From our Pastor

We thought you might enjoy
a reprint of an article by Fr.
Ronan from 2016.

This week I returned to the Parish after more than 2 weeks of vacation time. Adapting to the change of pace that comes about from leaving one’s work-a-day world does not happen quickly. In fact, for the first days Charlestown and activities in the Parish were never far from my mind. Even though I returned to Charlestown for several commitments that emerged, slowly I became more used to the rhythm of the beautiful summer days along the coast in the Plymouth area. The natural loveliness of this corner of the coastline is alluring, and spending as much time as possible out-of-doors made the time go slowly. Gradually, the disconnect began to happen.

When every waking moment is not filled with issues, people, projects and various needs and challenges of the Parish, something else seeps in. I became much more conscious of everything around me: the sea and the tides, the birds and wildlife, the sunshine and the showers, the morning coffee and the quiet. As you know, Charlestown is not a quiet place – certainly not at St. Catherine’s Rectory which is under the Tobin Bridge and periodically sways to the weight of passing vehicles. Yet out on Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth Bays – it is the sound of the ocean passing under the hull of the sailboat, the screeching of the gulls and the hurried chirps of the diving wrens that are heard.

And I do love to sail, a cat boat preferably and my 35 year old Marshall Sandpiper, only 15’ long, seems to love to be out on the water no matter the wind and conditions. Yet the sea is a master teacher and one who does not heed, very carefully, the signs and songs of the sea, pays a steep price.

There are few things I have done in my adult life that have so consistently been so humbling! It is the tide and the currents along with the winds and gusts that all play into a day of sailing, and it is never boring. For me what seems to slowly fall away is the need to be busy and productive – a trap we all might fall into. Stepping outside of that, one’s senses are sharper and creativity more evident. There is a sense of knowing more completely that God is always active – all around in every moving and living thing as well as in the sky, rocks, the air and the sea.

The power of God is easier to see and feel and to be amazed at. One knows that God is always “there” yet that is not to say that I am always present to God. Any of us can get caught into a trap, become stale, and miss the subtlety of the movement of God’s Spirit everywhere. Days away make possible a sense of being surrounded by and enfolded in the beauty of God.

The word “delight” is found often in the Book of Psalms and especially as used to describe how God delights in God’s creation – including you and me. Yes, I believe we are a source of delight to God! This God, Who is Love, sees us and all that surrounds us as a cause of delight. Isn’t that amazing? And so I have come to believe that just as God delights in us, God also wishes that we delight in God and in all of the beauty and wonder of God’s creation.

Now I am back in Charlestown. Many of us walk everyday all over town. And way too many walk looking down at smart phones and listening to music actually oblivious to all that surrounds us. Even a casual “good morning” goes unheeded because a fellow walker is someplace else wrapped in some distant busyness far from the beauty of the birdsong, bright summer flowers, the screeching gulls coming off the harbor and the sounds of children playing in a yard. Delight is missed all around.

It is good to be back in the Parish – really! Yet it so good to step away, as well, and become refreshed in all that God is – and to delight in it all.

Fr. Ronan

Ministry to the Sick and Homebound

We welcome the opportunity to provide the Sacraments of Confession, Communion or Anointing of the Sick to anyone who is homebound, either on a short or longer term basis, as we want to do our best to help them feel connected to our community.

Please call us at 617-242-4664 if you, a relative or neighbor is open to having a home visit for some friendly conversation and prayer.

Not many people are honest enough or brave enough to ask the question in today’s Gospel.  Just think about you asking some friend or perhaps, more courageously, some enemy – Who do you say that I am….What do people think of me?  Or perhaps move to another step and ask yourself – Who am I? 

I recently read a story about a doctor in a New York City Hospital who makes time to attend Mass every day.  When someone told him how impressed they were, he said he was not always so faithful.  It was a patient who made him look at his life.  He said he would do rounds every day with his students examining patients.  As they entered the room, the patients would look intimidated and apprehensive except one man, an African American in his sixties who was very sick.  He said the man would always greet them with “Hey boys and girls”, as if they were a bunch of teenagers.  Sometimes the patient would make the students nervous, as one said – “He seems to look right through us.”

