Are Catholic religious communities like the Passionists, down in numbers at least in our part of the world,, on their way out? Numbers don’t always predict the future. More importantly, does the community produce saints and foster holiness? That’s a lesson to learn from Blessed Lorenzo Salvi, a Passionist whose feast is June 12th.

Lorenzo Salvi was born in Rome on October 30, 1782, professed a Passionist in 1802, and ordained a priest in 1805. These dates point to difficult, unpromising times. As Lorenzo entered the Passionists, Napoleon was carrying out his campaign to create a grand new world with France and himself at its center. He saw the Catholic church, particularly the papacy, in his way and he tried to cripple the church and the popes.

Napoleon invaded the Papal States in 1787, then again in 1798 when he declared a Roman Republic and drove Pope Pius Vi into exile where he died in 1799. Napoleon also ordered religious orders like the Passionists suppressed, their religious houses closed and their members sent back to their families or wherever they could find a place for themselves. Most Passionist houses were closed for a year or more at the time.

Not a good time to join the Passionists, you would think. But Lorenzo did.

In 1802 the body of Pius VI was brought back to Rome in 1802, the year Lorenzo made his vows. Many people said then that the papacy had come to an end. The future didn’t look good.

In 1799 the new pope, Pius VII appointed Father Vincent Mary Strambi, a distinguished Passionist preacher and teacher, as bishop of Marcerati, to shore up a tottering diocese in the tottering papal states. Later, Strambi would be declared a saint. Certainly the move benefited the church, but perhaps not so much the Passionists who lost a religious deeply involved in forming their young people, like Lorenzo.

You wonder what the young man felt facing the future at a time like that.

Far from losing hope, Lorenzo’s spirit seemed to soar and his call strengthened during the Napoleonic suppression. The young priest worked to restore the church in Italy and his own congregation. Napoleon’s plans failed.

Lorenzo Salvi was a forceful preacher who had a great devotion to the Child Jesus. “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said. Lorenzo had the heart of a child. He believed no one can destroy God’s kingdom.

The Passionists experienced a surprising growth after the Napoleonic suppression. Lorenzo, an inspiring preacher and holy priest, was one of those leading the community into a new era.

Pray for saints like Lorenzo today. Pray that the Passionists have new recruits like him.

Lord, you granted Blessed Lorenzo Maria Salvi an intense and penetrating knowledge of the mystery of your Word made flesh through his devout contemplation of the Child Jesus. Through his intercession grant that we, too, walking in the ways of spiritual childhood, may come to eternal life in your Son. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one God, forever and ever.

Matthew’s Gospel offers many indications of the Jewishness of Jesus. Some are found in the readings for this week, his Sermon on the Mount ( Matthew 5) , where he speaks as a loyal, practicing Jew, fully involved in his religion and culture. He celebrates Jewish feasts and observes Jewish laws; he prays in the synagogue every Sabbath.

Yet, Jesus criticized the Jewish world he lived in. That’s evident in the Sermon on the Mount.

Some of his words seem harsh to us– “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.” Jesus spoke as Jewish prophets spoke; extreme words made their point.

 Like them, Jesus spoke strongly when religious standards were neglected and unfulfilled. “I came not to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them.” (Wednesday) His criticism was directed especially to the Jewish leadership of his day.

He criticized life focused simply on externals–and sometimes just a few externals– and divorced from an inner spiritual awareness. 

For example, the commandment “You shall not kill…. whoever kills will be liable to judgment.” (Matthew 5: 26 Thursday) There are other ways you can to kill, Jesus teaches. You may not go to jail for them either, but you can destroy people by anger or by regarding them as fools. Strong words make a point, not just for his time but for ours as well. 

“ ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27, Friday) Again, you may not go to jail for your thinking, but your thoughts can poison your appreciation of people. I think that’s what pornography does. It poisons your mind and lessens your respect for others. 

Watch your thinking and your judging, Jesus says. The way you think influences the way you live. The way you look at things influences the way you do things.

