Separation Anxiety

America Magazine - Separation Anxiety: "Yet as a major sponsor of education in the United States, the church needs to speak with a clearer voice not merely about textbooks, but about educational policy." Bishop Tom Curry's insightful article on the First Amendment and Catholic schools.

Note: if you have trouble accessing this article, try here.

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Paradox of Suffering

This morning in our chapel I read about yesterday's saint, Elizabeth of the Trinity, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1984.  She was born and died (1880-1906) just a few years after Therese of Lisieux.  There lives overlapped and they were both French, but it's unlikely they ever knew or each other.  Like Therese her brief life was one of total self-giving in the embrace of suffering in union with Jesus as her spouse.

Unlike Therese, she desired to enter a Carmelite convent as a teen, but was forcibly delayed from entering until she was 21 by her mother who hoped she'd get married.  She endured this imposition with graceful obedience, remaining firm in her intention.  Of this she wrote, "Even in the midst of the world, one can listen to God in the silence of a heart that wants only to be his."

Two years later, in 1903, she developed adrenal insufficiency, or Addison's disease, for which there was no effective treatment and which led to a complexity of painful conditions.  Like Therese in her struggle with terminal illness, she was directed to write her thoughts, and in these writings and letters we have a valuable account of her spirituality.  As her illness progressed, she wrote to her mother: "The Father has predestined me to be conformed to his crucified Son.  My Spouse wishes me to be the surrogate human being in whom he can suffer again for the glory of the Father and the salvation of the Church.  This thought makes e so happy."  Although she continued to express joy in her sufferings, like Therese and Mother Teresa, she was also afflicted with feelings of desolation and abandonment and the prospect of death approached.  She died on November 9, 1906, the same year my mother was born.

In these two parallel lives of Elizabeth and Therese there is a pattern of youthful and energetic coming to terms with the most basic paradox of human life: the meaning of suffering. This is a question that is utter nonsense to most people -- in all ages,not just today.  And yet the flight from suffering is a headlong plunge into denial of reality, motivated by fear that often leads to division, blame, violence, and ultimately willfully causing the death one seeks to avoid.  These lives provide an alternate vision -- perhaps the only alternate vision -- and are worth pondering.

Pilgrim Pope

Today, Pope Benedict XVI visited Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, the famous and inspiring pilgrimage site honoring St. James, the brother of John, who was the first apostle to be martyred (in 44 AD), but who visited Spain before then, according to a much later legend.  (You can find a lot more about him and the traditional pilgrimage site of Santiago at the Wikipedia entry.)

I found his three talks very helpful in coming to a better understanding of pilgrimage, as a metphor for the whole journey of life, of Christian life, and of the Church.  This shed a lot light, for me at least, on the reality and purpose of our Early Christian World Pilgrimage.

At the welcoming ceremony at the airport, he said:

In his deepest being, man is always on a journey, ever in search of truth. The Church shares this profound human desire and herself sets out, accompanying humanity in its yearning for complete fulfillment. At the same time, the Church pursues her own interior journey which, through faith, hope and love, leads her to become a transparent sign of Christ for the world.

At his speech at the Cathedral, he gave a wonderful definition of Pilgrimage, which I am going to adopt in future informational and promotional materials:

To go on pilgrimage is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures of nature, art or history. To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where he has revealed himself, where his grace has shone with particular splendor and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe.

While he mentioned in particular the persons and events associated with the Holy Land, Rome, and Compostela, the Early Christian World sites of Turkey do not trail behind them in significance for the same reasons.

And in his homily at the Mass, he spoke of the common experience and goal of all Pilgrims, whether those who trek the long hiking trail through France and Spain to Compostela or those who, in the relative comfort of Turkey's hotels and tour buses, follow the arduous schedule enforced by Fr. Tom and Aydin:

The fatigue of the journey, the variety of landscapes, their encounter with peoples of other nationalities - all of this opens their heart to what is the deepest and most common bond that unites us as human beings: we are in quest, we need truth and beauty, we need an experience of grace, charity, peace, forgiveness and redemption. And in the depth of each of us there resounds the presence of God and the working of the Holy Spirit.
I urge you to read the whole of these documents; they are not long, but they very much speak to the heart.

Tomorrow, visit the Vatican site to see what he has to say as he dedicated the imposing "work-in-progress" church of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

You can also watch excerpts from Vatican TV on the Vatican Channel on YouTube.

Initiation and Welcome

This afternoon I gave a talk at the Regional Religious Education Congress for Our Lady of the Angels Pastoral Region here in Los Angeles.  The title I chose was "The Quality of Our Welcome: A Fresh Look at RCIA."  Christian Initiation is all about welcoming people into our family of faith, and I believe it is important for us to take a close look at just what the rite tells us from the point of view of welcome. 

You can listen to the talk using the embedded player.



If that doesn't work, or if you'd like to download it for playing on an iPod or similar device, youcan access it at the following link.

http://www.archive.org/details/InitiationAndWelcome

You can also download my handout/notes by clicking here.

Marriage and Initiation

One of the sensitive areas that must be dealt with as we, the Church, prepare to welcome new members into our family, is the question of how our understanding of the nature of marriage in itself, as well as marriage as a sacrament, relates to the life of a committed Catholic Christian.  This becomes very real when one seeking to become Catholic has a former marriage that has ended, often tragically and painfully.  If marriage is a commitment for life, the implications of this former marriage must be dealt with.

On September 29, 2010, I gave a talk to the Initiation community of Good Shepherd parish in an effort to surface and begin to deal with these questions as they might come up among those preparing to become catechumens.

You can listen to this talk using the embedded player.  Please note that the talk is in two segments (Marriage-1 and Marriage-2), and you can toggle between the segments with the two little triangles facing the lines right and left.


If the embedded player doesn't work, you can download the talk at the following link as MP3 audio files, which you can listen to on your computer or play on an iPod or similar device.

http://www.archive.org/details/MarriageAndAnnulmentsInChristianInitiation

You can also view and download the notes (4 pages) in PDF format by clicking here.

Turkey drifts closer to the West - ŞAHİN ALPAY

A good article to help understand Turkey today, from a Turkish perspective.

