Mercy - 125th Anniversary Legacy Event

Mass for Life 2016

The Most Reverend Paul J. Swain
Bishop of Sioux Falls
Cathedral of St. Joseph
January 22, 2016
Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children

The first reading from Colossians speaks the truth clearly: “You are God’s chosen ones”. Every person is God’s chosen ones. The opening prayer sets forth clearly what ought be our response to being so chosen: give thanks and defend life:

God our Creator, we give thanks to you, who alone have the power to impart the breath of life as you form each of us in our mother’s womb; grant we pray that we, whom you made stewards of creation, may remain faithful to this sacred trust and constant in safeguarding the dignity of every human life.¹

It is important to remind ourselves of this sacred trust on this the 43rd anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision to allow abortions essentially for any reason and at any time. It is the law of the land that the unborn are not persons even though God formed them and are therefore disposable or as Pope Francis has noted they are considered as throwaways. Today we pray for a change of heart and law that protects all life from conception to natural death.

Less than a month ago we celebrated a birth, the birth of the Christ child. Yet we know even then that government leaders sought the child’s death. The culture of death is not of recent invention.

Pope Francis has written:

In a frail human being, each one of us is invited to recognize the face of the Lord, who in his human flesh experienced the indifference and solitude to which we so often condemn the poorest of the poor . . . Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned to unjustly being aborted, bears the face of Jesus, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born and then just after his birth experienced the world’s rejection².

Our Mass intention today and at Masses throughout the country, is in penance for the violation of the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion. It is estimated that over 58 million little ones³ created by God with unique looks, gifts and capacity to love and be loved have, by human hands, not been allowed to live, to breathe, to learn, to give and to love. We miss those potential parents and friends, farmers and teachers and so many more who God created for a purpose but were not allowed to attain that purpose. While we know they are in the hands of their loving God, their absence makes our hearts ache.

Yet we do so with hope. Our Mass intention today also is to pray for the legal protection of the unborn children to come. We do so in thanksgiving for all those in the pro-life movement who have come forward often in hostile environments to protect the unborn by prayer, by practice, by protesting and by presenting the Gospel of Life to prick consciences and encourage conversion of hearts. Especially gratifying is the witness of the young who are grateful for their gift of life and who seek to nourish the culture of life.

We also pray in penance today for ourselves as individuals and as Church for not having been adequately present and welcoming to so many mothers dealing with dizzying choices in troubled times. Yet here too there is hope. We in our diocese, especially through Catholic Family Services, offer support through counseling programs, the Mother Teresa Fund that offers financial assistance, adoption services and grief and healing outreach programs. No one should have to make agonizing life choices alone or bear unintended consequences alone. “Come to me,” Jesus said, “and I will give you rest.” Come to His Church and as his instrument she will give you rest. God’s love and mercy are ever available to everyone.

We pray in penance today also for the bad fruit that has resulted from this sad Supreme Court decision. I speak especially about the derogation of our national psyche where violence in the womb has spread to violence in the home, in the school and on the streets. I speak of the view of children as collateral to be marketed in human trafficking or as body parts to be sold.

I speak of the tragedy of gender selection abortions, in the taking of a twin because only one child is wanted, and in the destruction of those little ones suffering some seeming physical defect before we got to know their personalities. I speak also of the attack on religious liberty and freedom of conscience to shut down the courageous call for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. Indeed there is much for which we need God’s forgiveness, all of us.

Yet there is hope reflected in each of you and those who march this week. Let us all whatever our age, station or vocation stay the course. Let us recommit to be witnesses for life from conception to natural death. How powerful witness can be.

