August Reflections

When I was assigned to the Catholic Center at Boston University, I was always struck by what you might call the “evangelical ingenuity” of the college men and women at the Catholic Center. In a particular way, at the beginning of each year, the students there would put together a host of events–trips for cannolis in the North End, a barbecue, ultimate frisbee night, game night, and other similar events. The events were intended to be inviting and to be a way for new students to ease their way into a community. It’s obviously a lot easier to do that on a college campus than in a parish. On a college campus, the kids are in classes with one another, living in the same dorms together, and eating in the same dining halls. It’s amazing how many kids you could meet simply by tossing around a frisbee and handing out free freeze-pops! Parish life is a little more complicated in this regard. At the same time, we too want to provide opportunities for people to encounter Christ. We want to provide moments where it is possible for someone to “ease in” to Catholic life. Or, if they are already somewhat involved, to ease them into a deeper Catholic life. I think of the encounter that John and Andrew had with the Lord when Jesus asked them, “What are you looking for?” Their somewhat clumsy response was, “Master, where do you stay?” Jesus did not then provide them a list of prayers to say or a list of do’s and don’ts, instead he said, “Come and see.” In so many ways, this seems to me to be the model for evangelization. The Lord invites them to go deeper. He invites them to come and experience His friendship, His Presence. He eases them into a relationship with Himself and invites them into something attractive and wonderful. On a parish level, I am impressed by how many opportunities there are for people to ease into a deeper relationship with the Lord. There are groups that attend to those who are grieving the loss of loved ones and groups that attend to those experiencing separation and divorce. There are groups that bring people together to serve the poor, a group for young couples and families, a group of men and women who are leaders in our emerging youth ministry program, prayer groups, the Thursday night bible study, a women’s bible study, a men’s group, and during the summer, a small group that watches and discusses, “The Chosen” together. There are also now small groups of high school students meeting together with mentors to help them to encounter the joy and depth of Catholic life. These “official” groups are not the only way. I am always happy to hear how other parishioners meet up with one another after Mass for coffee or who check in on one another during the week. All of these groups are intended to draw one another into deeper communion with one another and with the Lord. The Lord is inviting everyone into a deeper friendship with Himself. He is inviting all of us to, “Come and See.” One thing I deeply admired about the young college students was their passion for evangelization and their love for their fellow students. I also admired their capacity to find ways to ease others in. They hung out with others and invited them to come and share a meal or a cup of coffee. They showed others that they cared about them and they showed themselves to be, in fact, normal and fun human beings. These friendships eventually would lead–slowly–to deeper conversations and invitations to, “Come and See.” In the gospels we read how Jesus would visit the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary and share meals and friendship together. This is the Lord’s method. The college students adopted this method as their own. Friendship is a key to evangelizing. In the friendship of the Church, we come to encounter the deeper life that the Lord desires for us. We come to experience communion. The Eucharist–Holy Communion–is both the source and the summit of true communion. The Eucharist not only deepens our own communion with the Lord and with each other, but it also impels us–out of love–to invite all others to “come and see” this new way of life, this new way of being. Not everyone is yet ready to partake of the Eucharist, but our desire should be to–little by little–help them experience friendship in the Lord. And ease them–little by little–into full communion in the Church, until they too are nourished by the Lord’s Body and Blood, the summit of communion. During the summer months, I have had lots of opportunities to be with friends–both lay people and priests–whose friendship deepens my own humanity and leads me to a deeper friendship with the Lord. In my own life, I have discovered that simply living the Catholic life in friendship with others has a magnetic power to draw others more deeply into deeper communion with the Lord. When we love one another in the Lord, those friendships contain within themselves an attractive quality that themselves become a visible invitation to others to “come and see.” My prayer is that our communion together as a parish might be for all we encounter, a call, a plea, and an invitation to “come and see.” Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes

Just some scattered thoughts this week: Thank you to those of you who “step up” and serve the parish in a variety of capacities. It is the million “little things” that all of you do that make the whole place run. I know that many of you served the parish in the past and are no longer able to do so. I thank you also for all that you have done. I hope that your dedication and generosity inspires a new generation of parishioners to be of service to the parish. We need you. Recently the parish received a notification that someone remembered us in their will. When doing your estate planning, could you include St. Patrick Parish? All of us benefit from the generosity and thoughtfulness of those who have remembered St. Patrick Parish in their estate planning. Please pay it forward for the generations that follow us. You may have noticed in the local news that there was a break-in at our church this past week. As I write this, it seems as though nothing is missing. The alarm went off, I came over and discovered a window open and some minor disturbance and called the police. The Stoneham Police arrived here before I even finished the call. The Stoneham Police (and also the State Police and Andover Police) were professional, thorough, and very respectful of our church. Although the situation was unfortunate, I was very grateful to witness the Stoneham Police’s dedication to us and their genuine concern for us. Next weekend is Thien’s last weekend with us. Thien, a seminarian from the Archdiocese of Hanoi, Vietnam has been with us for two months. It feels like he only arrived yesterday! Thien will continue studying at St. John’s Seminary in Boston for the next several years, so hopefully he will come and visit. (And I hope he will come back and make me some more Vietnamese food!) It really was a great blessing having Thien with us. He jumped right in, was a joyful presence, and served the parish well. Last week there was a wonderful young adult gathering on the lawn of the church. A couple of our new youth discipleship small groups are up and running. Small, intentional, discipleship groups are an excellent way of forming lifelong disciples of the Lord. This week I swung by our parish grief group that is led by our Pastoral Associate, Diane McCarthy. There were over twenty people in attendance. What a wonderful work! We are very blessed as a parish to have such generous parishioners and staff. Thank You.  Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes

Some years ago a small group of parishioners and I would meet every Friday evening and work our way through some text, seeking together to follow the Lord through our companionship. Then, for an hour or so, we’d socialize and share the joy of friendship in Christ. I left that parish thirteen years ago, but those friendships remain a part of my life. Some of that group still meet every Friday and they have invited others into their friendship. For me, that is parish life. This week two of those friends died, one rather suddenly and the other after a long illness. Their passing, of course, is a source of sorrow for their friends and loved ones. Their leaving us makes those left behind more deeply aware of how blessed we were to live life together and to follow the Lord together. It makes us realize how blessed we have been to be called by the Lord to walk together along the road of discipleship. Faith is not wishful thinking. Faith is not an emotional crutch to get through life. For the believer, Faith is an encounter with that which is most REAL. In the companionship of the Church, our Faith grows. In living closely the friendship of the Church, our heart recognizes and leaps at the constant rediscovery that Christ is true. For us, death is not a staring into the abyss of nothingness and meaninglessness. For us, death is another verification that Christ is indeed true. When we live a life of Faith together in friendship, the death of the other awakens within us not nostalgia for the past, but rather the joyful cry of those two disciples who walked together with Christ on the road to Emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us along the way?” This week I will offer the funeral Masses for these two friends. Their departure, to be sure, is sorrowful, but it has also had a salutary effect. Their deaths remind me once again how beautiful and essential Christian friendship is and how the mission of the Church is lived and expressed through friendship. This summer our rectory has the added joy of the presence of two seminarians. Having them live with us, sharing meals together, praying together, and joining with other brother priests and seminarians in true fraternity has been for me a renewed encounter with the Lord. I am once again convinced of the irreplaceable value of friendship as the model for true evangelization. I hope, in part, their summer experience with us is an experience of true Christian fraternity. I end this letter with a quote from St. Augustine that for many years has been for me an apt description of my own experience of living the Catholic life closely with others. Your Brother in Christ, Fr. Barnes "There were other things done in their company which more completely seized my mind: to talk and to laugh with them; to do friendly acts of service for one another; to read well-written books together; at times to tell jokes and sometimes to be serious; to disagree at times, but without hard feelings, just as a man does with himself; and to keep our many discussions pleasant by the very rarity of such differences; to teach things to the others and to learn from them; to long impatiently for those who were absent, and to receive with joy those joining us. These and similar expressions, proceeding from the hearts of those who loved and repaid their comrades' love, by way of countenance, tongue, eyes, and a thousand pleasing gestures, were like fuel to set our minds ablaze and to make but one out of many." –St. Augustine