Jesus  also teaches about divorce procedures and taking oaths in the Sermon on the Month. (Matthew 5:33, Saturday)  Some saw life in terms of law; some today still do. All you have to do is keep within the law, be law abiding, live legally and that’s enough. Yet, Jesus never saw keeping laws enough. They’re just a start.

St. Ephrem was born in Syria in 306. He was a deacon of the Syrian church, a teacher recognized early on by the whole Christian church. He’s a liturgical theologian; he wrote hymns and homilies he wrote hymns and homilies for daily prayer. In 1920 Ephrem was named a Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church.

One of Ephrem’s writings deals with a common challenge we face in prayer:: we can expect too much from it. This is especially true of daily prayer. Daily prayer, after all, is a “work” and we can get tired of work, no matter how great it is.  Monotony easily occurs. Be humble and patient in daily prayer and liturgy, Ephrem writes:

“Lord, who can comprehend even one of your words? Like those drinking from a running stream we only take in so much. Everyone finds something in God’’s word.  The Lord’s word is many colored. If you gaze on it, you’ll see what you’re meant to see. It hides many different treasures. Seek and you’ll find what will make you rich. 

The word of God is a tree of life bearing blessed fruit on each of its branches.  It’s like that rock struck in the wilderness from which all drank. As the apostles says, ‘They all ate spiritual food and they all drank.’ 

So when you find a part of that treasure don’t think you have exhausted God’s word. Rather, this is yours so far. Also, don’t think the word of God is not much because this is all you have found. Thank God for what you have.

A thirsty person is happy to drink but he can’t drink the whole spring. Thirst brings you back to the flowing waters .

What you receive is enough for now;  more is promised, but you can’t have all, there will be more if you persevere. Don’t give up. The time will come.”

(On the Diatessaron)

For Ephrem a spring of water describes the way we draw upon God’s wisdom and strength. We want more than we need or can take in. We want to know it all and do it all, but we only can drink one mouthful at a time. That’s the way we’re made.

The spring is never exhausted, though. It keeps flowing. The tree of life remains there all the time, the spring never dries up, but we don’t like waiting, day by day.

“O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, meddling, lust of power, and idle talk. But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant. Yes, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own sins and not to judge others, for you are blessed from age to age. Amen.O God, be gracious to me, a sinner.” (Prayer of St. Ephrem)

Daily morning and evening here.

In the gospel of Matthew in our lectionary these days Jesus calls his followers to a mountain in Galilee to teach and to heal. They are blessed who follow his way, he says in his Sermon on the Mount. Not only will they be blessed, but the world will be blessed. (Monday, Week 10)

“You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.”  The world is better when we act his way; it’s filled with light and life. (Tuesday, Week 10) “Let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”

What does today’s world think of that teaching of Jesus? The moral system most popular in our society doesn’t respond very well to the Sermon on the Mount, I think. For many today moral thinking is built on personal choice. What’s good for me, what do I want, how can I get it, no matter what. Personal choice is the moral compass of many today. 

We’re influenced by this thinking more than we think. That’s why the psalm after today’s reading is important: “Lord, let your face shine on me…The revelation of your words sheds light, gives understanding to the simple…Steady my footsteps according to your promise.”(Psalm 119)

Yes, God helps those who help themselves. Yes, God gives us a mind to figure things out. Yes, we need to choose the way we see. But like the sun that rises each day, God is there as our Teacher and Guide. We need to ask God to “steady my footsteps according to your promise.”

We’re reading at Mass this week about the prophet Elijah. He was the lone prophet to confront King Ahab and his notorious wife Jezebel, rulers of the northern kingdom of Israel. They promoted the worship of Baal, the god of rain and healing. Elijah, the “disturber of Israel” , spent much of his time eluding the king’s forces and fleeing from place to place.

Like Moses fleeing from Pharaoh, Elijah sought refuge in mountains, like Horeb and Carmel, places of God’s strength and protection.

Our readings from the lectionary this week offer a few key stories of his life. On Monday, Elijah proclaims to Ahab a drought in Israel because of its infidelity. No rain will fall, he says, and then he flees to a small watering hole east of the Jordan where he’s fed by ravens. (above) 

That watering hole dries up, and Elijah flees to Zarephath of Sidon where a widow cares for him (Tuesday). 