I have told this story before but it seems especially appropriate on this anniversary of law gone astray: “There were forty soldiers in the revered Twelfth Legion of Rome who professed faith in Jesus Christ. One day the Emperor ordered that all soldiers offer a sacrifice to pagan gods. They as one responded, “you can have our armor and even our bodies but our hearts allegiance belong to Jesus Christ.” As a result they were marched out onto a frozen lake in the middle of winter and stripped of their clothes. At any time they could renounce Christ and be spared from freezing to death. Instead they huddled closely and sang a song of victory, “Forty martyrs for Christ.” That night 39 of them fell to icy graves. The last one stumbled to the shore and renounced Christ. The officer in charge of guarding the men was so moved by the witness of the others that he ran out onto the icy lake, threw off his clothes and confessed his faith in Jesus Christ. At sunrise the Roman soldiers found forty men who had given their all for the cause of Christ, Savior and Lord of Life.

Grateful to the Creator for our lives, let us pray for conversion of hearts and for the strength to witness our faith as did the Forty Martyrs. As we pray in penance and pray for the unborn yet to come, may we do so with integrity, with humility and with hope being true as God’s chosen ones to our sacred trust to safeguard the dignity of every human life.

St. Joseph, our patron, protect us and the unborn. Mary, Mother of Life, pray for us.

________
1 – Collect, Roman Missal, Mass for Life
2 – Pope Francis, Address to the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, Sept. 20, 2013
3 – http://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/21/57762169-abortions-in-america-since-roe-vs-wade-in-1973/

Third Sunday of Advent

Gaudete Sunday

There is so much in this Sunday’s gospel that should give us pause for reflection. Among them is the humility of John the Baptist to declare that he is unworthy to untie the sandal straps of Jesus. And there is the clear description of the time of judgment when the wheat will be will be gathered in the barn but the chaff will be burn in an unquenchable fire. And then there is the attestation that John preached good news to the people – the good news of the coming of our Lord.

Yet, the one phrase that challenges me the most is the question asked of John the Baptist three times by the crowd, by the tax collectors and by the soldiers: “What should we do?”

His answer was not earth shattering, not impossible to achieve. To the crowd he said: you have two coats, give one to someone without one; give your surplus food to those who are hungry; share your blessings, show mercy. To the tax collectors he said: take nothing more than is required by law; be honest and fair, show mercy. To the soldiers he said: do not be bullies or falsely accuse; do not abuse your power, show mercy.

What should they do, what should we do? The answer is to live good moral and ethical lives. Or as the theme of this Jubilee Year of Mercy frames it so well: be merciful as the Father is merciful. John the Baptist did not ask them to try to become people they could not be, though it would require change. He called them to become the very best selves they could be; living witnesses of God’s love and presence. We are challenged in the same way to be the very best we can be, living proclamations of Christ’s love and mercy, whatever our work or place or crosses.

St. Paul’s answer to what should we do is to rejoice in the Lord always. When we are joyful in the Lord, we gain perspective, the strength to be living proclamations of Christ’s love. Too often the pressures of the culture or our own expectations separate us from seeing the beauty and blessings in our lives.

Some years ago I was at the mall doing Christmas shopping and in a hurry, trying to move quickly amidst the crowd. The number of shoppers made that impossible and I became anxious.” Let’s get moving people,” I thought. I have a lot to do. Then I noticed the family walking in front of me moving so slowly. There was a young one in a stroller bouncing up and down. Another small child was pulling on the father’s hand pointing in different directions. Both were excited, both had big smiles. They reminded me of the joy that should be part of this season. I was ashamed of my self-centered impatience. Children with their great simplicity anticipate the coming of the Lord at Christmas and so should we. Joy to the world, the Lord is coming, should be our song.

Another step in becoming the very best we can be, living with joy this time of year is to keep gift-giving in perspective. Giving gifts as a sign of our love and appreciation is a beautiful part of the season. Yet for some it is a source of anxiety. Some agonize over it; others agonize over how they can give the hint on what they really want. Giving and receiving should bring joy.

