More Than A Cup of Water

 

Deacon David Previtali · More Than a Cup of Water

Homily for the Annual Vincentian Appeal, September 26, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 9:38-48. Theme: More Than a Cup of Water 

 

In today’s gospel, Jesus assures us that even something as simple as giving a thirsty person a cup of water in his Name does not go unnoticed, unrewarded by God. Well, it’s my privilege to speak today about a group of Christians in our parish who give the needy so much more than simply a cup of water. 

 

They are called Vincentians, members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which was begun in Paris in 1833. In the aftermath of the bloody French Revolution, a 20-year-old Catholic law student named Frederic Ozanam along with some friends began to bring help and hope into the shacks and hovels of the Parisian slums. Supported by the donations of others, they gave tangible proof of the love of Christ for the poor, the sick, the suffering and the vulnerable. The Society quickly spread throughout Europe and immigrants brought it to the USA in 1845 and to our Archdiocese in 1860. 

 

St. Sebastian’s has been blessed to have had members of the Society active here without interruption for the past 50 years. Like those first Vincentians they make personal contact with those in need, bringing help and hope into their lives. Covid restrictions have made their work challenging, but our Vincentians have not allowed it to interrupt their service. Nothing can stop within them the love of Christ that urges them on! Even if at this time they cannot carry out their usual person-to-person in-home visits, they make use of phone calls, outdoor encounters and digital communication to hold their monthly meetings and keep their good works going. 

And as we all know, these good works cannot be sustained without the support of the larger community. Due to your generosity these Vincentians have distributed over $60,000 for the current fiscal year. This has made it possible to do such things as restore long-overdue garbage collection for a 101-year-old homeowner and provide unemployed persons with emergent dental surgery. It has enabled them to bring help and hope to others in a variety of ways such as assisting with medical bills, utility bills, insurance premiums, buying furniture, satisfying DMV fees and getting car repairs so that lives could be lived without additional burdens. Your support also made it possible to help relocate an abused woman and her children to another state in advance of her abuser’s release from prison. And this Christmas, which will soon be upon us, the Vincentians will distribute gift cards to needy families and children on your behalf as they do every year. 

The long list of good works might sound like they were being carried out by an immense network of people covering a large territory. But actually they were done by only a small handful of your fellow parishioners, working just within the physical boundaries of our little parish of St. Sebastian. This is what can happen when Christians decide to band together to do good and when the larger community decides to stand behind them with spiritual and financial support! 

You might be interested to know that the Society doesn’t simply meet a person’s present needs without thought for their future. Whenever possible Vincentians direct those they serve to additional forms of help such as safety and protection, legal advice, financial management, employment possibilities, addiction recovery, all various ways of assisting a person to get back on their feet and become self-supporting again. Vincentians seek to serve the whole person. 

Vincentians intentionally go beyond material assistance and seek to touch the very soul, because they know that their work is an extension of Jesus’ ministry. It is so much more than simply humanitarian aid. They strive to see and serve Jesus in the persons of the poor and demonstrate the love of Christ by offering empathy, compassion and hope, and also by praying for and with those they serve. Many whom they have helped have commented that this emotional and spiritual support was appreciated as much or more than the financial and material assistance. 

Please...prayerfully consider if God might be calling YOU to become a Vincentian! Currently our Vincentians are few and more hands would make for lighter work and enable the Society to bring more help and more hope to more people. All that’s required is the desire to help others in Christ’s Name. There is a place for all kinds of skills and ways of participating in the Society. For example, we could really use a Vincentian or two who can speak Spanish and we also need a Vincentian who is computer savvy to help transition to and maintain confidential online record keeping. There are so many ways to be of great service to Christ who reaches out to us through the hands and voices of the poor. If you are interested in becoming a Vincentian or simply curious to know more, please contact me or send an email to the SVDP email address (st.sebastian.svdp@gmail.com) given in the parish bulletin and on our website. 

As you might imagine, the need for financial donations is likely to increase significantly in the coming year since government rent assistance and eviction moratoria are expected to end soon. This means that a vast number of renters will face homelessness without our help so please be as generous as you can with today’s special collection for the Society. 

