.
Archbishop Sambi, of good humor and great influence, was able to appreciate and join East and West. May he rest in peace, in the heavenly peace of which the angels sang on the first Christmas, for which he labored during his years in the Middle East, and for which the Christians in Bethlehem still long.
The Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales is distributing one million cards (pictured above) in order to cultivate evangelization among Catholics. They are “credit card” size, and are intended to be carried in purse or in pocket. When the person carrying it sees the card, it is a reminder. In the event of an emergency, when someone else sees it, it is a request.
With Open Doors 