I read about a family in the military that was transferred to Spain in December. The mother of two was seven months pregnant. They packed up all their belongings including what would be needed for the new baby and shipped it all overseas. When the family reached Spain they discovered that their permanent housing was not yet available. Then they learned that their luggage, including most of their clothes, was lost in transit. To top it off the mother went into premature labor and gave birth unexpectedly to twins. She wrote that she had never felt so overwhelmed and alone in her life. Then the word got out in the local Spanish community. Suddenly clothes and other items started to appear. A man stopped by and said that he and his wife had lost twins in childbirth, and wanted to share with her two cribs that were meant for their own. That family felt real joy that Christmas because the gifts were given not out of obligation but out of love and concern, by strangers being the best they could be. The gift we all receive at Christmas that of the Christ child should bring us a joy that we want to share Pope Francis in declaring this jubilee year prayed that “touched by God’s compassion we can become compassionate toward others.”

Finally, what we should do to become the very best we can be, is be reconciled with our God and one another, especially our families and friends. Someone wrote that “friendships are fragile things and require as much care in handling as other fragile and precious things”. Sometimes we are careless and we break them, with our tongue, our action or our neglect. Through the sacrament of penance we are given the grace and the power to be forgiven and to restore those relationships which reflect our relationship with God

There are many opportunities for receiving the sacrament of penance, confession here in this Cathedral or other parishes this Advent and throughout the Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Our faith in Christ’s promises and Christ’s presence make it possible for us to be the very best we can be and live our lives with joy because we know that Christ has already conquered the down side of the world. We will soon focus on the stable and his birth in Bethlehem, but in the background is Jerusalem and the cross which lead to the empty tomb and his resurrection. He was born, died and rose out of love for us. St. Julian of Norwich wrote: “the greatest honor you can give to God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”

What should we do? John the Baptist tells us to repent and become the very best we can be by living lives of integrity. St. Paul answers: knowing of his love, rejoice in the Lord always. To do so requires us to change and to trust. When we do we can even in the midst of a world of worry, sing with the prophet Zephaniah in our first reading: “fear not, be not discouraged, the Lord your God is in your midst.”

Jubilee Year of Mercy

Special lecture on Mother Teresa and the Year of Mercy by Monsignor Charles Mangan

Door of Mercy

The opening of the Door of Mercy on December 14

Misericordiae Vultus

Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), after having revealed his name to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex34:6), has never ceased to show, in various ways throughout history, his divine nature. In the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), when everything had been arranged according to his plan of salvation, he sent his only Son into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal his love for us in a definitive way. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God. ~Pope Francis
Read the full Bull of Indiction

ARTICLES

DecCoverPg1 — The Bishop’s Bulletin: Approaching the Year of Mercy

BishopSwain — Bishop Swain: A Sign of the Vastness of God’s Love and Mercy

FrMike — Fr. Michael Griffin: We Are Dripping with Mercy

Resources

Ignition Podcast 241: Lord Have Mercy!
Dr. Chris and Fr. Andrew discuss the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy

DOWNLOAD

A beautiful and moving video from St. Lambert parish and Fr. John Rutten on the Year of Mercy and the sacrament of reconciliation.

Year of Mercy Hymn

The Authors of the original music (Paul Inwood) and text (Eugenio Costa, S.J.) have donated the copyright of this work to the PCPNE in order to facilitate the distribution of the Hymn of the Jubilee of Mercy throughout the Catholic Church. Visit www.im.va to download the audio and the score

Year of Mercy Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
You have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,
and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.
Show us your face and we will be saved.
Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;
the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;
made Peter weep after his betrayal,
and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.
Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:
“If you knew the gift of God!”

You are the visible face of the invisible Father,

of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:
let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.
You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness
in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:
let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.

Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing,
so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord,
and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,
and restore sight to the blind.

We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy,
you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Amen.

Second Sunday of Advent

Tuesday is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation. It also is the beginning of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, declared by Pope Francis. Next Sunday at the 11 a.m. Mass we along with cathedrals around the world will open our Door of Mercy, a point of pilgrimage. In the prayer the Holy Father composed for the Jubilee Year he declares his hopes: “Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father . . . Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church with renewed enthusiasm may bring the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind . . .” I look forward to sharing this time of grace with you over the next year.

