Sts. Philip & James

One of the graces of being a student in Rome is the opportunity to get to know the saints more closely – to walk where they walked and to pray at their tombs. In particular, Rome is a place to encounter the early martyrs of the Church whose witness to the truth and beauty of what they had encountered in Jesus Christ even to the shedding of their blood gives us the courage to not only believe in Jesus, but to bear our own witness to him in our own time, despite whatever fears might hold us back. "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church," as the Church Father Tertullian so artfully put it. Their witness (in Greek, μαρτυρια, martyria, martyrdom) becomes the seed that bears fruit in inspiring the conversion and witness of the Faithful down through the ages.

Today is the Feast of Sts. Philip and James the Lesser, two of the Apostles, brutally martyred for their profession of faith in Christ, who are buried in a church that is literally right around the corner from my residence. Their feast has been celebrated together in May since 1570, when their relics were brought to this church and placed under the main altar. They're still down there! And today I had the honor of celebrating Mass over their tomb with two Milwaukee seminarians studying here in Rome, some other pilgrims who joined us as we began Mass, and one of Milwaukee's transitional deacons, Nathan Miniatt, who will be ordained a priest in Milwaukee on May 17.

In today's Gospel, we recall Philip's eager exhortation to Christ, when he says, "Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus responds, "Whoever has seen me, Philip, has seen the Father also." In our own time, it may seem like, "If only I too could see the tombs of these Apostles, that would be enough for me to then believe more whole-heartedly." But as the tombs serve to point us to the Apostles, so the Apostles serve to point us to Christ, who in turn points us to the Father. In fact, the gift we have in the Eucharist is our greatest point of encounter with the Father, because it is our greatest point of encounter with Jesus, who makes himself present in this way in every Catholic parish and chapel around the world! In the Eucharist, we see Jesus, risen from the dead and poured out as a living sacrifice given to feed and strengthen us in our faith and bold witness. This is the love the Father has for us.

Let us ask the intercession today of Sts. Philip and James, that we might have their same courage and faith in following Christ and believing in the Father's love for us and for the whole world.

Saints!

We're still basking in the glow here from the canonizations of Saints John XXIII and John Paul II. I had the privilege on Sunday, along with over a hundred other student-priests from the Roman universities, to distribute Communion at the Canonization Mass.

It was an immense grace to walk out into the sea of upwards of a million pilgrims with the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Risen Christ in the Eucharist, and to feed the crowds with this living bread, come down from heaven.

As I thought back on the extraordinary moments when I experienced such crowds drawn by Pope John Paul II when he was still with us in the flesh, at World Youth Days and even in that very square when I was in college, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and with tears of joy for the way that St. John Paul's witness of holiness and zeal shaped my life. I was grateful for my parents, who named me after this great saint-to-be who now is, and for my siblings and friends who have given their lives in service to the Church in all kinds of ways largely because of the witness and hope that St. John Paul II inspired in us.

Later in the day, I had the privilege of preaching at a Mass for the pilgrims traveling with Archbishop Jerome Listecki and Bishop Donald Hying of Milwaukee. Since not all were able to get into St. Peter's Square and the surrounding streets for the Canonization Mass, they wanted to be sure everyone had a chance to attend Sunday Mass. Preaching too was an immense grace for me, on this day of joy and gratitude for God's Providential care for each one of us. What follows is the text of my homily.

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Divine Mercy Sunday

Canonization of JPII & John XXIII

Rome, Italy – 27 April 2014
John 20:19-31

“Peace be with you.” . . . I’ll say it again, “Peace be with you.” This phrase, I think, sums up the many things that we celebrate today – the solemn close of Easter week, the Feast of Divine Mercy, and, of course, the canonizations here in Rome of two great popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. What a gift for us to be here in Rome during this time of grace! I think the message that pulls it all together for us in a beautiful simplicity and power is Christ’s exhortation which he repeats several times in today’s Gospel: “Peace be with you.”

Today is historic, but I think in order to understand just how historic it is, we need to go back at least 14 years to the first Feast of Divine Mercy, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II himself at the canonization of another great saint – the first saint of the new millennium – St. Faustina Kowalska.

St. Faustina was a simple Polish nun and mystic, who had visions of Jesus Christ showing his wounds to her, just as he did to the apostles of the Upper Room in today’s Gospel. He gave her a simple prayer for our time: “Jesus, I trust in you.” And you may know the famous image of Divine Mercy that St. Faustina had painted to spread the message of her visions.

About 20 years after St. Faustina’s death, the Holy Spirit inspired another great saint, Pope John XXIII, to open the Second Vatican Council. Under the Spirit’s inspiration, he saw that the Church needed to open the wings of her embrace so that her timeless message would not be lost to the ears of a rapidly changing world.

The fruit of St. John XXIII’s vision for the Council can perhaps best be expressed by the opening words of one of the Apostolic Constitutions that came from it, called Gaudium et Spes – “the joys and the hopes.” The document opens with what arguably could be considered the “nut” of the whole Council. It begins, “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ.” The world’s hopes and pains are our hopes and pains because they are the hopes and pains of Christ, who loved the world so much that he came to suffer and offer his life in sacrifice to save and redeem it.

Pope John XXIII set this mission for the Church in the modern world in motion, and Pope John Paul II then brought this call to fruition. His papacy was marked by the implementation of this call and of the message of the Second Vatican Council. And how did he do so?

John Paul II was, I’ll even go so far as to say, obsessed, with the New Millennium. He saw it as a time of an abundant outpouring of grace on the Church and the world, and thus of radical renewal for the Church and the world. And he marked this New Millennium by canonizing St. Faustina and instituting this great feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. He saw this message of Divine Mercy as the message for our time – as the answer to the “joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men and women of this age.”

He had lived through the horrors of the Second World War and the reign of Communism in his homeland, so he knew firsthand the fears and bewilderment that are the fruit of this age, and that can often mark the hearts of men and women today.

. . . And in the midst of this fear and uncertainty, Christ comes and proclaims, just as he did to the apostles in the Upper Room – “Peace be with you.”

He then shows us his wounds, just as he did to his apostles. He shows his wounds to a wounded world, because somehow, mystically, miraculously, divinely, his wounds have power to heal our wounds. In some way, seeing his wounds sears the wounds that we have – and there are many wounds to sear in this age.

So, I want to read to you an excerpt from the homily that St. John Paul II gave at the canonization of St. Faustina, on the first Feast of Divine Mercy. He wrote, “…[A]s the Apostles once did, today too humanity must welcome into the upper room of history the risen Christ, who shows the wounds of his Crucifixion and repeats:  Peace be with you! Humanity must let itself be touched and pervaded by the Spirit given to it by the risen Christ. It is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the heart, pulls down the barriers that separate us from God and divide us from one another, and at the same time, restores the joy of the Father's love and of fraternal unity.”

As we continue in our prayer during this Mass here today, at this particular and holy time in each of our lives as we have each been drawn here to be in this holy city on this most holy of days, let us ask the Lord for the grace to open our hearts to let the Holy Spirit – so alive and active in the hearts of his saints – to let the Spirit come alive anew in our own hearts. Let us allow him to show his wounds to us and speak his message of peace deep within our souls . . . so that we may become living bearers of this peace, and witnesses – apostles – of this message of mercy for our time.

St. John XXIII, pray for us. St. John Paul II, pray for us. St. Faustina, pray for us. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.