Turkey drifts closer to the West - ŞAHİN ALPAY: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Religion: When America feared and reviled Catholics - latimes.com

Religion: When America feared and reviled Catholics - latimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"


Excellent article, but the author is wrong on one point: anti-Catholicism is not dead, it just takes different forms. As she quotes Mark Twain, history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. See: http://www.amazon.com/New-Anti-Catholicism-Last-Acceptable-Prejudice/dp/0195154800

Beyond a 'Darth Vader' view of secularism | National Catholic Reporter

Beyond a 'Darth Vader' view of secularism | National Catholic Reporter"

Excellent piece by John Allen on the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, beginning today in Rome. Pray for them.

When will American Catholics learn that we are a mere 6% of the Catholic population of world, and open our eyes to the reality of global Catholicism?

(Shameless promotion:  The Early Christian World Pilgrimage can help start the process.)

Development of Doctrine: St. Vincent of Lerins

Today's Office of Readings has a piece by St. Vincent of Lerins, who died in 445, on the development of doctrine that is relevant for us today, especially following last month's beatification of John Henry Newman, whose "Essay on the Development of Doctrine" has been so influential in modern theology and Church teaching, as well as misunderstood by the advocates of both "radical change" and "return to tradition."

	An instruction by St Vincent of Lerins

The development of doctrine

Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.

Who can be so grudging to men, so full of hate for God, as to try to prevent it? But it must truly be development of the faith, not alteration of the faith. Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.

The understanding, knowledge and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning and the same import.

The religion of souls should follow the law of development of bodies. Though bodies develop and unfold their component parts with the passing of the years, they always remain what they were. There is a great difference between the flower of childhood and the maturity of age, but those who become old are the very same people who were once young. Though the condition and appearance of one and the same individual may change, it is one and the same nature, one and the same person.

The tiny members of unweaned children and the grown members of young men are still the same members. Men have the same number of limbs as children. Whatever develops at a later age was already present in seminal form; there is nothing new in old age that was not already latent in childhood.

There is no doubt, then, that the legitimate and correct rule of development, the established and wonderful order of growth, is this: in older people the fullness of years always brings to completion those members and forms that the wisdom of the Creator fashioned beforehand in their earlier years.

If, however, the human form were to turn into some shape that did not belong to its own nature, or even if something were added to the sum of its members or subtracted from it, the whole body would necessarily perish or become grotesque or at least be enfeebled. In the same way, the doctrine of the Christian religion should properly follow these laws of development, that is, by becoming firmer over the years, more ample in the course of time, more exalted as it advances in age.

In ancient times our ancestors sowed the good seed in the harvest field of the Church. It would be very wrong and unfitting if we, their descendants, were to reap, not the genuine wheat of truth but the intrusive growth of error.

On the contrary, what is right and fitting is this: there should be no inconsistency between first and last, but we should reap true doctrine from the growth of true teaching, so that when, in the course of time, those first sowings yield an increase it may flourish and be tended in our day also.

The writers of the New Testament consistently record that Jesus has promised to be with us, his Church, until the end of time, as the head is to the members of a body, and that requires that the Church be true in its belief.  That means that the primary place where infallibility resides is in the believing Church as a whole. The infallibility of the teaching Church, the bottom line of which resides in the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome, exists only to serve the faith of the whole Church, the whole Body of Christ.

Vincent and, much later, Newman insist that development of doctrine must be organic growth, not revolutionary change.  It seems to me that this depends more than anything on a humble, open, and patient dialogue between the believing Church and the teaching Church.   Magisterium always must be a two-way street.  Magisterium is always a ministerium.  The "big" (magis) exists only to serve the "little" (minus).  The representatives of Christ-the Head must always respect the real presence of Christ in the members as well.

St. John Chrysostom: relevant words to us today

We think we live in bad times?  Here's an excerpt from a letter of St. John Chrysostom (c. 350-407), bishop of Constantinople, which he wrote from prison near the end of his life to his dear friend and colleague, the Deaconess St. Olympias:

Please listen to what I have to say.  I am going to try to make you a little less depressed and get rid of the dark clouds in your mind.  Why are you so worried, sad, and agitated?  Because the storm that has attacked the churches is harsh and menacing, and because it has wrapped everything in unrelieved darkness?  Because it is reaching crisis point?  Because it brings dreadful shipwrecks every day, while the whole world collapses about us?

We see the ocean whirling up from its uttermost depths and sailors' bodies floating on it.  We see others overcome by the force of the waves. . . . It is all so hopeless they can only scream, groan, cry, and weep. . . .  Everywhere monsters of the deep rise up and threaten travelers.  But no mere words can express the unutterable.  No terminology I can think of can adequately convey the terror of these times.

Though I am aware of all these miseries, I never cease to hope.   I always remember the universal Pilot.  He does not rely on steersmanship to suffer the storm and come through it.  He merely nods to calm the roaring oceans, and if he takes his time in doing so, well that is the Pilot's way.  He does not stop dangers straightaway, but banishes them only when they get close to their most ghastly point, and almost everyone has abandoned hope.  Only then does he show us marvels and miracles.  Only then does he reveal the power which he alone possesses, and teach the suffering how to be patient.

Quoted in the new full edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints, September, p, 112.   St. John Chrysostom, continue to pray for us.

Homily today: the prodigal . . .

I recorded my homily today, and thought it might be worth sharing.  See Luke 15:1-31.


If the above player doesn't work in your browser, you can download the MP3 file here:

http://www.archive.org/details/HomilyFor24thSundayYearC

How can we live with pain . . .?

Here is the talk that I gave at the meeting of our Good Shepherd Seniors' Group, "Young at Heart," at their lunch meeting on Saturday, September 11, 2010.  They asked me to speak on "How can we live with pain and the other things that are just 'not right' in life?"



If the player does not work on your computer, you can download the MP3 file here:

http://www.archive.org/details/HowCanWeLiveWithPain

Invocation at Memorial Service Beverly Hills, California, 9/11/2010

We remember the countless innocent people whose lives were taken away nine years ago today, as well as those who have suffered and died in the many events of its equally tragic aftermath.

