Who doesn’t know saints like Francis, the apostles Peter and Paul, and of course Mary, the mother of Jesus? The major saints. But what about the others, most unknown to us, even many we’ve lived with? What about them, the minor saints?

The Calendar today for October 9th lists St. John Leonard,  St. Denis and Companions, who lived many centuries ago. They’re remembered in Italy and France, respectively, but they’re not well known to us. The reason they’re in the Calendar, besides their appeal to a nation or region, is they’re minor saints. Minor saints are part of the saintly communion; a necessary part.

I think we buried one here today.

We buried Father Theodore Walsh, CP, a classmate of mine. I preached at his funeral.

“I sat next to Theodore Walsh for meals and prayers for 8 years in student life. For 8 years when a baked potato came around for a meal, I took the skins from him and he took the insides from me. For 8 years we played basketball together on half days. He was a wonderful athlete, great to have on your side, but watch out when he played against you. He had a quickness you wouldn’t suspect. One minute you had the ball, the next you didn’t. I learned never to underestimate him. He was a quiet, humble man, and he could be underestimated.

After ordination Theodore volunteered to go to the Philippines as a missionary. A big move for someone just ordained. Not only that, but Theodore became the first novice master for our community in the Philippines. It wasn’t easy setting up that novitiate. The housing arrangements were extremely poor. Two young Filipinos finally applied, but when the Provincial from the States came over on visitation he didn’t like the situation, not professional enough, he said, and he told Theodore to send the boys home and close the place.

Father Theodore Foley, the Passionist general came through a short time later and told Theodore to get those boys back and open the place again. The young men became the first Filipino Passionists, Fr. Gabriel and Fr. Nonito. 

Theodore really believed in our community and the Passionist vocation. We saw his love for vocations in these last few years here in Jamaica when he would hobble out on his walker at the 10 AM Mass and after Communion ask a family in the congregation to take home a vocational crucifix and pray for vocations the next week.  Vocations were important for him.

Preaching was important too. He was a very good preacher. For many years, after returning from the Philippines, he and Fr. Kenan preached missions and retreats together in this area in the spring and fall and Florida in the winter, where they would go from parish to parish.

 I went with him on a number of parish missions. I thought he was a great preacher; his preaching was simple, homey, deliberate, sincere, no notes, excellent material. He was an excellent missionary. 

As his health declined he loved being able to preach at the 11 o’clock Mass in the public chapel in Jamaica and to stay on to talk to people and give them his blessing. He heard confessions here every week. 

He began writing homilies for the Province website, and gradually, when he couldn’t preach at Mass,  he read the scriptures during Mass in that deliberate way of his that made every word count.  

Theodore was a contemplative, someone who could spend hours in his own room reflecting and praying. The perfect vacation for him during the summer was to go to Shelter Island and sit on the shore looking out on the water, then take a swim. 

It wasn’t that he neglected people, though.  He loved his family, his sister Maureen, and his deceased brother John’s children and grandchildren. He was on the phone with them all the time. He visited with them as often as he could. Unfortunately, as for so many others, the Covid 19 epidemic prevented them from visiting him in his last illness and attending his funeral.

He loved the Passionist community, the people in it, the things it did. Usually, the first thing he said to me when we met was “What’s going on?” He wanted to know what was happening, how people were doing. “Is there anything new on the bulletin board?” he would ask as he got weaker. He wanted the community to flourish here and in the world. 

I guess I could say about Father Theodore what our wise classmate, Fr. Paul Cusack said about him awhile ago:  “He was the holiest of us all.” 

Now we won’t see Theodore here in the chapel, at meals, in his room on the 2nd floor any more.  Death is a time of closure. Some say death is a complete closure. He’s gone, all that’s left are memories of him, and they will die soon enough.

But that’s not true. For Christians, death is not the end. Life is changed, not ended. We don’t see it with our eyes or hear it with our ears. But there’s life ahead. We believe what Jesus says in the gospel. There are dwelling places prepared for us and he’ll lead us to them. There’s a dwelling place for Theodore Walsh, and Jesus is leading him there. 

Life is changed, not ended. Let’s not forget that that changed life is still connected to this one. The dwelling places Jesus promises are not gated communities separating us from the world where we were born. 

There’s a communion of saints. Saints who care for us. Saints who cared for our world when they were here and care for it now,  saints who were zealous for spreading the gospel in their lifetime and still are zealous for spreading the gospel now. Saints who lived with us, and still do.

There’s a communion of saints. Those who leave us don’t turn away from us. They don’t leave us orphans. They keep us in mind. Theodore Walsh will still be asking “What’s going on.?”

I think this is important to remember today when so many in our world think we are all alone, on a lonely planet, with dwindling hopes. 

But we know, our our scriptures today remind us, that from the mountains, those who see directly, before their eyes, the Lord restoring Zion, bring us comfort. From the places prepared for them, those who go before us guide us still. 