• If you are donating by check please be sure to note in the memo that your contribution is for the Vincentians. 
• If you are giving cash, please use one of the St. Vincent de Paul envelopes so that we know your donation is meant for the Society and not the parish fund in general. 
• And if you are not prepared to make a contribution today, please mail or bring back your donation, using one of the SVDP envelopes that can be found at each of the church entrances.

In the name of the poor and on behalf of our parish Vincentians, may God bless you and reward you for your generosity!

True Greatness

 

Deacon David Previtali · True Greatness

Homily for the 25th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sept. 23, 2018. Readings - Letter of St. James 3:16-4:3; Gospel of St. Mark 9:30-37. Theme: True Greatness 

Today’s Gospel begins where we left off last Sunday: with Jesus affirming to his disciples that He is, indeed the Christ, the Anointed One, the Promised Messiah. And even though He told them quite clearly – for the second time now - that He was going to be arrested, tortured and killed they still didn’t get it. The idea of a Messiah being overcome by his adversaries was so far beyond their expectations that they just couldn’t imagine it. 

You see, like most devout Jews of their time, the Apostles were expecting the Messiah to be a mighty warrior-king. They expected him to lead a powerful army into Roman-occupied Jerusalem, where he would conquer the oppressors, take up his royal throne, and begin his glorious reign. And then those who were his intimate associates would be given power and prestige in his kingdom. They were most likely each imagining themselves in various roles of authority and boasting to the others about their potential for fame, greatness and success! We all engage in that kind of boasting and bragging at one time or another, and we all know way too well what usually fuels that sort of behavior: jealousy and envy. We quite often confuse these two words and use them interchangeably, but actually, while being related, they have different meanings. 

Jealousy is concerned about the talents or treasures that we ourselves possess. It opens us up to the dark side of human nature wherein we become suspicious of others and see people as rivals who want to take something or someone away from us and make it their own. Envy, on the other hand, has to do with another person’s talents and treasures. We see what another possesses - such as money, property, or even a relationship - and we want to take it from them. But it can go on to become a treacherous monster-within-us, by stirring up feelings of ill will towards the person or even tempting us to take steps towards making their downfall possible. In our second reading, St. James describes for us the rotten fruit that we produce when we allow jealousy and envy to have a place in our lives. They can become as destructive as a hurricane as they twist our souls out of shape and cause so much damage to us and those around us. If left unchecked they can become like two express lanes to hell, both hell-on-earth and hell-for-eternity. 

This is because they are the enemies of charity, which is the love that leads us to life with God, both here on earth and for eternity in Heaven. Charity, in its expression as love for God, has us counting our blessings with grateful hearts and thanking him for the talents and treasures he has given us. And in its expression as love for neighbor, it takes our eyes off of ourselves and what we possess and instead casts them upon the lives of those who are suffering, sick, poor or vulnerable in any way. Compassion and mercy take up the place in our souls that jealousy and envy would occupy if there was room. This is the message of Jesus which the disciples had heard many times. And yet they are arguing among themselves as if they had never heard his teachings at all. 

The intervention of Christ into their heated debate must have been an embarrassing occasion for those jealousy-driven and envious disciples. Notice how the Gospel tells us that they fell silent when he questioned them about it. Isn’t that how we all react when our unacceptable behavior is pointed out? I am sure they were also quite stunned and rather confused when Jesus made a child the symbol of those to be served in his kingdom! But that seems to be the way Jesus operates, doesn’t it? He challenges us to rethink our ideas and definitions in light of His truth, in accordance with his Gospel. He tells us to get used to seeing things very differently than how we had been doing. He calls us to rethink how we are living and to ponder what it really means for us to be successful, to be great in this life. 

Christ is teaching us in today’s Gospel that the greatest among us are the ones who put love into action by serving the least among us. This is why Jesus held up an insignificant child before the eyes of his disciples. You see, in their day a child was considered a nonperson with no civil rights, no claim to lawful protection, and no social status. And Jesus explicitly tells them to serve such as these. This forgetfulness of self, of ego, was the example given us by Jesus the Messiah, both by his life lived for others and by his death on the cross offered up for others. The mystic St. John of the Cross put it well when he wrote, “In the twilight of life God will not judge us on our earthly possessions or human success, but rather on how much and how well we have loved.”

