On Sunday eight gunmen on motorcycles arrived at a parish in Burkina Faso (West Africa) just as Mass was beginning. They killed four parishioners and wounded many more. Two weeks earlier six Catholics had been killed during a prayer procession in another village of that country, just a day after gunmen had killed four Catholics at third village during Sunday Mass. Christian martyrdom in our time is the highest it's ever been in history, with the low estimate at one Christian killed every hour for his or her faith, and the high number at one every minute (between 8000 and 100,000 Christians were killed for believing in Christ last year).

Persecution, however, strengthens rather than eliminates Christianity. Roman governments tried to eliminate the Church over 300 years of bloody persecutions, but "the Roman Catholic Church" is still in Rome and the Caesars have long since gone. The Soviet government also tried direct persecution for 70 years, but that didn't work either. The current Chinese government’s attempts to suppress the Church through imprisonment and church demolition will also fail in the long run.

In the United States, Christians do not shed their blood, but certainly the Church faces both external and internal opposition. From without, those who cannot tolerate the Church’s influence in the public square seek to suppress her activity through the legal system. New Jersey recently expanded the statute of limitations for abuse cases … but only for the Catholic Church. The California State Attorney has just demanded full documentation on abuse cases … but only from the Catholic Church. The lawsuits that will come from government and private attorneys will drain parishes of their operating funds until, it is hoped, the Church simply gives up and goes away. But this will not work, because the enduring dynamism of the Catholic Church is not in buildings and endowments. It is in faith, which has far greater staying power than politics and money. The Church will be reduced to a remnant, I suppose, over the next fifty years, but in contracting it will grow more intensely focused. The Church of the catacombs glows white hot with faith, because faith is all it has left. 

The Church is also undermined from within. Many weak and some malevolent clergy have diminished the Church’s influence by minimizing Catholic faith and practice. Catholics rarely hear clear homiletics on unpopular doctrines, and Catholic school students usually hear secular doctrines given equal weight to Church doctrine. How often have you heard clear preaching on artificial contraception or abortion? Homilies on tolerance, inclusion, social justice, and climate change are a lot more popular. Why is it that most Catholic school graduates cannot articulate the Church’s understanding of the human person? Most Catholics can easily parrot the party line on gender ideology but would be hard-pressed to explain Eucharistic theology or human anthropology. 

Many weak and some malevolent clergy have minimized Catholic faith and practice. Catholics rarely hear clear homiletics on unpopular doctrines, and Catholic school students usually hear secular doctrines given equal weight to Church doctrine. Most Catholics can easily parrot the party line on gender ideology but would be hard-pressed to explain Eucharistic theology or Christian anthropology. 

​How can we strengthen our faith and rebuild the Church? This Thursday is Ascension Thursday, but most Catholics will not celebrate it or even think about this wonderful mystery, so fundamental to the Christian faith. The hierarchy has moved this mystery to Sunday, but most Catholics don't attend Mass even on Sundays, because the clergy has decided not to talk about missing Mass as a mortal sin.

How can we regain our crumbling faith? You can do what my mother did: properly celebrate the Great Catholic Feasts. The bishops had already stripped our Ascension Thursday altars when I was a boy, but that did not stop my mother. She piled us into the old station wagon for a trip to the mountains. She had us pray the Mass prayers and readings before sitting on blankets under the blue sky to eat and play games. Ascension Thursday shone in my boy's heart, despite episcopal malfeasance, because of my mother. Ascension’s promise, that one day I too will be taken up to heaven, sustains my adult faith to this day.

Thanks Mom!

A New Priest

We welcome Fr. Michael Rocha to the Catholic priesthood, and to our parish, for his First Mass. Our new priest grew up in Modesto and began serving Mass as a boy in St. Joseph’s parish, in which I served for 12 years. Now our former altar boy will offer the Supreme Sacrifice as a man, in persona Christi capitis. He has become a father, and will, God willing, become more fatherly as he learns to serve the Church qua sacerdos. We welcome Fr. Michael’s family as well: his mother Emilia and his twin sister Michelle, along with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. Fr. Michael’s father returned to God a few years ago, and so we remember the soul of Frank Rocha as his son offers the Holy Sacrifice at our altar. To our guest priests and seminarians, in particular Fr. Patrick Summerhays, archdiocesan vocations director, and Fr. Chrysostom Baer, prior of St. Michael’s Norbertine Abbey, and other guests. Many thanks to our festival choir as well, led by Mary Ann Carr-Wilson, and to the Knights of Columbus for providing the barbecue after Mass.

Where are we going?

Our Lord’s words in the Gospel contain a little pun. Expedit vobis ut vadam…. “It is better for you that I go,” but literally “my going out expedites you,” from ex (out) and pedes (foot). So, literally, he says “my departure moves your feet out.” We’re all getting out of town together! But … where are we going? Our Lord gently chides the apostles for not asking this basic question: “None of you have asked me where are you going?” The fundamental question in life, it seems to me, is “Where am I going?” Certainly, I’m on the road to somewhere. If you feel a bit lost at times, ask yourself: Where have I come from, and where am I going? The fathers of the Church answered this question in terms of exitus and redditus: We came from God, and we are returning to God. The priest is ordained precisely to remind every living soul of this first principle and final end. In fact, he himself, following Christ himself, leaves home in search of souls, and then returns “home” (to God), dragging his net full of fish. “You will be fishers of men,” Jesus told Peter.