We are not alone. There’s a communion of saints. Great saints whom we never knew, but also saints who were our companions in life and are our companions still. 

Saints of God, pray for us.

 

On the vigil of the Feast of St. Francis, October 3, Pope Francis traveled to Assisi, where St. Francis is buried, to issue a social encyclical, “Fratelli Tutti” inspired by the same saint who inspired him to write Laudato sí, his letter on the environment. 

The pope hopes,  “in the face of present-day attempts to eliminate or ignore others, we may prove capable of responding with a new vision of fraternity and social friendship that will not remain at the level of words. Although I have written it from the Christian convictions that inspire and sustain me, I have sought to make this reflection an invitation to dialogue among all people of good will.

7. As I was writing this letter, the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted, exposing our false securities. Aside from the different ways that various countries responded to the crisis, their inability to work together became quite evident. For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all. Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we were already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.

8. It is my desire that, in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity. Fraternity between all men and women. “Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. No one can face life in isolation… We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead. How important it is to dream together…

By ourselves, we risk seeing mirages, things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together”.[6] Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.”

A community of “dreamers”, “fellow-travelers”, children of the same earth,” in which “we can help one another to keep looking ahead.”

Looks like he is continuing “Laudato sí”.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/en.html

For this week’s homily please play the video below:

For this week’s homily, please watch the video below.

by Orlando Hernandez

In the Gospel (Lk 6: 27-38) for Thursday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time our Lord gives us a splendid, demanding portrait of who He is, and of how we could become more like Him: 

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you….. Do to others as you would have them do to you….. Stop judging and you will not be judged….. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”

What a wonderful world this would be if we just stop looking at it with eyes of negativity and hopelessness! In the reading (Lk 6:39-42) for the next day, Friday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time, this Gospel of Luke continues:  

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?…. You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”

I think on this Gospel and realize that a splinter in the eye can actually feel like a huge, heavy piece of wood (a beam!). It is indeed blinding and terribly distressing. The irritation paralyzes  us and makes us stop whatever we are doing. For an instant, we feel helpless. I remember that more than once as a small child, walking with my father on a dusty, windy street, a painful object would find its way into my eye. Through my blinding tears I would try to reach out to my father, Orlando Sr., and would cry for him. His touch would calm and reassure me, but I was still hurting and scared. He would say soothing words, carefully open my agonized eye, and lightly reach in with his handkerchief. There was a second of pain and the object was out. As my tears would subside, I could see his handsome, smiling face in front of me. Wow, I felt relief, love, gratitude, and increased trust in him.

Now I realize, of course, that my Lord Jesus does something like this for me every time that I fall into the sinful state of prejudice, fear, and resentment of those I judge to be “bad.” This political season in our country feels like a whirlwind of dust and flying splinters all over the land. We judge politicians, and sadly, look negatively upon our relatives and neighbors, people we love, who support them, argue on their behalf, and criticize our “own” politicians. We might even think, “What is wrong with these persons? Have they lost their moral compass?  Are they blind?”

This situation can be very upsetting and depressing, irritating, like a splinter in the eye. Cutting down on the news on the TV helps a little, but the only cure, the only relief for me is to reach out for Jesus my Lord, who in prayer mercifully comes to rescue me, and removes all that garbage from my eye. In prayer His Spirit soothes me, and begins to once again patiently teach me how to see with His eyes, the eyes of Love. I’m not sure, I think it was Buddha, who said, “If you want peace on earth you have to start by finding peace within yourself .” Well, for me, Christ the Prince of Peace is the one that makes this possible. It’s simple. I just try to relax, take a deep breath, call on His name, long for Him, and there He is, my Father, Brother, Doctor, Friend and Savior. 

The splinter in the eye can come insidiously at any time. Last night in the nightly news there were three successive segments on devastating fires— the ones in California, the new fires eradicating even more of the Brazilian rain forest, and the one that totally destroyed the tent city where thousands of refugees crowded in the Island of Lesbos in Greece. My wife, Berta looks at me and says, uncharacteristically, “Where is God in all this?” I shake my head, and in my mind I see this image of a dying Earth, burning, afflicted by disease, hatred, extinction of life, abuse, poverty… being held by emaciated, pierced, bleeding hands. And those hands are what gave me hope. Suddenly my wife and I looked into each other’s eyes and remembered Who it is that holds us in the Palm of His Hand, Who is in charge, and His healing of the eyes of our hearts again began. Lord, what would we do without You?

That night, in our virtual prayer meeting, the Scriptural theme consisted of just four lines from the Book of Proverbs, Ch 3: 5-6: 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
on your own intelligence do not rely;
in all your ways be mindful of Him,
and He will make straight your paths.”

Jesus good Shepherd, Healer of eyes, lead us through these troubled times. Clear our eyes so we can see You in everyone we meet.