The man grew worse, he was sinking.  The doctor went to see him alone and the man opened his eyes with a grin and said “Well” – like he expected the doctor.  The doctor did not say anything as he read the chart.  Then the man hit the doctor with a single remark that was half a question and half something else.  He asked with a smile, “Who are you?”  The doctor first thought that because of the drugs that he did not recognize him but as if sensing what the doctor was thinking, he said, “Dr. Smith, who are you?”  The doctor started to say, well as you know, I am a doctor and then he just stopped cold.  It was hard for him to describe or sort out what went on in his head.  All kinds of answers went through his mind which all seemed true and yet somehow less than true. 

Yes, I am this, but I am also that, but that is not the whole picture.  The doctor’s confusion must have shown because the man gave him a grin and closed his eyes.  The doctor asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”  The man said no, I am tired.  He died a few hours later.  

My friend, the doctor, could not get him or his question out of his mind– who are you?  For years he had trained as a physician and got lost in his profession.  He realized that the man had taken away his degree, tossed it back to him and said – but who are you….beyond the degree?  The story does the same for us.  Who are you beyond the facade, the front that you put up?  Who are you beyond your job title, degree or trade? 

So often we try to be like the people we see in the commercials who are neat, well-dressed, smiling, smelling great, hair gleaming, underarms sterilized, homes comfortable and lives that are stress free.  There is no blemish – laughter – joy and the good life abound but that is not real, that is not who we are.  Who are you beyond all the externals?  Who do people say that I am, is the question that Jesus asks in today’s Gospel?  How you answer that question says a lot about you. 

Does Jesus have any effect on your day to day living…on the way you treat others…on the way you treat yourself?  There is danger that people fall into and that is we try to make Jesus in our image and likeness and we humans often do this.  The crusaders of the twelfth century tried to make him into a warrior who delighted in the slaughter of Muslims.

The Ku Klux Klan has tried to make him into a middle class white American. Catholics have tried to make Jesus Catholic and Protestants have tried to make him Protestant. Many of us have been guilty in one way or another, trying to make Christ in our own image. We want him to be like us.

We want Jesus to be the kind of Savior that we want.  Sometimes we fail to realize that we do not call Jesus, He called us to follow Him.  Yes, He has called you, not only Priests and religious but you sitting in the pew.  It was His cross that was signed on your forehead and because of your Baptism you are a disciple of Christ.  The question that we all ask ourselves is – are we living it?

Christ is here with us and someday He will come in power and glory to place all creation at the feet of his Father.  But today He comes quietly, subtly, invisibly and wherever you are, look for Him in the preached word.  In the host at communion time, look for Him inside you.  Look for Him at home on the faces of your dear ones but look for Him, especially where He told you to look.  In the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and the imprisoned and the AIDs afflicted and the drug addicted.

I would ask you to think about this wherever you go in life, where you work, where you play and pray and where you live or go to school.  If anyone is looking for Christ, will they find Him in you or do they have to look for another?  If Jesus were to ask you – who do you say that I am – what would your answer be?

Fr. Bob Warren, SA

Across the nation, public and religious schools are facing a shortage of teachers as we head into the fall. In the Archdiocese of Boston, we are seeking teaching candidates at all grade levels for our Catholic schools.

We also need substitute teachers. We are open to teachers who will teach even a single course, if they are not able to take on a full course load. We also are open to candidates who are not able to make a full-year commitment but are willing to help out for just the fall or spring.

We have a particular shortage for math, science, technology and engineering teaching positions. We also need qualified teachers who speak Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Chinese, French Creole and other languages given the many diverse languages spoken by the families we serve.

In particular, we encourage applications from:
• Retired Catholic school or public-school teachers;
• Retired military who may have experience that would make them a strong teacher of global studies, math, science, technology, engineering and many other subjects;
• Retired college professors;
• Parishioners with business or nonprofit experience that would make them excellent teachers in science, technology, engineering, math, business or entrepreneurship or other subjects;
• Parents who successfully homeschooled their children; and
• Parishioners with Catholic youth ministry experience.

All candidates, as with any Catholic school teacher, are subject to CORI background checks and will need to complete the Archdiocese’s Protecting God’s Children training.

Please consider this opportunity yourself but also share with friends and family.