We Are All "Other Christs"!

 

Homily for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sept. 12, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 8:27-35. Theme: We Are All “Other Christs”!

In today’s Gospel, we heard Peter say to Jesus, “You are the Christ.”  So, what exactly does that mean? When I was a kid I honestly thought it was his last name, you know...as in Jesus, Mary and Joseph Christ!   But it’s not a name at all. Rather, it’s a title and a very ancient one at that, going back several thousand years.

To understand its meaning we have to go to the very beginning of the Bible, to the story of Adam and Eve. Recall that through their free choice of autonomy from God the whole human race found itself in a state of spiritual alienation from our Creator.  Our Christian tradition has come to call this the original sin of Adam and Eve.  Through this original sin, chaos and confusion, suffering and sin entered into the human experience. And the gift of eternal life with God was also put into  jeopardy.  

In order for this sin to be forgiven and for this great spiritual wound in every human person to be healed, God promised to one day send a Savior, a Deliverer, who would set things right again. Just as Adam and Eve brought sin into the world through their selfishness and disobedience, so the Deliverer would bring salvation through his unselfishness and obedient love.  The prophets of Israel called this Promised One the MESSIAH.

 

In Hebrew, Messiah means “The Anointed One”. You see, in the Old Testament, those who were specially chosen by God to serve his people as priests, prophets and kings were anointed with holy oil as a sign of their mission.  Since the Savior was to be the greatest prophet, the holiest priest and the mightiest king, He was known as THE Messiah, THE Anointed One above all others. And so this is why Jesus alone received this most ancient title.

 

When Greek became the primary world language MESSIAH was translated into the Greek word, CHRISTOS which in English is CHRIST. And so there you have it. Christ means the Messiah, the Anointed One, the holiest prophet who would speak God’s Word to us; the most sacred priest who would enable us to offer true worship to God; the humble servant-king who would lead  us, not by strict domination like earthly kings, but by the example of loving service.

 

But now here’s an awesome truth that connects each one of us with the story of the Messiah.  We who are baptized share in Jesus’ consecration, dedication and mission as the Messiah, as the Christ.  Right after being baptized with water we were anointed with Chrism, the ancient sacred anointing oil.  And as we were anointed these words were prayed over us: "God now anoints you with the chrism of salvation as Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet and King…”  This is why we are called Christians.  Like Jesus we are Anointed Ones chosen by God the Father to become “other Christs” in this world.  We are anointed to speak God’s message as prophets, we are anointed to worship God as his priestly people, and we are anointed to show our love for God by serving our neighbor. 

But there is one more thing that comes into our lives because of our mission to be “other Christs” and that is the Cross.  For many Christians, the Cross has come to mean patience in trials and perseverance in suffering.  And that is certainly one of the positive inspirational meanings we can give to it in our lives.  But this is not what “the cross” meant to Jesus or to those who heard him speak about it. To understand more fully what Jesus meant we have to put ourselves into the mindset of those first century people living under Roman oppression. To them, “the cross” was a symbol of shame and public humiliation. To “carry one’s cross” meant to go to one’s death and to be ridiculed along the way.  What Jesus the Christ is telling us in today’s Gospel is that those who truly want to follow him in this life and into the Kingdom of Heaven must be willing to undergo public ridicule, humiliation and rejection because of our relationship with him.  

So the big question is: are we willing to take up the Cross and follow Jesus? The social and moral condition of our nation today certainly makes the public ridicule of the Cross a potential reality in our lives as Christians. Just about everything in our culture has found its way into opposition with Christ and his teachings. For example, abortion and euthanasia are upheld as patient rights while the Gospel tells us these are assaults on human life. Our Creator’s intentions for marriage and family have become twisted into distorted definitions and freestyle relationships. Educational institutions reject truth as something valid for all people and instead teach the politically correct propaganda of the day from kindergarten through graduate school. And there are many more examples that we all know way too well.  