After three years, Elijah returns to confront Ahab and Jezebel (Wednesday) He calls for a dramatic test between Baal and the God of Israel. Who can bring rain, Baal or the God of Israel? All the people along with the priests of Baal gather on Mount Carmel, where Elijah resoundingly defeats the priests of Baal and their god of rain and healing. 

Elijah announces to Ahab in the name of God that rain is coming. (Thursday) As he waits in prayer on Mount Carmel, poor Elijah, ”crouched down to the earth, his head between his knees,” wonders if rain really will come. Seven times he asks his servant if there is any sign. “Nothing.” Then there’s a cloud as small as a man’s hand rising from the sea. A little cloud is all he sees.  All around the land is parched and lifeless. Hard to see any promise in a small far-off cloud.

A picture for today, isn’t it? Elijah is us all waiting for the promises of God to be accomplished, while we only see tiny distant clouds in a menacing world. 

The rains came, in abundance, but then Elijah must face the wrath of Jezebel who orders his death. And so ( Friday) Elijah flees to Mount Horeb, the same mountain where Moses experienced God in thunder and lightning. Elijah experiences God, not in thunder and lightning, but in a tiny whisper. He pours out his complaints to God and in answer, God sends him on a new mission to the north. He is to appoint a new king and also a successor for himself.

Some saw Jesus as Elijah returned, and so Elijah often appears in the New Testament, particularly in the account of Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain where his glory and mission are revealed. Like Elijah, Jesus had no official backing either, no army, no political base. Powerful people sought his life, though his kingdom was not of this world. Yet, God’s surprising power was on his side.

Elijah has influenced prophets and mystics ever since. We can learn from him.

For the homily for Corpus Christi please watch the video below.

The miracle of the loaves and fish that Jesus worked for a crowd of people by Sea of Galilee is one of his most important miracles. All four gospels report it. Mark reports it twice.

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds more than five thousand people, according to Luke’s Gospel.  They not only have enough, they have more than enough.

Why does Jesus work this miracle? The reason the gospel gives is that the crowd he’s talking to is hungry. They’re far from where they could buy food for themselves and they’re hungry.

So, the first reason Jesus works this miracle is not to prove he has divine power, but because people are hungry. They need to live, and to live you need to eat. 

But their hunger– which is also our hunger– is for more than food and drink.  We want a place to live, we want a life where we can flourish as human beings. Their hunger, like ours, is for more than eating and drinking.

Luke’s gospel begins by saying that Jesus was speaking to the crowds about the kingdom of God and he healed those who needed to be cured. He gives meaning to their search for meaning and he restores life to them.

 He renews the promises of God, beginning with the good things of creation, signified by the bread and the fish. Bread from the land; fish from the sea. Bread stands for everything, all the blessings this life can bring. The fish stands for the blessings the waters bring. 

Pope Leo constantly speaks out about the blessings the world is hungering for today. We have a responsibility to listen and to defend the vulnerable and the marginalized.” This means working to overcome the unacceptable disproportion between the immense wealth concentrated in the hands of a few and the world’s poor,” he.said.

“Those who live in extreme conditions cry out to make their voices heard, and often find no ears willing to hear their plea…This imbalance generates situations of persistent injustice, which readily lead to violence and, sooner or later, to the tragedy of war.” 

“Today more than ever, humanity cries out and pleads for peace,” he said. The cry for peace “demands responsibility and reason and must not be drowned out by the roar of weapons or by rhetorical words that incite conflict.”

Our moral responsibility is to “stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss. When human dignity is at stake no conflict is distant…War does not solve problems,”the Pope notes, “On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples—wounds that take generations to heal… No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.”

May the din of arms fall silent. “Let diplomacy silence the weapons!…Let nations shape their future with works of peace, not through violence and bloody conflicts!”

We pray today to Jesus Christ, who recognized the hunger of the crowd. May he recognize our hunger for justice and peace. His presence in the Eucharist assures us he is present in our world. He can reach places we cannot. He can speak to those we cannot. He can move hearts and minds beyond us.

We hunger for peace. Grant us peace, Lord.