But today we especially commemorate, and in a very real sense celebrate, those who have given their lives so that others may live, abandoned their own safety so that others may live secure, freely laid down their lives so that others may be free.

How tragic when life is taken by violence born of fear, anger, hatred, and mistrust. How precious is the life that is freely given for the sake of another.

May we honor the lives of these men and women – these heroes – by not yielding to the illusory satisfaction of revenge or retaliation. Rather, may we face the challenges of our world today with the courage to echo, in the priorities our lives, the timeless and ever-relevant words attributed to St. Francis, who also lived in a time marked by conflict, war, and violence:

May we be instruments of true peace.
When confronted with hatred, may we bring love,
in pain, forgiveness,
in doubt, faith,
in despair, hope,
in darkness, light,
in sadness, joy.
May we seek not so much to be comforted as to encourage,
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.
For in giving, we receive,
in forgiving, we are reconciled,
and in dying, new life is born.
Amen.

Note: It may come as a surprise that the beloved and traditional "Prayer of St. Francis" appears not to have a very long tradition behind it, has often been paraphrased, and has been used in many civic occasions such as this.  So there is ample precedent for my use of it here.

You can listen to it as delivered at the "9/11 Day of Remembrance" ceremony here:


or download it at this link.

http://www.archive.org/details/BeverlyHills911Memorial-Invocation

This is no way to end religious illiteracy | National Catholic Reporter

Excellent piece on media and religious illiteracy by John Allen.

This is no way to end religious illiteracy | National Catholic Reporter

Seventh Catholic History and Heritage Presentation: Questions and Answers

We dealt with topics such as the Roman Catholic-Eastern Orthodox split, Hitler and the Jews and Pius XII and the Catholic Church, and Vatican II.

Here's the player:



Or, if the player doesn't work for you, you can listen or download the audio files here:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation7
There were no notes prepared for this presentation.

Sixth Catholic History and Heritage Presentation: Vatican II and its turbulent wake

The full title and subtitle of this presentation was:

Vatican II and its turbulent wake: Reform and Resourcement; controversy and conflict

Who would have guessed what would blow in that open window?

Vatican II: fruit of the Spirit or spawn of Satan?  And . . . who cares?

A rather provocative title, I guess.  Then again, we live in provocative times!  Listen to the whole presentation online (my apologies for taking so long to get it posted):



Don't forget you can toggle between part 1 and part 2 with the two little triangles facing the lines right and left. 

As usual, if the embedded player doesn't work for you, you can download the original MP3 files at:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeitagePresentation6  (Uhm . . . yeah, there's a typo in the address, but it's too much of a hassle to try to change it on that site.)

And, of course, you can view and download the text of the notes, in PDF format, here. (This week I was not able to put any links for further information into the notes, but you can find a lot just by searching Google or Wikipedia with the obvious keywords.)

The reason why I was late in getting this online is that on Wednesday morning I received the 2011 price quotes from our Istanbul tour agency for the Early Christian World Pilgrimage, Orion-Tour, and have spent most of my spare time of the last few days putting together the initial publicity for the Pilgrimage in the form of a bulletin insert/letter for this weekend.  You can see that letter here, and you will be able to keep up to date on the Pilgrimage news and itinerary at my Pilgrimage blogsite, http://ecwpilgrimage.org.

If you are looking for the past presentations, scroll through the list or past blogpost titles on the sidebar to the right, and you'll find them.

Solemnity of Our Lady of the Assumption

August 15 is my most favorite day of the year -- well, one of them at least.  Having been pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Claremont for 15 years before coming to Good shepherd in Beverly Hills, I had many occasions and lots of time to reflect on the meaning of this feast for us, Catholic Christians today.  I tried to embody some of that in my homily today, which you can listen to here:


Or you can access it at this web address (click here).

Here's what I wrote on the Good Shepherd bulletin cover:

This image of Mary taken into heaven is the tapestry that graces Our Lady of Assumption Church in Claremont, where I served fifteen years before coming here to Good Shepherd. The feast we are celebrating today remains very dear to me, as it is to all Catholics, celebrating the entry of Mary into the same glory that is promised to us.  This beautiful creation is the work of the Barillet Studios of Paris in the early 1950s.  As our parishes are united in Christ and his holy Mother, I ask your prayers for the people of the OLA parish community as we celebrate their patronal feast. (Photo by Fr. Tom Welbers)

That tapestry certainly represents the triumph and glory that we often associate with the Assumption.  As I note in my homily, however, Eastern Christianity has a very different perspective on this same feast, and they traditionally call it the "Dormition of Mary."  (That name is actually older than the "assumption.")  Compare the two images, which I reflect on in my homily, and see which one speaks most deeply to you. (This image is in the Church of St. Savior in Chora [Kariye Museum] in Istanbul, and one of a magnificent series of photos of Turkey by Dutch photographer Dick Osseman, freely available on the web.)

What Does the Pope Have to Do with Our Being Catholic?

Some would say nothing; others would say everything.  Both sides are right . . . and wrong.

Hey, one of the fundamental requirements for being Catholic, as well as Christian -- as well as human, for that matter -- is to make friends with paradox.  Life is not a neat and tidy little package, and there's a lot of apparent contradictions that are simply beyond our power to resolve to our satisfaction.  Like the "core belief" we started with a few weeks ago, the Trinity -- one God, three Persons -- a paradox. And the Incarnation, Christ as fully God and fully human -- a paradox.  And the Eucharist -- all the observable elements of nature, bread and wine, remain, but the substance, the underlying reality, is truly changed and becomes the body and blood of Christ -- a paradox.  So, why shouldn't the Pope be a paradox?

Last week I ventured the opinion that the core beliefs of Catholic faith "boil down to just two: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome."  Then I discussed the "Real Presence."  Some might say that many Protestant churches, including Anglicans/Episcopalians, celebrate the Eucharist and have a belief similar to ours.  True, but none of them meet the criteria that we hold are essential for the complete reality (or validity) of the Eucharist as we understand and believe.  That's a loaded statement on an ecumenically sensitive issue, and it needs to be unpacked and nuanced.  But that's for another time.  Of course, the place of the Pope in the Church is another sensitive issue, and that's the concern of this little essay.