The Smell of the Sheep

Fr. Michael will report for his first assignment in Epiphany Parish, about 25 minutes from here. He will take on the menial duties of a parish priest, entering into the mundanities of every soul that comes through the doors of his church. A priest certainly takes on the “smell of the sheep,” but sheep sometimes do not smell so good. Far more importantly than simply smelling like the sheep, the priest offers sweet-smelling sacrifices to God on their behalf. God wants to sweeten the smell of the sheep through his priests. The priest encounters the people where they are at, but in faithfully bringing them the Word of God, the Sacraments of Christ, and the tender Mercy of our Father, the priest brings the sheep beyond this world’s paltry pastures into the shining fields of eternal joy. Meet the people where they are at, O priest, but do not leave them there! Fr. Michael has been ordained, that is, fundamentally ordered and oriented, toward Christ: both to be Christ and to bring Christ. And it is the priest’s intense interior life--his fidelity to prayer--that enables him to deliver Christ’s word, sacraments, and charity. To remind himself of this, he puts on the Roman collar during the long hours he will work every day, and he puts on priestly vestments during his liturgical service. May God give our new priest the grace of faithful perseverance until he himself enters the splendor of eternal life!

She covered him with perfect obedience

​It is to be noted that Fr. Michael is 100% Portuguese. It was to his people that the Mother of God appeared 102 years ago in what many popes have said is her most decisive apparition. Her simple request was that we make good confessions, receive Holy Communion devoutly, and pray the rosary faithfully, because nothing can touch a man of prayer. We pray today that Fr. Michael remain a man of prayer, a man of the Eucharist, close to the Mother of God. She protects the sacred priesthood of all who call upon her day and night.
 
Finally, I want to relate a strange phenomenon at the ordination ritual yesterday. Fr. Michael put his hands into the Archbishop’s hands to promise obedience, which is the most costly of all the promises any of us make to God. The new priest put his hands into the hands of the Archbishop, who then asked him: “Do you promise obedience to me and to my successors?” There was a moment of silence in the Cathedral as we all wondered: will Michael submit himself in all things to the will of God, through his superiors? Will he submit himself to his pastor, to his bishop, and to the Church's teachings in everything? “God came to earth to obey,” wrote St. Jose Maria Escriva, “and to obey men.” Just then, in the silence, a bell began to ring. It was eleven o’clock, and the cathedral bells began to ring out the Ave Maria before striking the hour. As we all listened to Our Lady’s theme on the bells, the young priest answered “Yes,” echoing Mary’s yes to the angel. Fiat. “Let it be done to me according to thy will.” As the new priest made this leap of faith, I could see the Mother of Christ covering her priest’s imperfect obedience with her perfect obedience. Let it be done to you, Fr. Michael, as God has said. May you go with God, and may you lead us to Him by your holiness of life.

 
Mother’s Day
A blessed Mother’s Day to the mothers and grandmothers among us. It’s amazing, really: fatherhood waxes and wanes, but motherhood stays consistent. A few years ago the National Ad Council began plastering ads on freeways and TV networks urging men to “take time to be a Dad today,” and every few months new billboards promoting fatherhood appear in the City. I haven’t yet seen billboards urging women to be good mothers. And so many thanks to our dearest mothers, and don't forget our grandmothers, many of whom are raising their grandchildren. Many of our mothers and grandmothers may be far from us or already passed from this life, but we can still give them the best gift of all: a prayer. I’m going to say a second rosary today just for my mother, and of course I hope all of us will remember our mothers in this Holy Mass.
 
Good Shepherd Sunday
​We call the fourth Sunday of Easter “Good Shepherd Sunday” because of its Gospel. I am the Good Shepherd, Jesus says. “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Since 1963 the Fourth Sunday of Easter is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. You get what you pray for, and if we don’t pray for good priests and nuns, we won’t get them. The word “vocation” comes from the Latin vocare, “to call,” which itself comes from the root word vox or “voice,” as in “My sheep hear my voice.” Most people, however, are listening to anything but the voice of God on their little white headphones. So on this 56th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, the Church asks us to pray that the sheep hear and answer God’s voice. May the gentle voice of the Good Shepherd be heard above today’s incessant devices and ideologies.

Longing for the Voice
A vocation is a voice from another world, but it’s not unlike the voice of our mother or father. At age 17 I left home for college. My mother drove me to Harrisburg, PA, and handed me my suitcase as I climbed aboard the train for Penn State. I had been the commencement speaker three months before at my little country high school. University Park’s 40,000 students seriously disorientated me, and at times my homesickness was acute. One night the terrible realization that I was homeless—that I could never return to my boyhood—overwhelmed me. At that moment, through the darkness of my dorm room, I heard my mother’s voice from far away. The voice was clear and unmistakable, just the way she used to call me for dinner: “Joe…!” Home was irrevocably beyond my reach, but my mother could still call my name.