Are we willing to take up the Cross and follow Jesus? Do we love God and neighbor enough to live out our mission as “other Christs”, as Anointed Ones who speak God’s message by our words and our behavior?  Our baptismal anointing is not a gift that God gives us for our own sakes.  We are called and anointed for the sake of others.  Each one of us has been anointed to live as “other Christs” among those with whom we live, work and socialize, so that by the power and witness of the Cross  we might help them to know, love and serve God in this life and then  be forever happy with him in the next.

Ephphatha!

 

Deacon David Previtali · Ephphatha!

Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Gospel of St. Mark 7:31-37 September 5, 2021. Theme: Ephphatha! 

There’s a strange but interesting Aramaic word in today’s Gospel: “Ephphatha”. It’s one of the very few original-language words we have preserved from the lips of Jesus. And as St. Mark tells us, it means “Be opened”. You know, this healing story has held such importance in Christianity that we still sacramentally re-enact it today at baptism during what is called the “Ephphatha Rite”. The baptizing minister touches the ears and mouth of the newly baptized while saying, “May the Lord Jesus, who made the deaf to hear and the mute to speak, grant that you may soon receive his Word with your ears and profess the Faith with your lips, to the glory and praise of God the Father.” 

Since Jesus worked so many miracles when he was among us, it makes me wonder why did the Holy Spirit inspire Mark to include this particular one for posterity’s sake? And why has the Church seen fit to remember and re-enact it in the baptismal liturgy throughout the centuries? Was it simply to remind us that Jesus had mended hearing problems and enabled people to vocalize again or was it something much deeper than that? I think it might be because it stands for the deeper healing we all need no matter who we are and no matter when or where we live. Could its inclusion in the Gospel be to remind us that we all somehow need this kind of healing ourselves? Could it be because we who are able to hear with our ears still remain deaf to the voice of God and the cries of others? Could it be because those of us who have the gift of speech too often use it to denigrate and divide instead of unite and build up? 

Did you notice how after the miracle occurred, people kept talking about all that Jesus had done to totally transform this man’s life? That’s precisely what the Ephphatha we experience at Baptism is supposed to inspire us to do. Having had our ears opened to the Word of God we are empowered to use our lips to speak of Jesus and all he has done for us to those whom we encounter in everyday life. In this way we Christians become part of the story and continue its miracle all over the earth. In other words, the Ephphatha we receive at Baptism makes us part of the mission of Christ, enabling us to become his healing ambassadors in a very broken world and among very broken people. 

Our Ephphatha healing mission is so vitally needed in today’s world. We need only turn on the media or listen to conversations around us to verify that way too much of today’s hearing and speaking is argumentative, disrespectful and divisive. Way too often these days people’s lips are used to speak bitter and disrespectful words. All too often people will not use their ears to try and really hear what someone who disagrees with them is trying to say, or to even simply acknowledge that they have the right to speak it. There is great need for healing in our social interactions and it must begin with those of us who have had our ears and tongues blessed and opened by Christ in the Ephphatha. It is not, of course, an easy thing for us to do but quite honestly it is our responsibility as Christians, as “other Christs”. 

We need to patiently listen to others before we speak so that we can hear what they are really saying. And when we respond we must do so with as much calmness and charity as we can muster so that the message (which is Christ) doesn’t get rejected because of the messenger (which is us). We need to make sure that the conversations and debates that we have in daily life, or that we engage in online, are tempered by peaceful respect and come from a place of genuine love for our neighbor. We must never forget that our goal is not to win an argument or to prove somebody wrong and ourselves right. Our goal is the salvation of souls, the bringing of others to Jesus, whose very Name itself means “God heals”. We want others to know the same love, the same peace and the same mercy that we ourselves have experienced and received from him. This is the kind of inner healing so many in our world need today. 

As Catholic Christians, we are fully equipped to successfully live the Ephphatha mission of our Baptism because of the Eucharist that we celebrate, receive and adore. At the Eucharist, we hear the Word of God proclaimed and so are taught the truth that we must speak. At the Eucharist, we come into intimate personal contact with the Risen Lord Jesus, and receive the healing power of his presence within us. And in our prayer after Holy Communion, we can adore the Lord dwelling within us and beg from him the graces of healing that we need, for we cannot go out and give to others what we ourselves have not first received.