First we need to be clear that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome, just like any other bishop is bishop of a particular local church, whether Los Angeles or Las Vegas or Talahassee or Talibon . . . or wherever.  The Pope's relationship -- personal or official -- with other bishops, or with all Catholics worldwide, is not the heart of the issue. It's the relationship of the local Church (or diocese) of Rome with other local churches (dioceses).  Because St. Peter, whose name means "rock," was singled out for a foundational role among the gathered disciples (see Matthew 16:18 -- the word "church" etymologically means "the people called together") and because tradition has it that he was the first Bishop of Rome, the same tradition has held that the Church of Rome, and therefore its bishop, has a unique relationship of both honor and authority among all the other churches and their bishops.  We call this relationship primacy.

Christianity, from the age of the Apostles, has placed an essential value on unity and continuity, that is, the various local churches are authenticated both by their unity with one another, expressed in mutual recognition by the bishops of one another's legitimacy, and their continuity with the faith-community of the Apostles (i.e., the early Church) expressed through what is called "apostolic succession."  As important as an individual's, or even a group's, personal faith truly is, the communal values of unity and continuity are more essential to the identity of the Church.  Otherwise, the church becomes a conglomeration of individualistic do-it-yourselfers.

Apostolic succession is a fundamental criterion for a local church to be authentically Catholic. There must be an unbroken line of authority, through ordination, from the beginning down to our own day, and an essential element of that "unbroken line" is union with the local Church of Rome.  Thus our second "core belief," without which we are not Catholic, can be simply labeled "apostolic succession," which must include organic union of all local churches with the Church of Rome.

What happened to Christians throughout the centuries to produce the disunity and fragmentation we experience today?  First of all, the various Orthodox Churches have maintained apostolic succession and valid ordinations of bishops and priests, and therefore a valid celebration of the Eucharist, but split from unity with the Church of Rome in 1054.  This was for a variety of tragically unfortunate and complex historical reasons, and sadly the division is still a long way from being healed.  The Protestants (including Anglicans), for a variety of reasons, many of which legitimately addressed real abuses and even theological problems within the Catholic Church, not only broke the continuity of apostolic succession but also repudiated union with Rome.  And that twofold fracture seems also a long way from healing.

Needless to say, both Orthodox and Protestant Christians would express this division differently, and would not see our core beliefs in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and Primacy of the Bishop of Rome to be as central as we do.  I call these "core beliefs" of Catholic faith simply because these pinpoint the heart of the difference between Catholic faith and all other Christian faiths.  On the one hand, while there are undoubtedly many reasons why people choose to be or remain Catholic, these two core beliefs have to be at the center.

Obviously much more can (and must) be said.  And I suspect what I have written over the past few weeks may raise more questions (and perhaps objections) than are answered.  I hope, however, that, in trying to be concise, I have also been relatively clear.  The more I have studied and and reflected in recent years, the more it seems to me that these four core beliefs -- two generically Christian and two specifically Catholic -- serve as hooks on which all other elements of our faith, from the smallest to the greatest, can be hung.  Or to change analogies, they serve as the four foundational pillars, rising up from the One Foundation which is Jesus Christ himself, of who and what we are as Catholic Church.

May God continue to bless you and all those you love.  I love you.

Fr. Tom Welbers

P.S. You might be inclined to point out my inconsistency in capitalization of Church/church and Bishop/bishop.  If you look closely, I have tried to capitalize them only when referring to a particular church or bishop, e.g. "the Bishop of the local Church of Fresno," but not when they are used generically, "a bishop in his own local church." 

P.P.S.  This Monday, August 16, is the last of six scheduled presentations on "the History and Heritage of our Faith" at 7:00 pm in the parish hall.  Our topic will move us from the twentieth century into the twenty-first, examining first the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s, and the turbulent years following it, up to today.  The title, "Reform and Resourcement; Controversy and Conflict", I think sums it up pretty well.  (Yeah, I like parallel contrasts and alliteration.)  However, because I was not able to deal with questions at the time of the presentations, I've been asked to do another session just to deal with questions that were raised.  So, there will be an additional session, devoted exclusively to questions and answers, the following Monday, same time and same place.  I'm calling this session, "Your turn . . . have at Fr. Tom!"  Don't forget that all the lectures and the notes are available online at http://tomwelbers.net. Also, new information on the 2011 Early Christian World Pilgrimage to Turkey, April 25 to May 14, 2011, is continually being posted at http://ecwpilgrimage.org.  There is some very good news about how to get there and back!  Check it out.

Fifth Catholic History and Heritage Presentation: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Click on the "play" button (the triangle pointing right on the left side of the bar) to listen.




Or if the embedded player doesn't work in your browser, or if you would like to download the presentation in MP3 files, go directly to the site:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation5

Here are the notes, filled with many links to further background material.

A bridge across the years:

Here's the very first motion picture made of a pope -- Pope Leo XII in 1896.  The soundtrack contains the first and only sound recording (an acoustical wax cylinder) of him singing "Ave Maria" in 1903, shortly before he died.

This is a brief clip of Pope Benedict XV, the only known motion picture footage of him, I think.

And here's Bishop Sheen on the 1950s TV Program, "What's My Line?"

Why Be Catholic?

That's the core question that every Catholic must ask.  It is not enough just to ride along on some kind of "default" or "cultural" Catholicism -- "I'm Catholic because I was 'born' Catholic." Nor, although this motivation is important, is enough to be Catholic because of friendliness, hospitality, good feelings, or a sense of personal fulfillment.  Important, but not the "core," the center that I'm trying to identify in this little series of bulletin essays.

If the Trinity and the Incarnation are the core beliefs of Christianity, then what are the specifically core beliefs of Catholic faith, the particular beliefs that distinguish Catholic faith from the rest of Christianity?  The basic question here is, Why be Catholic, anyway?  It's an important question when many people, including myself, might find some very appealing, even tempting, attractions in other forms of Christianity.

It seems to me that the core beliefs of Catholic faith also boil down to just two: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome.  As I've already discussed, there's a lot more that's very important to being Christian and to being Catholic than just the core beliefs.  But all the rest is somehow corollary to or derived from the core belief.  I'm not trying to give here a catechism or a summary of our faith; I'm trying to identify the nucleus, the very center.  It's a bit like scientists trying to discover the massively powerful object around which our entire galaxy revolves, although the name "black hole" doesn't express its real nature very well.

