Remembering You!

I will surely miss all of you, parishioners of St. Ambrose, with the exact same feeling I miss all of the people I love back home. I am sure you also miss your loved ones if you are separated by hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

It is such a normal thing to miss those we love. The ones we love become so much part of our lives and our beings, that when they are not there to share with us physically, we feel the pinch badly. Then matters get worse when we can’t seem to get hold of ourselves and do something significant and worthwhile even just to shield the pain a little and distract ourselves. No doubt, these are difficult moments. We cannot help but wish sometimes that our loved ones can stay by our side as long and as often as possible.

Whenever the holidays are coming, holidays like Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Season and New Year, it is indeed tempting to cry in our little corners and justify all this by saying that we are grieving or that we cannot help feeling this emptiness because the one we miss are just too important to forget so easily. Then we keep wishing and praying that they would come back to us. Wonderful memories of the past replaying in our minds sometimes have a way of surfacing into our conscious mind and make us wish to have that memories be a present reality.

Undeniably, these memories can be so beautiful and soothing but sometimes they are the very blocks that stop us from moving forward. Imagine if we could all be with all those we love forever. There would be no more grief or sadness from their loss. But that is not reality. Perhaps, the yearning is a foretaste of heaven. We can never really possess God while we are on earth. We have moments of great consolation when we feel his presence and love in those who love us but even that is not forever.

Our prayer then cannot be for God to keep our precious ones with us always. Our prayer ought to be that our love be so deep and so real that it has the power to go beyond time and space and any other physical or psychological limitations.

All of you will surely be missed. Thank you for everything!

Church Hopping

During the summer, our church buildings may not be as full as during the school year.  Many people travel during these months because the kids are out of school, and it’s easier to get away as a family.  Hopefully, you make attending Mass a priority even when traveling.  I was lucky to be able to attend Mass at St. Teresa of Avila parish in Carson City, Nevada during my recent vacation.  It was an early Mass – about 7:45 AM – but the large church was mostly full.  I was particularly impressed when their Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion went up to the altar.  There were at least eight additional ministers!  It was inspiring to see such a thriving community in a place I didn’t expect to find a large Catholic presence.

Some people may “church hop” during the summer, especially in an urban community such as ours, trying out different parishes and hearing different priests give homilies, for a different perspective.  Though I almost always attend Sunday Mass at St. Ambrose, I also do a bit of church hopping during the week.  During the month of July alone, I will have attended Mass at five churches in the Diocese, not counting St. Ambrose.  Mostly, this is because I have been asked to sing for certain special Masses.  And this isn’t something that only happens during the summer.  In fact, during the rest of the year, I can be just as busy, if not busier!  I sometimes feel as if I am a traveling minstrel.  I think it’s fun to go different places and sing in a variety of styles (everything from plainchant to traditional to contemporary music), but what is even more interesting is the people I meet along the way.

Do you do any church hopping during the summer or at other times of the year?  What has your experience been like?

Marriage Bond

Tom and Paula lived together as husband and wife on Rosecliff Avenue on the east side of Cleveland for more than seventy years. Tom worked at the post office. He retired when he turned 75. Paula worked as a bank teller. She planned on leaving her job as soon as they had their first child, but it turned out that they never had any children; Paula stopped working at the bank when she turned 75.

They led a simple life: they were never featured in the newspaper; they never got rich; they never took fancy vacations; but everyone on their street loved them. They were the neighborhood babysitters; they were the shoulders to cry on for young spouses having marriage troubles; they were the organizers of the yearly block party; their yard was more played in than any other on the street. Their home exuded happiness and joy, just like their happy, joyful faces.

Tom died in his sleep a few days before his ninety first birthday. He seemed to have been in perfect health, but his life had reached its conclusion. Paula seemed to be in perfect health too, and she seemed to withstand the loss fairly well. After three days without Tom she too passed away, unable, so it seemed, to let her husband get too far out of reach.

There are times when couples who share long and loving marriages die almost simultaneously, not for medical reasons, but for spiritual ones. The phenomenon eloquently illustrates something about marriage that you rarely hear people talk about, because that “something” is the most important thing about marriage. It’s called “the marriage bond.” Understanding what it is and where it comes from is the only way to understand Catholic teaching about divorce, remarriage, and annulment.

Fate vs. Destiny: God's Plan and the Catholic View of Predestination

Do you ever feel as if something was meant to happen a certain way in your life, and no matter what you did, things would turn out the same way?  Or, have you experienced something that seemed to be a remarkable coincidence or fortuitous event and thought, well that was lucky?  But what about free will?  Surely, if we had made a different choice things would have turned out differently.  Life isn’t like a Choose Your Own Adventure story, in which, whatever choice you make, it always leads to the same outcome.

One thing that sets the Catholic Church apart from certain other Christian denominations is our stance on predestination.  According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 600:  “To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy.  When therefore He establishes His eternal plan of ‘predestination,’ He includes in it each person’s free response to His grace.”  Put simply, God’s time is not our time.  He exists outside of the human concept of time.  God, all-knowing as He is, knows what choices we will make.  That doesn’t mean we don’t have the free will to make those choices.  Because God knows our every move even before we make it, He has a plan for each of our lives.

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, “In [Christ] we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of [God’s] will, so that we might exist for the praise of [God’s] glory, we who first hoped in Christ” (Ephesians 1:11-12).  In speaking of destiny, Paul means that God’s greatest desire is for all to know and love Him.  God does not desire that His creation should suffer.  He does not desire that anyone should go to Hell.  He wants us all to live in eternal happiness with Him.  The choices we make in our lives determine where we will go when we die.  Yes, God knows what those choices will be, but that does not make us any less free to make those choices.