Thirsting for the Word of God
In the first reading, the whole town comes out to hear Paul and Barnabas. They thirst for the Word of God, which was calling them home. Like the multitudes that listened to Jesus, and the immense crowds who traveled days to hear the Reverend Martin Luther King or Pope John Paul II, they hungered for the Word of Life. In the Second Reading, the Apostle John sees a huge crowd whom no one could count from every nation and race who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. They follow Him wherever He goes. At age 12 I heard the Word of God through aunts and uncles who said I should be a priest. In college I heard the Voice again through a vocations director who encouraged me to enter priestly formation. It was a call that burned even more intensely when I became still in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. I entered the seminary at age 24 and have never looked back. This coming Saturday three young men, one of whom began serving my Masses 18 years ago in Modesto, will be ordained to the Holy Priesthood at 10am in the cathedral. I encourage you to support these new priests by attending their ordination. They are entering the priesthood in a time of terrible conflict and disarray in the Church. They need our prayers.

A Man of Prayer
​An older priest once told me in the seminary: “Joe, I hope you will persevere. And just remember, nothing can touch a man of prayer.” He meant especially the Holy Eucharist and Our Lady. A priest who spends an hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day and prays his rosary will persevere. And so will we all. Let us honor Mary, the Mother of God, in this Eucharist, by crowning her queen of the Church and queen of the clergy. I invite now Mr. Spencer Christensen to carry his three-year-old daughter Agnes to will crown our statue of the Blessed Mother. 

Your First Holy Communion 
I welcome the families of the 17 children who will make their First Holy Communion today. They are dressed as brides and grooms to witness to all the world that God offers Himself to humanity in divine espousal. Yesterday two girls came to class dressed already in their First Communion outfits. “Why are you dressed like little brides?” I asked them. “Because Jesus wants to marry us?” one of them offered. And she was right. Jesus longs to join Himself to us in chaste and loving union forever, in what we call Holy Communion. These children are witnesses of these things, just as was Peter in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The once timid fisherman witnesses boldly, clearly, and serenely to the government officials: “You hung Jesus on a tree, but God raised him up. We are witnesses of these things, for we must obey God rather than men.”
 
Cosmic Dimensions
Our second reading comes from the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the summary conclusion and last word of all of Scripture. In Revelation, the apostolic witness takes on cosmic dimensions. “I, John, looked and heard the voices” of countless angels surrounding the throne with myriads of living creatures and 24 elders (the number of apostles times two), and they cried out as with one voice: “worthy is the lamb that was slain.” Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and the sea echoed: “blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, wisdom and strength, for ever and ever to God.” This is what we do in the Mass. We witness to God’s glory; we witness to eternal love, and to God’s authority and everlasting dominion. The Sunday Mass is our first and most essential act of witness, upon which the salvation of souls depends.

Peter’s Triple Witness
Where did St. Peter get the serene clarity that he displays in the first reading (“We must obey God rather than men … we are witnesses of these things….”)? Isn’t Peter the one who denied Christ three times the night before Passover? Yes, Peter denied Jesus, not once like Judas, but three times! How many times have you denied Jesus? How many times do we confess the same sin in those confessionals, often with a sense of great discouragement? We are all weak in the face of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But God is strong. And God returns from the hell to which we have sent Him; He rises from the dead and meets Peter again at the lakeshore. Again they witness a great catch of fish, and Peter, hoping against hope that God still loves him, hurls himself into the water toward Jesus. When Peter finally makes it to shore, Jesus asks him three times if he loves him, one for each of his denials. And still Peter falters. In the original Greek Jesus asks Peter “Simon, do you love (agape) me?” and Peter replies “I like (filia) you.” Jesus gives Peter two more chances to say that word “love.” Can you say that you love me, Peter? Will you give your life for me, as I am still ready to give my life again for you. It would take another thirty years, but in the end Peter accepted God’s mercy. He died on a cross in the year 64AD in Rome, under the persecutions of the Emperor Nero, for love of Jesus Christ. Divine Mercy received; Divine Mercy given. That is Peter’s essential witness.
 
You Cannot Live Without Him
Children: this is your First Holy Communion. It is the first time you will receive the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus into your bodies and souls. You cannot live without Holy Communion, because we cannot live without love. Scientists have shown how children growing up without any human touch, without loving attention, simply do not develop as humans. They cannot speak and they hardly move. We are made for greater things, to love and to be loved. As you grow older, you will thirst for love more and more. As teenagers you will want someone to understand you; as young adults you will need someone to be there for you; as adults you will need someone to hold you and to know you. No human being can love you as much as you need. But God, who comes to you in Holy Communion, can love you that much. Our Lady, whom we honor in this month of May, stayed very close to God. She was the first ever to receive him in Holy Communion when she said yes to the angel Gabriel, and the Word became flesh within her body. When you say Amen in a few minutes, the Word of God will become flesh within you just like it did in her. And you will be witnesses of these things!