The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not something that the Church, or its teachers and leaders, "invented" somewhere along the line.  It comes solely from taking Jesus Christ seriously in the New Testament.  Three of the four Gospels recount Jesus at the Last Supper saying essentially, "This is my body . . . this is my blood."  St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, is actually the first witness to these words, predating the earliest Gospel by at least twenty years.  The Gospel of John does not record these words, but in Chapter 6 gives a long discourse of Jesus in which he emphasizes, in unmistakable words, that one must eat his body and drink his blood in order to have life -- the life that he has come to give.

Throughout the centuries, authentic Catholic faith has discovered many layers of meaning in these words, but had never departed from an understanding that Jesus meant exactly what he said.

The Orthodox Churches share with us this belief in its full integrity.  While Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII also tried to hold on to essentially the same faith in the Real Presence of Christ, the churches they spawned, as they crumbled into fragments, pretty much let go of this belief, and most came to describe the Eucharist in merely symbolic terms, and some no longer even saw the Lord's Supper as an important part of Christian life and worship.

It's important for us to note that our Catholic faith does not deny that the bread and wine are symbols of Christ's presence and activity in the Eucharist.  But there's much more to it, and we cannot deny the underlying reality that is expressed in symbol.  I have not used the word "transsubstantiation," which the Church affirms accurately describes the process by which the Eucharist happens.  I find the word problematic because most of the people who use it today don't understand it, and think it'[s synonymous with "physically present."  It's not.  And I'm in agreement with the St. Thomas Aquinas and the Council of Trent on this point.

Obviously so much more could be said about the Eucharist, but not here and now.

The second core Catholic belief, the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, will have to wait until next week for further treatment because I'm out of space.

I love you,

Fr. Tom Welbers

P.S. Please note that the fifth of my presentations on "the History and Heritage of Our Faith" will be given this Monday at 7:00 pm in the parish Hall.  The topic will be "Saints and Sinners: 19th and 20th century experience on being Catholic and catholic, Christian and human."  You can listen to all the past lectures (and view the notes) at http://tomwelbers.net.  I also have the complete itinerary for the 2011 Early Christian World Pilgrimage to Turkey after next Easter online at http://ecwpilgrimage.org.

Fourth Catholic Heritage and History Presentation: The Reformers Are Coming!

. . . and they keep on coming.  Late Middle Ages, religious orders, the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, the Jesuits (especially Ignatius and Matteo Ricci), the Enlightenment, and revolutionary nationalism are all topics that we explore in this presentation. 





In case your browser doesn't like the embedded player, or if you want to download it as MP3 files, here's the link:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation4

The notes and the PowerPoint slides I used.  (Both are in PDF files.)

See the "Blog Archive" menu on the sidebar to the right for the previous presentations.

The Heart of What We Believe as Christians

(This is my "Pastor's Reflection" on Page Two of Good Shepherd Church Bulletin, August 1, 2010.)

After two weeks of tantalizing you with background reflections, I must now answer my own question, What are our "core beliefs" as Christians? If you want to know why I believe this is important, please review the last two weeks' bulletins.

There are only two doctrines or articles of faith that specifically make us Christian and distinguish our faith from all non-Christian religions. In the shorthand of theological jargon, they are the Trinity and the Incarnation. If you believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation, you are a Christian; if you don't, you're not. Well, that's easy enough to say, but what does it mean?

 Basically, the doctrine of the Trinity unites two apparently contradictory statements: there is one God, (not three), but the one God is three distinct persons, (not one). This is such a commonplace teaching, drilled into many of us from early childhood, that we often don't realize just how strange and paradoxical it is. If, as children, we questioned it, we were silenced by some kind of statement as, "It's a mystery, and so we can't understand it; we just have to believe it." That may be enough for a child's faith, although I was never convinced by it; it certainly isn't enough for an adult faith.

If the Bible is the source of our faith, we may want to ask, Where is it in the Bible? It may come as a surprise to find out that the word "trinity" never once appears in the Bible, nor does it anywhere explicitly say that there are three persons in one God. So why do we believe this, and how did we come to express this belief in those words?

First, Jesus was a Jew, and the Jews, unique among all the peoples of the ancient world three thousand years ago, came to understand that there is one God who is Lord of all, rather than many gods, each controlling some aspect of nature or giving special protection to a particular city or nation. Furthermore, the Jews had an awareness throughout their history that this one God had entered into a special relationship with them in a mutual covenant with certain obligations and promises. They saw this as God's revelation of himself to them, and the writings of the Bible were inspired documents of His revelations and the people's living response to it in their history.

The New Testament presents Jesus to us as viewed through the experience of His first disciples and the communities drawn together by them around this faith in Jesus. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is presented as relating Himself with this one God of the Jewish covenant in two particular ways. Frequently He identifies Himself with God, doing His own things that only God can do, such as forgiving sins. But He also speaks of this one God in distinct but intimate terms, referring to God as Father and Himself as Son. But the New Testament also speaks of another one who is active with the power of God, but who is not the Son, but continues and fulfills the work of the Son -- the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the first seven centuries of the Church, amid much controversy, the Church leaders gradually defined ways of coming to terms with the "raw data" of the New Testament, affirming both that there could be only one God, but that three distinct Divine Persons can be identified, each of whom is not the other, each of whom is fully God, but there is one God alone, not three. The Trinity.

Similarly, during those early centuries, the Church struggled with what Jesus was recorded as saying about Himself. The Councils came to the conclusion that anything short of affirming that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human, without some kind of lessening or accommodation of one or the other, does not do justice to what the inspired word of Scripture says. This is the Incarnation.

We can't answer the question, Why does God or Jesus have to be this way? Our exploration has to start with accepting the fact that this is the way it is. Then, we can explore, and this is the heart of theology's task, why God might have revealed Himself to us this way, and what it means for us.