I once knew a couple who had been married for over seventy years. Some people would say, “They’ve been together so long, they even look like each other!” They came to Mass together every day, and I was always struck by the way they looked at one another. If one of them was speaking to me, the other was looking at the other with this glow of absolute affection. They were something else. They weren’t rich. They weren’t powerful. They were, however, in love. As old as they were, when you looked at them, you felt like they were still a couple of love-struck kids during their first week of dating. I am certain that in seventy years of marriage, that couple had its share of sorrows, hardships, and disappointments. Every life does. There was routine to their marriage. They got up and went to work, did laundry, and did all of the mundane activities that fill the hours of most of our lives. The ordinary did not suffocate their vocation. Instead, they lived the ordinary circumstances of life as an adventure. Sometimes, we think that the ordinary is the enemy of our happiness. People search for thrills to distract themselves from the ordinary. But, happiness is not found in fleeing the ordinary. It is discovered in living the ordinary differently. They lived the ordinary in a supernatural way. Every Sunday we come together for Mass. We are fairly ordinary people. We come together from our ordinary lives. We take ordinary bread and ordinary wine and place them upon the altar. In some sense, when the ordinary bread and the ordinary wine are placed upon the altar, we are also placing our ordinary selves–our ordinary lives–upon the altar too. The danger for us, however, is to allow ourselves to forget that what is happening is supernatural. That ordinary bread and wine are supernaturally transformed. We who receive the Eucharist are, in turn, transformed. The Eucharist transforms us and we, in turn, live our ordinary lives differently because we do not live on mere ordinary bread, but rather are nourished by and with God Himself. We who are changed are then sent into the world as seeds of the Kingdom. There’s a risk in Catholic life that instead of allowing the extraordinary to permeate the ordinary and elevate it, we attempt to make the extraordinary ordinary and cheapen it. If Mass, for example, becomes merely me “checking the box” of my religious duty this week, then something is lacking. If my approach to Mass is, “as long as it doesn’t interfere with the other things in my life, I’m okay with it,” something is missing. If I treat the Mass (and the Eucharist) like I am the customer and the parish is the service-provider, something is missing. Sometimes people allow their Catholic life to become rather functionary and transactional. It becomes stagnant. Think of what Jesus says in the gospel when he says, “What good is salt if it loses its flavor?” Much of our lives as Catholics does involve rather ordinary activity. When we come to Mass on Sunday, something extraordinary–something supernatural–occurs. Ordinary bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. And, we consume the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. We receive God. The more we take time to ponder our Faith, the more we come to know and appreciate the extraordinary gift of it. This is why preparing for Mass by silence, prayer, and meditation are so important. Before Mass, we prepare by saying things like, “Lord, I am here and am about to receive you–Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. Jesus, help me to really know what I am doing and Who I am receiving. Help me unite myself to you in this Holy Mass. Help me to really pray this Mass well and to offer myself–every aspect of my life–with you to the Father.” After we receive Holy Communion, we spend time in awe and wonder that God loves us so much that He has given Himself to us in this spectacular way. The Christ who was born of Mary, the Christ who called and taught the apostles, who healed the sick, who forgave sinners, who died on the Cross, who rose from the Dead . . . that very same Christ has now given Himself entirely to me because He loves me. We take this time to thank Jesus for His love and for the privilege of this communion with Him. Without this Eucharistic amazement, our Catholic life risks becoming consumeristic and hollow. If you feel ever that you are in a rut or that your Faith life is not growing, that you are not growing in virtue, growing in greater love for God and for your neighbor, perhaps begin by spending time before each Mass really praying and pondering what is about to happen, and then, spend time after receiving the Eucharist really adoring God whom you have received. The most extraordinary moment of our week (or day) is when we receive the Eucharist. It enables us to live every ordinary moment in a supernatural way. That elderly couple looked at each other with a devotion and love that made them young in heart and their marriage seem both like an old treasure and a new discovery. That is how we want to approach the Eucharist, and that begins by spending time preparing to receive the Eucharist and in spending time thanking God for the gift of the Eucharist. Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes

Some years ago in a previous parish, I moved a crucifix that had hung for a century on a piece of beautiful fabric in the church sacristy. When I took down the crucifix, I was surprised to see the real color of the fabric. Decades of sunlight, heat, and incense had caused the surrounding fabric to fade, but behind the crucifix, the real rich color had been preserved. Sometimes when we go about our life we do not realize just how significantly we are affected by the culture around us. Like the fabric in that sacristy, the change is not always immediately perceptible. It is gradual. We live at a time when the culture around us has changed dramatically. Things that would have been universally condemned sixty (or even ten) years ago, are now widely accepted. Things that would have been universally acknowledged as good sixty (or even ten) years ago, might now be looked upon with suspicion or derision. (I should add that there are many wonderful things about the present culture that we should rejoice in, but today I am focused upon those things that erode our own humanity.) The disintegration of the family, the ubiquity of pornography, the presumption of cohabitation before marriage, the acceptance and promotion of abortion, and a host of other factors have left their mark on our culture. Similarly, the culture of, what I might call, harshness has become the new normal. Social media often makes people forget the humanity of others. People are told that they should be perpetually angry about everything. It affects the way that people communicate with one another. This harshness dehumanizes the person on the other end of the phone or on the receiving end of an email. In the midst of all of this, the Church remains steadfast in its defense of the human person. In our present moment, governments are opting to allow the killing of the sick. The Church stands in absolute opposition to this because Jesus tells us to visit and care for the sick, not eliminate them. It is a grotesque distortion to call the killing of the sick a form of mercy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that:  “Scripture specifies the prohibition contained in the fifth commandment: ‘Do not slay the innocent and the righteous.’ The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere.” In a culture where it is becoming increasingly acceptable to think that suicide and euthanasia are legitimate options, it is good for us to remember that the Fifth Commandment absolutely prohibits them. Those who suffer from physical ailments, old age, or from mental anguish must never be encouraged to think “it would be better for everyone else if I’m not here.” As Christians, we cherish human life and do not determine for ourselves which lives are worth living. Another topic I want to mention (and yes, I know it is a political third rail these days) is the issue of the treatment of people present in our country whose legal status is questionable. Every country has a right to establish and enforce laws that regulate immigration. Reasonable people may disagree on what those laws should entail and how they should be enforced. My purpose in writing here is not to impose on anyone else my opinions on how the immigration situation should be resolved in its specifics. Rather, I want simply to mention that in our culture, there can be a tendency to dehumanize immigrants. Many people who entered the country unlawfully did so to escape violence and poverty, and to make a better life for their families. I cannot help but think how terrifying it must be for a man or a woman who is raising a family to wonder if they will be suddenly arrested one day. In a culture that tends to demonize people and dehumanize them, Christians are called to love them and to promote their human dignity. When we are at Mass, none of us looks around and thinks, “I will love that family over there once I know their immigration status.” In the same way that none of us looks around and thinks, “I will love that family over there once I know if they’ve been completely honest each time they’ve filed their taxes.” We love them because they are made in the image and likeness of God and are our brothers and sisters in Christ. A Christian culture–when it saw human suffering–built orphanages, hospitals, adoption agencies, soup kitchens, mutual aid societies, St. Vincent dePaul Societies, homeless shelters and so on. In a culture where Christianity is fading, so is the dignity afforded to human life. We live at a moment when the unborn, the poor, the infirm, the immigrant etc. are often viewed as problems to be eradicated rather than human beings to be loved and protected. What can we do? We can live in the midst of our culture as disciples of Jesus Christ. We can place ourselves firmly in the shadow of His Cross. We can live as a sign of contradiction. In the midst of a culture that increasingly devalues human life and dignity, we can be true disciples of the Lord who radiate His love to all, especially to the vulnerable and the suffering. Decades of intense light, dirt, and heat eroded the brilliance of that piece of fabric, but behind the image of the Crucified Christ, its glory was preserved. At the moment, cultural forces can cause the brilliant dignity of human life to become less apparent. Without Christ, the world tends to become gray, cold, and harsh. It is only in Christ that the full dignity and beauty of life is truly discovered. The more we live in Christ and follow Him, the more we become in a faded world a sign of contradiction and a witness to hope. Your Brother in Christ, Fr. David Barnes