Evangelizing and sharing our faith with today’s youth is paramount as we, as a society, educate them to be the leaders of tomorrow. Pope Paul VI said: “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.” It is crucial — in the midst of this teacher shortage — that we make sure we have faithful men and women like you in our schools.

If you are interested, please visit bostoncatholicschools.org/Teacher-Recruiting-Summer-2022

A number of parishioners have inquired if a new pastor has been assigned to our Parish. Not yet. And when one is, we will sound the proverbial trumpet blast! In the meantime, I and the Parish Staff want you to know that we are waiting with you.

The Bible has at least 40 passages on the concept of waiting and so many stories of waiting – for liberation, for guidance, for freedom, for a leader, for salvation. But none depict a people sitting around idly while they wait. They are all doing the work of the Lord in relation to God, to one another, and to the community at large.

Each of us is waiting for new leadership, and in the meantime, we are busying ourselves about God’s work whether it be the Pastoral Staff or all of you, parishioners of St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena. Life in the Parish continues as does your lives and responsibilities. And it is always a joy to look out at all of you during Mass as I offer up silent prayers for you and for a new Pastor.

Currently, we are preparing for September – the beginning of a new year in the Parish when all of our programs start up again – Religious Education for K- 8; Youth Group; Confirmation for Adolescents, grades 9 and 10; Faith Sharing Groups; Adult Faith Formation programs for adults who want to become Catholic and those who want to receive Confirmation, and more.

We are so grateful for Fr. Gianni, our interim Administrator, our priests, Fr. Anthony, Fr. Britto, and Fr. Mark. They continue to nourish us well. We are grateful, also, for all of our Parish volunteers. We couldn’t function without you!

We could use more help. We are in need of persons to assist with Religious Education, Adolescent Confirmation, and other ministries. Fr. Gianni commented that it would great if everything were to be in place for the new pastor!

Please call me to have a conversation about your interests or speak with me at the end of Mass. Together, we can continue to make our Parish the welcoming, spiritually nourishing, and vibrant community that we so love.

The Prophet Habakkuk wrote:
For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end…. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

Let us pray for one another and let’s make a commitment to pray each day for the new pastor who will one day come at the “appointed time.” And when he arrives, let’s give him a wonderful St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena welcome!

Sr. Nancy

Solemnity of the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin Mary is August 15
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church

(966) “Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death.”506 The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin is a singular participation in her Son’s Resurrection and an anticipation of the resurrection of other Christians:
In giving birth you kept your virginity; in your Dormition you did not leave the world, O Mother of God, but were joined to the source of Life. You conceived the living God and, by your prayers, will deliver our souls from death. . . . she is our Mother in the order of grace

Note: When this Solemnity falls on a Monday or Saturday,
the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated

What is faith? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us: “Faith is confident assurance concerning what we hope for, and conviction about things we do not see.” It is not a function of organic vision. Rather, it is an act of seeing in trust.

Long ago, when I spent a month working at the “house of the dying” in Calcutta, I sought a sure answer to my future. On the first morning I met Mother Teresa after Mass at dawn. She asked, “And what can I do for you?” I asked her to pray for me.
“What do you want me to pray for?” I voiced the request I had borne for thousands of miles: “Pray that I have clarity.” She said no. That was that.

When I asked why, she announced that clarity was the last thing I was clinging to and had to let go of. When I commented that she herself had always seemed to have the clarity I longed for, she laughed: “I have never had clarity; what I’ve always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust.” Thus Mother Teresa became for me a member of that cloud of witnesses to which the Letter to the Hebrews refers: heroes of faith, who had conviction about things unseen.

So it was with Abraham and Sarah, who believed they would give birth to a child in their old age (the very idea was enough to make Sarah laugh out loud) and make “descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands of the seashore.”

The Letter to the Hebrews celebrates the faith of Abel, dead but still teaching us; of Noah and his improbable ark; of Jacob, at death’s door, finally able to bless Joseph’s sons; of Moses, the child unguarded and abandoned, who would one day lead a nation) against impossible odds, into a territory his feet would never touch.

Faith felled the walls of Jericho and saved the prostitute Rahab. It was faith, the letter says, that discovered new lands, bestowed wondrous strength, and inspired uncommon courage in ordinary men and women. Some were pilloried, flogged, even chained in prison, stoned, beheaded, homeless, dressed in rags, penniless, given nothing but ill-treatment, living in caves and deserts and ravines.” (Heb 11:33) They were all heroes of faith, the letter continues, but they did not live to see what was promised.