I think we can be sure of this: the Trinity and the Incarnation, as the core Christian beliefs, aren't just God "showing off" how wonderful He is. There has to be a vital meaning in it for us. For openers, you might want to ask yourself, So what? What difference does faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation mean to me? Here's a hint, keep that question in mind from now on as you are listening to and participating in the prayers and readings of the Mass.

If the Trinity and Incarnation are the core beliefs of Christians, what makes our faith as Catholics unique and distinct from other Christians? What are our specifically Catholic core beliefs? Again there are two of them. It's important to know and understand them because there are many other ways of being Christian, some of them easier and even,, perhaps, more appealing than the Catholic Church. We need to ask, and try to answer, the question, Why be Catholic? Hand in hand with that question is another: Is it worth it?

Catholic core beliefs . . . next week.

I love you,

Fr. Tom Welbers

Third Catholic Heritage and History Presentation: The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages are a complex system of interrelated peoples' and events rather than a single era, sometimes disparagingly referred to as the "Dark Ages."  In this presentation, I probe the complexity of the time, and try to explore some of what has influenced our faith today.  While talking more about kings and leaders and battles and conquests than the everyday life of ordinary people may seem dry and academic, I hope to shed some light on how the way we live and believe today has many roots in these eras.  The question, "So what?" is never far from my mind when I'm exploring these topics, and I hope what I say stimulates thought about our own faith in today's world.

Last Monday's presentation is titled "Middle Ages: Barbarians, Arabs and Islam, Crusades, Scholastric Revival; 711-1492."

You can listen to it easily with this embedded player:



The presentation is in two roughly one-hour parts.  At the left you see the familiar right-pointing triangle, which is the "play button."  The two triangles-with-a-line next to it are buttons that will toggle the first and second parts.  (The only way visually you can tell them apart will be the timings on the right side of the bar: part 1 is 57:33 and part 2 is 35:03.)

Some browsers may not support the embedded player.  You can download the files in MP3 format, to play on your iPod while exercising, driving, or whatever, or burn to a CD (it will need two CDs) on your computer if you wish.  Here's the link:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation3

To download PDF files of the four pages of notes that I prepared for this presentation, click here.   I made extensive use of maps in my presentation, which I projected on a screen.  All of them are readily available from sources on the internet, and I've provided links to them at appropriate places in the notes. (In listening to the recorded talk, you'll not there was some difficulty because I neglected to load a couple of the maps on the PowerPoint program I used, but I have included them in the notes.)

Uncovering Core Christian Beliefs

(This is the "Pastor's Reflection" on  Page Two of the Good Shepherd Parish bulletin, July 25, 2010.)

Last week I promised to identify what my own exploration into our Catholic history and heritage seems to indicate are the core beliefs of Christianity. By "core beliefs" I mean those things that are at the heart of the faith which all Christians share, and if one does not believe them, it's impossible by any stretch of the imagination, to call oneself Christian.

By no means do I want to suggest that these core beliefs explicitly contain all that we as Christians believe. (As Catholics we have an additional set of core beliefs that distinguish our faith from that of Protestants. I'll deal with those later.) I think a distinction between primary and secondary may be helpful. These core beliefs are primary because, as I already noted, they are absolutely essential and shared universally among those who consider themselves Christian. Not to assent to all of these core beliefs -- to deny any one of them -- automatically puts one outside the definition of what it means to be Christian. The word secondary rightly refers to most everything else one associates with Christian faith. I call these beliefs secondary not because they are unimportant -- some of them are very important -- but because they have meaning only in relation to the primary, the core. They are usually in some sense derivative, consequent, or corollary. Identifying these secondary beliefs, and exploring how and why they are secondary is a job for another time. First,
I want to identify what is primary, core beliefs of Christian faith, and then what is distinctive about Catholic faith -- our own core beliefs as Catholics.

The conclusions I've come to about the core beliefs of Christians in general and Catholics in particular are the result of a lifetime of study into Christian scripture, theology, and liturgy, combined with a strong interest in history, archaeology, and comparative religion -- plus full-time concentration on pastoral ministry in parishes and Newman Centers. I've never been a scholar, full-time teacher, or academician. All my learning and teaching has been in the context of day-to-day relations with the people of real-life communities, not the rarefied atmosphere of university, seminary, or monastery.

The conclusions I will share with you beginning next week, come from two questions, which I think are vital for every Christian and every Catholic. And these questions are related: First, what makes our Christian faith unique, different from all other religions and philosophies throughout the world and throughout the ages? Second, what makes our faith as Catholics unique, different from all the other varieties of Christian faith?

I think it is important to try to look at our faith from this perspective because we face a particular challenge in our world today. Christians and Catholics are by and large ignorant of their faith, or place a lot of effort into secondary, sometimes superficial or emotionally satisfying beliefs or practices, and leave the heart -- the core -- unreckoned. I think there are distortions, at least of misplaced emphasis, on both sides of the mainstream -- right and left, conservative and liberal. It's the core we have to firmly hold on to, and the rest, even if important, only takes meaning from the core.

In addition, it's our experience in today's diverse, secular world, that one does not have to be Catholic or Christian, or even religious, to be a good and moral person. There is a tendency to identify faith with morality, as if it doesn't really make much difference what you believe as long as you're nice. And if you look at the Gospels, at least 80% of Jesus' teaching (and 100% of his specifically moral teaching) can also be found in other, non-Christian religions and philosophies. This isn't anything new. Thomas Jefferson famously re-edited the Gospels, literally with a razor and paste, by deleting everything he thought was irrelevant -- miracles, the resurrection, and anything else that seemed "supernatural" and therefore offensive to "enlightened reason."

One final word before I get specific. I put a lot of effort into being authentically Catholic, and therefore in being 100% in union with the Catholic Church. However, this does not exclude the possibility of being critical of some elements of policy, practice, and even things that are put forth as teachings. One of the solid principles of both theology and canon law is that not all teachings or all laws have equal value, and individual doctrines, beliefs, and practices must be evaluated on the basis of how they relate to the core beliefs and principles. There are times also when one must be critical of what one holds most dear.

To me this is an exciting and important venture. And I'm happy to invite you along. For two weeks now I guess I've been teasing you with all this background stuff. "So, dear Father Tom," say you. "what exactly are these 'core beliefs' you've been making such a big deal about? "Next week . . .