One of my favorite shows of all time is the BBC series Merlin, which aired originally from 2008 to 2012.  (You can watch all five seasons of the show on Netflix.)  I’ve been a fan of Arthurian legend since high school, and I enjoyed this series’ take on the mythos.  During the final season of the show, there was an episode that dealt with Arthur’s fate to die at Mordred’s hand, and Merlin’s attempts to change Arthur’s fate.  In a conversation between Arthur and Merlin, Arthur says, “If it’s fated, it doesn’t matter what I do, it’ll still happen.”  Merlin responds, “There is a difference between fate and destiny,” to which Arthur replies, “You think too much.”  But Merlin is right.  Fate is influenced by choice.  You can change your fate.  Destiny, on the other hand, seems to be unchangeable.

What is your take on the difference between fate and destiny, God’s plan for your life, and the idea of predestination?

The Real Enemy

When we feel beaten up and we feel that we have had enough of life’s pain, sufferings and battles, we cry out in despair “When will I run out of enemies? When will my enemies leave me in peace?”

As Christians, the Lord never promised us a life without enemies. In fact, He seemed to be so sure that we will always have them that He advised us to simply love them. “Love your enemies,” the Lord said. He Himself had enemies. As good a man as Jesus was, He had the scribes and the Pharisees who always looked at Him with hatred and antipathy. Some of His countrymen saw in Him as someone who was not a friend of Caesar, a threat to the Roman Empire. Then there were enemies in His own circle of friends. Judas is not the only one, There was Peter who wanted to tempt the Lord and make Him run away from the cup of sacrifice. Finally there was the archenemy, the tempter in the desert who wanted Him to kneel down and worship the evil one.

We have our personal enemies and we also have national enemies. There are people who seem to have taken it to themselves to make life more difficult for us. It seems that there are some people who are troublemakers by nature. These are the kinds of people who will disagree with everything they see and hear. Their mission in life is to criticize. Their mission in life is to express their displeasure about everything. If you arrive at an agreement, these are the same people who will not be satisfied. They will continue to criticize the agreement and they will wait until it is proven wrong. In the end, they will say. “I told you so, I told you it would happen.” There are those who threaten our lives, our property and our security. There are those who tempt us into laziness, into greed and lust and dishonesty.

When all these people have been won over to our side, we still have to contend with the greatest enemy, the “SELF”. Our greatest enemy is the sinful self, the old self urges us to take the easy way out, the self that tells us to get over others, otherwise, they will make a fool out of you. It is the self that will choose hatred and revenge rather than forgiveness.

We also have enemies on the national level. We have terroristsreal or imagined. We have selfserving politicians and appointed public servants who have begun to like power and have become afraid of losing it. We have a taxation system that has become a load that the poor find impossible to carry. We have a government that opts to raise revenues by legalizing things immoral. We can lay the blame on our situation on all things and on all people and on all events of the past. But we will get nowhere unless we accept the blame on ourselves.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. Let there be change in the society and let that change begin with me. Jesus won over all His enemies because He was true to Himself. We too can claim victory over all these enemies if we recognize the enemy within us that we have started to pamper and to protect and to safeguard.

Substitute

Almost all of us have had a substitute teacher at some point in our lives.  Having been in the education field myself, I can tell you that there is nothing I dreaded more as a teacher than having to make substitute teacher lesson plans.  I worked in a specialized classroom with students with disabilities, and there were only a few people I felt comfortable leaving my class with to begin with, and sometimes, I didn’t know who was going to take my class on days I wasn’t there.

Back when I was a student myself, if we had a substitute teacher it often left me feeling uncomfortable because the substitute wouldn’t do things exactly the way my actual teacher would.  Of course they didn’t, for the very reason that they weren’t my actual teacher. They were a different person with their own experience and their own way of doing things.

Over the last few weeks, we have had a series of substitute organists here at St. Ambrose.  This presents a challenge to the cantors as well as to the organists because we aren’t as familiar with each other’s styles, but we make it work.  We rehearse more than we would usually, but it is time well spent to understand a little bit of how and why the other person does things the way they do.

Think of this from the substitute’s perspective.  I had a certain substitute teacher who was a regular presence at my school.  She subbed for me a few times as well as for my classroom aides. When she would sub for my aides, she would say, “Oh good, I don’t have to be you.”  Granted, I had a difficult classroom so her feelings were somewhat justified, but I would never expect a person who was substituting for me to actually be me.  That’s not a realistic expectation of anyone.

It is important for us to recognize and accept the individuality of each person.  When we do that, we become much more pleasant people to be around.

Independence

Independence is an important quality to have.  It is something we as humans develop as we go through life, growing from infants, to children, to teenagers, to young adults.  We gain independence as we learn life skills.  We learn to feed ourselves and eventually to make our own meals.  We learn to dress ourselves and develop our own sense of what we like to wear.  We gradually become better able to manage our own lives.  We learn to drive so we can go places without needing to ask someone to give us a ride, or we develop the skills needed to use public transportation.  We get jobs to support ourselves.  Through all of these things, we move away from needing the help of our parents to live a full life.

The early settlements in the United States were much the same.  At first, they were dependent on other countries (France, Spain, and England, for example), but gradually they became self-sufficient.  Just as we may experience “growing pains” and rebel against our parents when we feel like they are not allowing us enough independence, the colonies rebelled against their far-off European rulers.

Nevertheless, we are grateful to those who have helped us along the way to independence:  our parents, our teachers, and even our friends.  If the United States had not had the support of those European countries that sent settlers and, later, missionaries to this country, our American culture would be far less diverse than it is today.

Take time today to thank God for the gift of personal and national independence.