How much we have to learn from the great ones who have gone before us, not only the Hebrew saints praised above, but our own as well—those who, after Christ, believed in him despite adversity. We imagine faith to ease confusion, dull the pain, redeem the times, but we miss the testimony of the clouds of witnesses. Our faith does not bring final clarity on this earth. It does not disarm the demons. It does not still the chaos or dull the pain or provide a crutch so we might walk. When all else is unclear, the heart of faith says, “into your hands I commend my spirit.” So it was with all our heroes.

These died in faith. They did not obtain what had been promised but saw and saluted it from afar … searching for a better, a heavenly home. (Heb 11:13)

John Kavanaugh, SJ
Center for Sunday Liturgy https://liturgy.slu.edu/19OrdC080722/
theword_kavanaugh.html

Peace is the ardent yearning of humanity today. Consequently, there is an urgent need,
through dialogue at all levels, to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence. This dialogue must invite all people to reject violence in every form, including violence done to the
environment. —Pope Francis

Have you been worshiping with us, but never officially took the step to become Catholic? Have you been away from the church and have now returned, but want to know more?
Have you been a Catholic all your life, but never celebrated all the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist?)

Have you joined us from a different background and would now like to find out more about the Catholic
Church?

If any of the above questions apply to you, we are here to accompany you on your journey of faith. Or, if you know of anyone who could answer YES to any of the above questions, perhaps you could extend an invitation to them!

In recent years, there has been a great increase in the number of adults who are joining the Catholic Church. RCIA is a program designed to help non-Catholics and non-practicing Catholics learn more about the Catholic faith through a series of readings, discussions, and prayer time. This program helps people grow in faith and knowledge of God, and develop a deeper relationship with God as they consider becoming Catholic.

If you are not yet sure whether you want to become Catholic, you are still welcome to participate as you make your decision. There is no obligation to join the Catholic Church and regardless of your decision you are always welcome here at St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Parish.

Please contact Sr. Nancy Citro, SND deN
at (617) 242 -4664
or ncitro@stmarystcatherine.org
for more information.

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is August 15
Note: When this Solemnity falls on a Monday or Saturday, the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated

This article is a reprint of one written by me several years ago. The urgency that is
being described in various news reports these days to save our planet, Mother Earth,
caused me to reprint it this week and to share an experience that brings the need to
support efforts to address climate change in my life, and I hope in yours. – Sr. Nancy

February 12, 2005: I remember that day well, as often happens when tragedy strikes. I was in my office at Mother St. Joseph House (a Sister of Notre Dame Rest Home) when I received the phone call. Details were sketchy but the dreadful and unwelcome news was certain.

I asked the staff to gather the sisters in the Chapel as I had some important news to share. I prayed silently for wisdom and strength. Upon taking my place at the front of the chapel, I
looked at the sisters’ faces and I knew that the most merciful thing to do was to get to the point. And so I told them that our sister, Dorothy Stang, in Brazil, had been killed as she was walking along a road on her way to a meeting in the area of Boa Esperança (Good Hope).

It was said that when the assassins stopped her on the road, they asked her if she had a gun. She responded that her weapon was her Bible and began reading the Beatitudes from Matthew, Chapter 5. Her voice was silenced with six gun shots. Sister Dorothy had received many credible death threats for her work with the poor in their struggle for the protection of the environment, particularly the Amazon rainforest where they learned to farm and extract products for their livelihood without harming the environment. I heard that on her last home visit to Ohio, where she was from, she was encouraged not to return to Brazil because of these threats. She is quoted as saying:

“I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a betr life on
land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the ecosystem.”

It was a very sad time, especially for those of us in the States who knew Dorothy and some of the other sisters in Brazil. It was a very sorrowful time for our sisters in Brazil who had lived and worked with her at one time or another. It was a devastating time for the Brazilian poor who labored with her shoulder to shoulder and considered her to be one with them. Many also had lost loved ones in their struggle to preserve the rainforest from destruction by loggers and ranchers who were illegally cutting down trees, using the land for cattle grazing and threatening the inhabit ants if they did not leave.