I love you all.

Fr. Tom Welbers

Second Catholic Heritage and History Presentation

Last Monday evening's presentation (July 19) is now online.  This one is titled East is East and West is West: Common Faith, Diverging Theologies, Political Divisions.

You can listen to it easily with this embedded player:



The presentation is in two roughly one-hour parts.  At the left you see the familiar right-pointing triangle, which is the "play button."  The two triangles-with-a-line next to it are buttons that will toggle the first and second parts.  (The only way visually you can tell them apart will be the timings on the right side of the bar: part 1 is 59:23 and part 2 is 47:57.)

Some browsers may not support the embedded player.  You can download the files in MP3 format, to play on your iPod while jogging or ironing, or burn to a CD on your computer if you wish, at this link:

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation2

 And you can view and download PDF files of the four pages of notes I prepared for the presentation: click here.  You can also access the first presentation, given Monday evening, July 12, here.

Enjoy!

An Apologia

(This is the "Pastor's Reflection" on Page Two of the Good Shepherd Parish Bulletin, July 18, 2010.)

The word sounds like an apology, but it's not. While there may be a lot of things for which I should say "I'm sorry," that’s not what this column is about.

An "apologia," derived from a Greek word, actually means an explanation of oneself, intended to help others understand where one is coming from. The famous Cardinal John Henry Newman, who will be beatified in September by Pope Benedict when he visits England, wrote a book entitled Apologia Pro Vita Sua, an explanation of his reasons for  converting from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church. The word occurs several times in the New Testament, best known in 1 Peter 3:15: "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope."

Last Monday, I gave the first presentation on our "Catholic History and Heritage" to a group of about 60 parishioners, squeezed into the Good Shepherd Room of the Parish Center. Folks seemed to enjoy it, and most said they were coming back for tomorrow evening's presentation, which I am moving to the Parish Hall to give us more room. I have already posted it online, along with the notes, and you can listen and download it at my blogsite, http://tomwelbers.net. Even if you did not make it to the first presentation, you are still very welcome to the next ones: Mondays at 7:00 PM in the Parish Hall (until August 16).

Sometimes, I may seem (at least to myself), obsessed with the probing of our history to discover its lessons for us today, and doing everything I can to share these insights with you. I am convinced that, today more than ever, Catholics cannot just coast along uncritically on what we learned when we were growing up. Growing in faith means each of us has to become something like, as Jesus tells us, "the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old." (Matthew 13:52)

So, in all fairness and to keep my interest and passion from becoming just an intellectually satisfying academic exercise, I really do have to take the time and effort to explain why I think probing our history and heritage is so important and what lessons do I think we can all gain from doing this. In other words, that all important question, "So what?" What I have to say here is a first word, not a last word.

First, as to the "why." none of us can divorce ourselves from our past. We have no choice of our DNA. That has been given to us through the union of egg and sperm over countless generations. Actually, we can count: if modern humans originated in Africa around 100,000 years ago, and if a generation is, say, 20 years from one's birth until the time one has a baby, then you and I have in our genetic makeup at least 5,000 distinct pairs of human ancestors. Each of them, through their union and the new individual they brought about, has contributed to what you and I are today! The more we know about them, the more we know about ourselves.

The same thing is true of our faith community, the Catholic Church. It has a long and checkered history, not all of it will make us feel good. But it's important to know, understand, and evaluate it because that history has formed who and what we are today. History in itself does not repeat, but the patterns of relationships and behaviors that make up the "stuff" of history continue to be the building blocks of our world.

I'd like to propose several very specific "lessons" that we can and need to learn and benefit from. The first is the importance of humility. Our strongest convictions and deepest motives are best held lightly, humbly, and with humor. Otherwise, they become monstrous distortions, born of fear and arrogance, that too often divide and destroy rather than heal and build. Sadly, that has happened over and over again in our history.

Another lesson is that it's important to identify our core truths -- those things worth dying for, (nothing except perhaps last-resort self defense, is worth killing for) -- that are central to our faith, those things that, without which we can no longer in any way call ourselves Christian or Catholic. These "core truths" are fewer than we think, and everything else is secondary, or derivative. "Secondary" does not mean unimportant, but it does mean that it properly exists only in relation to the primary, and not on its own.

What are those "core truths," at least as my exploration of our faith history and heritage would identify them? That's what I will talk about repeatedly in upcoming sessions of this series, and what I will simultaneously explore in these bulletin articles over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned, and may God bless you.

I love you.

Fr. Tom Welbers

Success! First Catholic Heritage and History Presentation Online

I'm delighted to report that I have successfully posted last night's Catholic History and Heritage presentation online in a way that should (I hope) be easily accessed, listened to, and downloaded on your computer. The title of the presentation is: Beginnings: Jesus and the First Disciples/Apostles; the First Three Centuries


It's in two roughly one-hour parts, divided at the intermission, and you should be able to listen to them if you see the embedded player below.  Just click on the right or left arrows next to the "play" button to switch between the first part and the second part.



The following link will take you a page where you can download the files.  (It's possible that some browsers may not support the embedded player.)

http://www.archive.org/details/CatholicHeritagePresentation1

And here you can view and download the notes. (I added the population figures and some dates that I talked about but did not include in the original notes.)

Enjoy.

P.S. I mentioned having done a talk called "Crossing Paths with St. Paul," at the LA Religious Education Congress in 2009.  You can view it here:

Benedict Spans the Centuries

(This is the "Pastor's Reflection" column from the Parish Bulletin of Good Shepherd, July 11,2010.)

Today, July 11, is the feast day of St. Benedict of Nursia, who lived from 480 to 547 AD. What relevance does a sixth-century monk have for today?

When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005, he took the name Benedict, breaking a 90-year cycle of Piuses, Johns and Pauls. He readily explained his choice of name, acknowledging the importance of two great Benedicts, one of the distant past, the other more recent.

