We’ve all learned some useful things sitting in a classroom. How to read and write, add and subtract, name the 50 states, and random facts about the history of our country and the world. If we went to a Catholic school, we also memorized prayers, lists of sacraments, and definitions of heavy mysteries like the Trinity and the Virgin Birth. You can learn a lot in a classroom. But there are some things we’ll never learn from a book, teacher, or memorized fact. Some things have to hit us right between the eyes, or bull’s-eye straight into our hearts. We have to experience these things to know them – like falling in love, being forgiven, or receiving grace in a perilous hour. People can tell us what those things are like. Poets describe the delirious feeling of seeing a loved one’s face. In confession you are told by the priest that you are ritually forgiven by God. The definition of grace in the Catechism states: “the gift of the Spirit who justifies and sanctifies.” But we still don’t know what any of those words mean until we have the personal, visceral, soul-shaking experience of love, forgiveness, and grace.

It’s the same with knowing Jesus. Everybody knows Jesus right? We know He’s the Son of God, and Mary’s boy, and that He was born in Bethlehem and died in Jerusalem and rose in glory and ascended to heaven. But what does all that tell us? Maybe not as much as we think it does. Actually nowhere near enough!! There’s a difference between the classroom lesson about Jesus and the actual encounter of Him. Even the disciples, who hung around with Jesus all the time, didn’t really know Him.

That’s why the Transfiguration (today’s gospel) comes as such a surprise, a shock really. The three friends who knew Jesus best – Peter, James, John – literally “wake up” to the knowledge of who Jesus really is. He’s the fulfillment of every story from the law of Moses to the prophecies of Israel! He’s God’s every promise come to earth and in the flesh! He’s the one they’ve been waiting for! He is the light of the world, shinning dazzling white be- fore their own eyes!!

One minute they see Jesus this way. The next minute they don’t. Is it be- cause they fall back asleep? Is that why they remain the ignorant disciples who run from Jesus and deny Him in his hour of greatest need? If so, we can’t blame them. Most of us only see Jesus in little flashes of light, tiny glimmers of understanding that come and go.

Lent is an opportune time to stay awake and open ourselves to those trans- figuration moments. Some will have that moment in or after an ALPHA session. Some will experience that moment during Eucharistic Adoration. Some, during or after a pilgrimage to a religious site. Some in a stunning display of nature. So, the most important thing is to realize that all we “learned” about Jesus isn’t enough. Pray for a “transfiguration moment” this Lent and be open to however that may come!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day from your Irish pastor

Fr Don

The Lenten Season has begun! And just as the Advent Season has two characters, so too the Lenten Season. In Advent we prepare to celebrate the first coming of Jesus at Christmas. But we also prepare to celebrate his second coming at the end of time. The Lenten season also has a double character, namely to prepare both catechumens (those who have not been baptized) and the faithful who have been baptized, to celebrate the paschal mystery. The catechumens, both with the rite of election and scrutinies, and by catechesis, are pre- pared for the celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist) at the Easter Vigil. Those of us already baptized, during the Lenten season are to be ever more attentive to the word of God and by prayer and penance prepare for the renewal of our baptismal promises on Easter.

Have you ever given much thought to the significance of your baptismal promises? You’re going to be asked to renew them during whatever Mass you go to on Easter Sunday (or the Easter Vigil). Most of us were baptized as infants. We had no cognitive abilities yet. So at our baptism our parents and godparents made promises for us. As we grew up we learned about God, Jesus, and the church, but we never really had the significance of our baptism drilled into us. So let’s use the 40 days of this Lent as a retreat to rediscover the significance of our baptism.

First, baptism is one of three sacraments of initiation (the other two are confirmation and Eucharist). The key word here is initiation. Initiation is the action of beginning something. So, in baptism we began a lifelong journey of being and growing as a disciple of Jesus. This journey even continues after our death! So, if we figure that all we need to know about our faith we got in grammar school, or when we were confirmed, we are not living our baptismal promises. If we have not discovered a personal relationship with Jesus, we have not understood that baptism marks us permanently as belong- ing to Christ, whose image we bear. By baptism we are freed from Original Sin, however there remains, as an effect of Original Sin, the inclination to sin. We promised in our baptism to “reject the glamor of evil and refuse to be mastered by sin”. We do this through the sacrament of penance, receiving the Eucharist, prayer, and a deepening spirituality. In baptism we became adopted children of God. We became sharers of divine life and temples of the Holy Spirit. Think about that!! YOU are a temple of the Holy Spirit!! WOW!

In baptism we became members of the Church, the Body of Christ. We share in the priesthood of Christ as well as his prophetic and royal MISSION. Baptism is a commissioning to discipleship.
In that, we are to carry on the mission of Jesus in our world today, bonded with all Christians. In the waters of baptism, we die to self and rise with Jesus.

So, at Easter your baptismal vows will once again be asked of you. This year, may you have a deeper appreciation and understanding of your “I do” response to these promises which were once made for you a long time ago!

Have a Blessed Lent!

Fr Don

This is pledge weekend for this year’s Diocesan Catholic Ministries Annual Ap-peal. Please join me and Fr. Mark in mak- ing a gift to this year’s appeal and become “Signs of Hope”. Your gift to the appeal brings hope to so many throughout the Diocese who are in need. A gift to the CMAA is very important because it provides most, if not all, of the funding for the 30 ministries that serve our parishes, touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. The diocese provides priests to staff our parishes. Currently there are 38 seminarians being educated for priestly service in our diocese. We are very blessed to have this many, but, imagine for a moment the total cost of each year of college and graduate school education for these 38 young men. The CMAA through your contributions, helps to pay these costs. Our parish goal for this year is $133,400. You can make a one-time gift or make a pledge and pay it over 10 months. Like last year, 70% of funds received over our parish goal are rebated back to the parish for use in our ministries here at OLM. I thank you in advance for your generous sup- port!

In the Gospel today, Jesus addresses something that we all rail against, and at the same time are sometimes guilty of – hypocrisy! The story is told of Mark Twain at a dinner party whose guests included a businessman notorious for having made his money by sharp dealing and by unscrupulously and aggressively squeezing money out of his beleaguered tenants and clients. At one point in the evening, the fellow cornered Twain and piously gushed: “Before I die, Mr. Twain, I intend to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I want to climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud.” “I have a better idea,” suggested Twain acidly. “Why don’t you stay right here in Boston and keep them?” Hypocrisy is also an occupational hazard of the religious professional. Ralph Waldo Emerson once noted, “People are very inclined to set moral standards for others.” The implication is that we may not use the same criteria to regulate our own lives. Jesus chided the religious leaders of his day….I think he would do the same today. Clergy of all faiths are in a precarious position, for it is expected that they will publicly preach morality, but we have seen many not practice it themselves. There is a Latin phrase that scarcely requires translation to show why abuse perpetrated by any clergy is particularly scandalous: “Corruptio optimi pessima est” which means “The corruption of the best is worst of all.”

Today’s gospel may just set the right tone for Lent which begins this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. Instead of giving up soda, cigarettes, candy, swearing, etc. etc. Let’s give up being hypocritical in our relationship with others and get the plank out of our own eye before worrying about others. “Judge not, and you will not be judged!”

Have a blessed week!

Fr Don