The poor of Brazil named Dorothy the “Angel of the Amazon.” On the day of her funeral, the people took turns, carrying her for miles from village to village to her
resting place where they adamantly stated that they were not burying her but planting her.

The struggle in that region of Brazil is ongoing and lives continue to be lost. But
they live in the hope that one day, justice will prevail. Their struggle is not just for their own survival. They know the importance of the rainforest for the world’s climate and for future generations. It is said that the “blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” But too much blood has been and is being shed.

On his visit to Brazil a few years ago, Pope Francis met with some indigenous Brazilians who shared these struggles with him. In one of his many speeches there, the Pope spoke to our duty to protect the indigenous people. He also challenged us to take seriously our responsibilities as stewards of God’s creation to protect the environment—to develop a strong commitment to the Earth. “This creation,” he said, should not “be indiscriminately exploited, but rather made into a garden.”

Our “garden” is polluted and we are in what some call a “defining moment in history.” In the document Today’s Challenge to Action: the Care of the Earth, penned by several Sisters of Notre Dame, we are told that “climate scientists the world over as well as indigenous communities and world spiritual leaders agree that Earth is in crisis. This is a matter of very great importance. The natural balance of our planet which nurtured and protected humanity for thousands of years has been disrupted by human activity. The disruption is so devastating and is occurring so rapidly that scientists are telling us that we must act now to stop the momentum toward a situation in which human civilization as we have known it is no longer possible on Earth.

We are slowly coming to consciousness that we humans hold the fate of the planet, and therefore also our fate, in our own hands. We live in an era of decision. Our choices in the immediate future will direct the evolutionary process. We can continue on the path leading to death and destruction or we can change direction and give birth to a new earth of life-giving relationship.”

None of us can do everything but all of us can do something to reduce our carbon footprint and consumption of resources. Doing so will not cost us our lives or
livelihood as is happening in the Amazon and other parts of our world. If anything, it will only be an inconvenience.

So let’s educate ourselves and our children as how to best save Planet Earth. Support programs and legislation that preserve the environment. Converse with those that are detrimental to it. Recycle, conserve water, reduce the amount of electricity and paper we use, walk, bike, take the T, reduce speeds when driving, car pool, plant trees, etc.

Doing something is better than doing nothing. We can be the generation that helps to turn things around or we can be the generation that contributes to its demise and ultimately jeopardizes the future of our children..

In the movie based upon Jane Austen’s classic novel, Sense and Sensibility, there’s a very poignant scene where one of her young heroines, suffering from acute pneumonia, is lying in bed hovering between life and death. A young man, very much in love with her, is pacing back and forth, highly agitated, frustrated by his helplessness to do anything of use, and jumping out of his skin. Unable to contain his agitation any longer, he goes to the girl’s mother and asks what he might do to be helpful. She replies that there’s nothing he can do, the situation is beyond them. Unable to live with that response he says to her: “Give me some task to do, or I shall go mad!”

We’ve all had the feeling at times when in the face of a dire situation we need to do something, but there’s nothing we can do, no magic wand we can wave to make things better. But there is something we can do. I recall an event in my own life several years ago: I was teaching summer school in Belgium when, late one evening, just as I was getting ready for bed, I received an email that two friends of mine, a man and a woman recently engaged, had been involved that day in a fatal car accident. He was killed instantly and she was in serious condition in hospital. I was living by myself in a university dorm, thousands of miles from where this all happened, and thousands of miles from anyone with whom I could share this sorrow. Alone, agitated, panicked, and desperately needing to do something but being absolutely helpless to do anything, I was literally driven to my knees. Not being able to do anything else, I picked up the prayer-book that contains the Office of the Church and prayed, by myself, the Vespers prayer for the dead. When I’d finished, my sorrow hadn’t gone away, my friend was still dead, but my panic had subsided, as had my desperate need to do something (when there was nothing I could do).

My prayer that night gave me some sense that the young man who’d died that day was alright, safe somewhere in a place beyond us, and it also relieved me of the agitation and panicked pressure of needing to do something in the face of agitated helplessness. I’d done the only thing I could do, the thing that’s been done in the face of helplessness and death since the beginning of time; I’d given myself over to prayer and to the rituals of the community and the faith of the community.