The more recent was Benedict XV, a tiny, frail and sadly ignored man whose relatively brief papacy spanned World War I and its aftermath (1914-1922). He worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation among the "Great Powers" of Europe, and was the first to propose a workable and just peace plan, which was completely ignored and even ridiculed. Had Benedict been taken seriously by the "Victors," who were bent on imposing punitive and destructive sanctions on Germany and greedily dividing up the Middle Eastern remnants of the dying Ottoman Empire, there's a strong likelihood that Hitler could never have risen to power and that the Middle East conflicts of today would not have arisen. He deserves a lot more attention than anyone has given him.

The earlier Benedict brought the eastern tradition of monasticism to the West. In the fourth century, when Christians were no longer "illegal" and persecuted, and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, many felt that the true spirit of following Christ in His suffering was compromised. To be a Christian no longer meant living under a cloud of social suspicion and under the risk of persecution, torture and death. Now Christianity became a means of social prestige and even political advantage. Many in the eastern Mediterranean lands, seeking a life more in conformity with Christ, fled to the deserts of Egypt, Syria, or Central Turkey. They either lived alone as hermits or banded together in small groups which came to be known as monasteries. Whenever people live together there have to be some rules to guide their behavior and their relationships or else conflict and division will inevitably destroy the community. Some of the eastern "Fathers," such as John Cassian and Basil, compiled rules that were widely used.

Similar groups of holy men and women developed in the West also, and most of them owe a debt to Benedict, at Monte Cassino in Italy, for compiling the rule that was most widely used. Although he never intended to found a "religious order," which is a more modern kind of institution, communities using this rule came to be known as Benedictines, and there were later offshoots, such as the Cistercians, Carthusians, Camaldolese, and so on.

Benedict had a twin sister, Scholastica, who also founded a community of women religious.

The influence of Benedict was so great that he was later designated the patron of Europe, which is especially relevant today when the European Union refuses even to acknowledge its Christian heritage in its constitution.

If you'd like to read more, Wikipedia has brief but excellent biographies of both of these wonderful Benedicts.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Benedict_XV and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia.

Don't forget that tomorrow, Monday, I'll begin my six-week program of talks on our Christian history and heritage. The first session will simply explore our beginnings, in Scripture and the Church of the first centuries. It will be from 7:00 to 9:00 PM in the Good Shepherd Room of the Parish Center. Hope to see you there.

Blessings and peace. I love you.

Fr. Tom Welbers

Two Anniversaries: Our Nation and Our Parish

Oldest Catholic Church in the Original Thirteen States

Founded in 1641 by Jesuits who arrived on the Ark and Dove to assist in forming a new English Colony, St. Ignatius Church, in Port Tobacco, Maryland, remains the oldest continuously serving Catholic Parish in the original thirteen States.  It was here, in 1789, that Father John Carroll was invested as the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States, although his consecration took place later in England, thereby establishing the Diocese of Baltimore.


This weekend marks the first anniversary of my arrival at Good Shepherd as your pastor.

The past year has been a wonderful experience for me, and I am very grateful for the warm welcome you have all given me.  I am especially grateful for the help, moral support, and friendship given me by Father Colm O'Ryan, your former pastor who remains with us in retirement, and Father George O'Brien, who has been in residence doing fill-in service for these many years.

It has been truly a delight getting to know you and becoming part of this tremendously vital Good Shepherd and Beverly Hills community.

This first year has been one of observing and waiting, all the while trying to be as faithful as I can in serving you and meeting your needs and expectations.  Experience has taught me, sometimes painfully, that hasty and precipitous action all too often brings regret, and lasting change must be in the form of organic growth -- evolution, not revolution.

At this time, however, foundations are being laid for the future growth and well-being of our parish community in very significant way.  Last month we welcomed Deacon Eric Stoltz to ministry here at Good Shepherd.  He will continue to be here for one or two Masses every Sunday, and will preach the homily about once  month.  As he gets to know the parish and you get to know him, you'll discover what tremendous gifts he brings to many areas of ministry here.

This week, Mr. Michael Caraway will be joining our parish staff as Director of Administration.  His responsibilities will include nearly every aspect of running the business and administrative side of the parish.  Having someone in this position has long been a felt need here.  In fact, before I came, the Parish Finance Council recommended that a person be hired to manage parish business, but Fr. Colm wisely decided it would be better if the new pastor be free to do that.  I've spent the past year uncovering the various needs and challenges unique to this parish (every parish is different!) in order to find the best person to help fulfill those needs.  I also bring fifteen years of experience working in my former with hand-in-hand with a Director of Administration in managing the complexities of a modern parish.  After a two-month search by a committee made of up of parishioners, several candidates were presented to me for interview, and the search committee concurred with me that Michael Caraway was the best choice.  He begins work this week, and you will have a opportunity to meet him over the next few weeks.

This week we are also beginning a year-long strategic planning process called the Parish Assessment and Renewal.  Father Tom Sweetser, a Jesuit from Milwaukee, will guide us in assessing our own strengths and weaknesses as a parish community in relation to our fulfillment of the Mission of Jesus Christ in our midst, which, after all, is what we are all about.  He has worked with several hundred parishes over more than thirty years, and if anyone in the United States knows the best practices and potentials of American parishes deeply and intimately, it's Father Sweetser.  He worked with me in my former parish, Our Lady of the Assumption in Claremont, and helped its people to grow into a dynamic and vibrant faith community.  You will certainly be hearing more about this as the summer progresses, and every member of the parish will have the opportunity to take part.

As pastor of my former parish, I was frequently asked to be s guest speaker at the Independence Day Celebration at Memorial Park in Claremont.  I valued this invitation because it was an opportunity to bring our Catholic faith tradition into the American public forum in a unique way,  As we celebrate the Fourth of July this year, I've been asked to post some of the best of these speeches on this blog.  (They are all the "July 2" entries preceding this one.)  I've covered such topics as the cost of Religious Freedom, humility as a national virtue, Father Junipero Serra, the real meaning of "under God,"  and an early reflection on the election of Pope Benedict XVI.  Of course, the tragic event of September 11, 2001 forms the backdrop for many of these reflections, and it remains an ongoing challenge to probe the realities of our world today in light of faith.  This is not a task that yields easy certitudes, and always requires generous understanding.

My daily prayers are with you as we together seek to be faithful to the Lord's call in our midst.  I love you.

Fr. Tom Welbers