It’s these, prayer and ritual, which we have at our disposal at those times when, like the man in Sense and Sensibility, we need to do something or we will go mad. That’s not only true for heavy, sorrowful times when loved ones are sick or dying or killed in accidents and we need to do something but there’s nothing we can do. We also need ritual to help us celebrate happy times properly. What should we do when our own children are getting married? Among other things, we should celebrate the ritual of marriage because no wedding
planner in the world can do for us what the ritual of marriage, especially the church ritual, can do. Weddings, just like funerals, are a prime example of where we need ritual to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

Sadly, today, we are a culture that for the most part is tone-deaf ritually. We don’t understand ritual and therefore mostly don’t know what to do when we need to be doing something but we don’t know what to do. That’s a fault, a painful poverty, in our understanding.

The Trappist monks who were martyred in Algeria in 1996 were first visited by extremists who would later kidnap and kill them, on Christmas Eve, just as they were preparing to celebrate Christmas mass. After some initial threats, their eventual murderers left. The monks were badly shaken. They huddled together as a group for a time to digest what had just happened. Then, not knowing what else to do in the face of this threat and their fear, they sang the Christmas mass. In the words of their Abbott: “It’s what we had to do. It’s all we could do! It was the right thing.” He shared too, as did a number of the other monks (in their diaries) that they found this, celebrating the ritual of mass in the face of their fear and panic, something that calmed their fear and brought some steadiness and regularity back into their lives.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, one that can bring steadiness and calm into our lives at those times when we desperately need to do something but there’s nothing to do. Ritual: it’s what we have to do. It’s all we can do! It’s the right thing.

Ron Rolheiser
Center for Sunday Liturgy –
https://liturgy.slu.edu/17OrdC072422/reflections_rolheiser.html

Saints Anne and
Joachim
Feast Day July 26

The parents of the Virgin Mary, according to tradition derived from certain apocryphal writings. St. Anne is one of the patron saints of Brittany and Canada and of women in labor.
As the grandparents of Jesus, Saints Anne and Joachim are also considered the patron saints of grandparents.

This year Pope Francis is also extending the opportunity for a plenary indulgence “to the faithful who devote adequate time to visit, in person or virtually through the media, their elderly brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty” on July 24. For more information visit the website of usccb.org.

This commonly used word that caught my attention on the front page of the Parish Bulletin not only made me feel happy to be in Charlestown (although for just a brief time) but also helped me to appreciate my being here.

In the parable Gospel story last week, the message of “the Good Samaritan” captured the heart of our Christian faith. The victim who was left totally abandoned nearly half dead realized that the loving and totally dedicated sacrifice that was offered by the Samaritan traveler gave him “hope”, while the other two travelers just went away on the other side.

We “all” come to be fed at the Eucharist by Jesus who is the Bread of Life. The love exhibited by the compassion of the Good Samaritan reminds us why we are welcomed here by the Lord Jesus who invites us to receive God’s love in our journey of life.

I am so delighted to be here to experience with you this greatest gift of our faith. Your presence, which reveals your welcome to me, is truly a blessing for me. I pray that my time here will inspire me to fulfill the words of last week’s Good Samaritan Parable that I heard from the Lord—His command to live God’s love in order to achieve eternal life by following the example of The Good Samaritan:

Go and do likewise

~ Fr. Gianni

Welcome to Fr. Vincent Gianni, our new Interim Administrator! We are happy to welcome Fr. Vincent Gianni to our Parish! Fr. Gianni is a senior priest in the Archdiocese of Boston and has been assigned as the Interim Administrator to St. Francis de Sales and St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena Parishes.

Like Fr. Ron Coyne, Fr. Gianni is on the Emergency Response Team, a group of priests who are assigned to parishes when a pastor is away or one is waiting to be assigned. Fr. Gianni will be guiding our Parishes until the end of summer, at which time a new pastor is expected to be assigned. Please introduce yourself to Fr. Gianni when the opportunity presents itself. You will find him to be a very warm, happy, and kind priest who loves people and has a great sense of humor.

Bienvenido al p. ¡Vincent Gianni, nuestro nuevo administrador interino! Estamos felices de dar la bienvenida al P. Vincent Gianni a nuestra Parroquia! Padre Gianni es un sacerdote sénior en la Arquidiócesis de Boston y ha sido asignado como Administrador Interino de las parroquías de St. Francis de Sales y St. Mary-St. Catherine of Siena.

Como el p. Ron Coyne, el Padre. Gianni está en el Equipo de Respuesta a Emergencias, un grupo de sacerdotes que son asignados a las parroquias cuando un párroco está fuera o uno está esperando ser asignado. Padre Gianni guiará nuestras parroquias hasta el final del verano, el momento en que se espera que se asigne un nuevo párroco. Por favor, preséntese al p. Gianni cuando se presente la oportunidad. Encontrará que es un sacerdote muy cálido, alegre y amable que ama a la gente y tiene un gran sentido del humor.

The restless heart murmurs: “If only I knew the will of God. If it were only clear what was wanted of me I would be willing to do it. But things are so complex, and God’s will is difficult to discern.”

Yet Moses said that God’s voice rings loud and bright, signaling our return to him, if only we heed it and give it our allegiance. God’s will is not opaque and distant. If we listen, it sounds within us. “For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky. No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.”

There are times when it all seems clear. The heart moves. We know in our bones what must be done. Like the lawyer, we see the law so simply drawn: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Ah, but the living of it, that is the problem. “You have only to carry it out,” to will the act, to do it. There’s the rub.

Even after hearing the story of the Good Samaritan, we balk and repeat the question, who, indeed, is our neighbor? Surely not the people in our streets. Surely not the poor of the world. Surely not this particular person here and now before me. And there are many reasons not to stop. I may get sued. Others will come to help. I’m in a hurry. The poor wretch should have planned for disaster. Charity begins at home. How well I know the excuses, myself a teacher and priest. It was such as I who passed the broken man on the road to Jericho. And I would have done the same.

An armless and legless beggar rolling in a Calcutta gutter could not move me to act. I had things to do. He might be part of a racket (what cost he paid for such a ruse!). He will only want more. Others will expect as much from me. My help will only perpetuate his helpless condition. My pittance will do nothing in the long run.

So I, the priest and teacher, passed him by, trying not to notice. It was not the first time. Nor was it the last.

My seeming inability to be a neighbor is hard to reconcile with my professed desire to follow Christ. The will of God still draws close and clear, nudging my heart. And yet I seem at a loss as to the doing of it. The peace I seek is beyond my reach, exceeding both my virtue and my will.

And in those sadly familiar moments when I inspect the abyss between the holy desires God has placed deep in my soul and the sorry fruit of them, I can only turn to the words of Paul, realizing once again that I will never find peace or reconciliation on my own.

It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him and by means of him to reconcile everything in his person, everything, I say, both on earth and in the heavens, making peace through the blood of the cross.

Do these words, then, absolve me of the struggle? No. But they do remind me that I will never want to approach the throne of Jesus. I—the lawyer—pleading my case. Let the unrest continue, so that, as journeys to Jericho recur in my life, I realize that the only times I will find my neighbor are when I am generous enough to become one. –

John Kavanaugh, SJ
https://liturgy.slu.edu/15OrdC071022/theword_kavanaugh.html

There is parable that I heard some years ago from John Shea about a Cretan peasant. It runs this way: There once lived a peasant in Crete who deeply loved his life. He enjoyed
tilling the soil, feeling the warm sun on his naked back as he worked the fields, and feeling the soil under his feet. He loved the planting, the harvesting, and the very smell of nature.
He loved his wife and his family and his friends, and he enjoyed being with them, eating with them, drinking wine, talking, and making love. And he loved especially Crete, his tiny, beautiful country! The earth, the sky, the sea, it was his! This was his home.

One day he sensed that death was near. What he feared was not what lay beyond, for he knew God’s goodness and had lived a good life. No, he feared leaving Crete, his wife, his children, his friends, his home, and his land. Thus, as he prepared to die, he grasped in his right hand a few grains of soil from his beloved Crete and he told his loved ones to bury him with it. He died, awoke, and found himself at heaven’s gates, the soil still in his hand, and heaven’s gate firmly barred against him. Eventually St. Peter emerged through the gates and spoke to him: “you’ve lived a good life, and we’ve a place for you inside, but you cannot enter unless you drop that handful of soil. You cannot enter as you are now!”

The man was reluctant to drop the soil and protested: “why? Why must I let go of this soil? Indeed, I cannot! What’s inside of those gates, I have no knowledge of. But this soil, I know, … it’s my life, my work, my wife and kids, it’s what I know and love, it’s Crete! Why should I let it go for something I know nothing about?”

Peter answered: “When you get to heaven you will know why. It’s too difficult to explain. I am asking you to trust, trust that God can give you something better than a few grains of soil.” But the man refused. In the end, silent and seemingly defeated, Peter left him, closing the large gates behind. Several minutes later, the gates opened a second time and this time, from them, emerged a young child. She did not try to coax the man into letting go of the soil in his hand. She simply took his hand and, as she did, it opened and the soil of Crete spilled to the ground. She then led him through the gates. A shock awaited him as he entered heaven … there, before him, lay all of Crete!

When Jesus gave us the Eucharist, he left it to us with the words: receive, give thanks, break, and share. With these words, he was referring to a lot more than ritual and rubrics for the reception of the Eucharist at a liturgy. These words contain an entire spirituality in that they lay out the way that we must live all of life. The story helps us to understand what is meant by one of those word, break.

How do we break so as to become a Eucharistic person? Parable and story can touch deep affective levels in us and move us in rationally inexplicable ways, and so a story of this kind shouldn’t be given too much explanation. It should be more an object for meditation than explanation. Nonetheless, a tiny application might be helpful.

When Jesus links the idea of “breaking” to the Eucharist, the rending and breaking down that he is talking about has to do with narcissism, individualism, pride, self-serving ambition, and all the other things that prevent us from letting go of ourselves so as to truly be with others. Buddhism suggests that everything that is wrong the world can be explained in one image, that of the group photo. Whenever anyone looks at a group photo, he or she always first looks how he or she turned out and, only afterwards, considers whether or not it is a good picture of the group. Breaking the Eucharistic bread has a whole lot to do with looking first at how the group turned out.

St. Augustine, in his Eucharistic homilies, was fond of telling people: “if you receive this well, you are what you receive. … For the loaf that contains Christ is made up of many individual kernels of grain, but these kernels must, to become the loaf containing Christ, first be ground up and then baked together by fire.”

(Sermo 227, In Die Paschae IV) – Ron Rolheiser
Center for Sunday Liturgy hĴps://liturgy.slu.edu/14OrdC070322/reflections_rolheiser.html

Friends,
As I leave Charlestown after a few short weeks, I’d like to leave you with some thoughts to ponder which are not my own but I found them profound.

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out God hates the same people you do” Anne Lamott

“The outdoors isn’t a place given to boys and girls by their parents; nature is a place you’re borrowing from your kids” Chris Bohjalian

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide” John Adams

“As it is with trees, our roots shape our horizons” Kenneth Woodward

“My point once again is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them
symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.” John Dominic Crossen

“The question is not whether the Church can convert the world, but whether God can convert the Church” Paul Stagg (American Baptist Church)

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed unless it is faced“ James Baldwin

“What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“If you ask a naïve child “Do you believe in Santa Claus? He or she will say yes. If you ask a bright child the same question, he or she will say no. However, if you ask yet an even brighter child that question, he or she will reply yes …., though now for a different reason.”
“Those who are cowards will ask, ‘Is it safe?’ Those who are political will ask, ‘Is it expedient?’ Those who are vain will ask, ‘Is it popular?’ But those who have a conscience will ask, ‘Is it right?” Paul Washington

And finally, “Dear Ann Landers: I am a 16 year old girl who is a nervous wreck from gettng yelled at. All I hear from morning ‘till night is “stop smoking, get off the phone, hang up your clothes, do your homework, clean up your room. How can I get them off my case? signed Sick of Parents
Dear Sick: “Stop smoking, get off the phone, hang up your clothes, do your homework and clean up your room”

Thank you, Charlestown for your hospitality and affirmation. I speak about you in superlatives. I have only the best of memories from my time among you (1990 – 1996). I’ve been in my glory these past 4 weeks renewing acquaintances and reliving the best of times.

Thank you for everything. I am a better person and priest because I know you.

You are loved!
Fr. Coyne