Happy St. Nicholas Day. We know little about St Nicholas except that he was a bishop in the early days of the Church. His legendary charitable care for others has morphed into Santa Claus with the emphasis not so much of gift giving out of charity but out of pressure and of gift getting. Giving and receiving gifts out of love is a wonderful human gesture; giving out of guilt or getting out of entitlement is not. To know the difference we need to be grounded in Christian values.

St. Paul in the 2nd reading prayed that the love of the Christians in Philippi: “may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value, so that they would be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” That should be our prayer as well. When our conscience is clear and our conduct blameless we will be prepared for the coming of the Lord. But to lead such lives we must first discern what is of real value to us. Our relationship with Christ reflected in our love of all gifted by God with life ought to be of highest value. That’s tough in our culture that emphasizes me first and with our human nature that is fragile to temptations. It also is tough when we experience the horrors that terrorism and violence bring. We pray in a special way for those victims in California and other locations who personally experience such horror. We pray also for law enforcement, military and first responders who put their lives on the line that we might live in freedom with security.

John the Baptist issued the clarion call to prepare the way of the Lord. That means remove all those obstacles, all those things that stand in the way of the Lord becoming our Lord and Savior. John called for us to do so by preparing our hearts and our lives through repentance and forgiveness. The season of Advent is an opportunity to reflect on what stands in our way and what is really important to us. To welcome the Lord in our hearts and lives, we need to level the mountains, those things that limit us, seem beyond our ability to climb and cope and therefore discourage us. We also need to fill in the valleys, those things that weigh us down and keep us from moving forward on our journey toward greater holiness.

Is there a mountain you face that needs to be leveled or a valley to be filled? It may be a mountain of resentment, of envy, of a grudge held, or anger at a slight and not being able to forgive and let go. There may be valleys of guilt for mistakes made, sins committed that cannot be undone or forgotten, dreams that did not come true that weigh us down. Carried day to day, year to year, they can be like a cancer on our souls that eat away at our joy for life and hope for tomorrow and prevent our openness to the Lord who offers peace and joy, who is our hope. Take these to confession, the sacrament of mercy, and be set free. Christ’s love and mercy is available to all with sincere hearts.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a sad day that began for America World War II in which millions died, a war that changed the world and changed us as a people. I recall a moving moment when a woman showed me a picture of the memorial that was built over the site of the sunken ship Arizona, and told me her brother-in-law went down with the ship. This is a picture of his grave, she said softly.

All these years later the fuel tank of the Arizona still leaks bubbles of oil that rise to the surface and create little puddles of pollution, a remembrance of the violence of war, yet with the colors of a rainbow mixed in. We can discover rainbows, blessings from God, even in the horrible events of life when they are approached in faith. God does not cause, but he does I believe use the tough moments of life to reach out to us, to invite us to welcome him. He offers us a rainbow of perspective and of hope after each storm, if we listen to and for him. Holy Mass, the very presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist can be life giving in the midst of our crosses.

Every summer a wealthy family would vacation in Europe while leaving their daughter home with a nanny. One year the nanny quit just before the vacation. The parents were upset that their vacation might be jeopardized, but a few days before the trip they found a replacement. When their 11 year old daughter noticed her mother wrapping up the family silverware, she asked why because that had never been done before. Her mother explained that she could not trust the new nanny with the family valuables. The remark hurt the little girl in her heart. Was she not a family valuable of more worth than silverware? That thought stuck with her as she grew and became a mother herself. It could have become a mountain of resentment or a valley of rejection. Instead, she committed herself to be sure that her children would know how valuable they really are to her and to God.

This is my prayer St. Paul wrote: that your love increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value. In the midst of the Christmas rush and pressure, when this season of Advent is over and Christmas comes, what will we have revealed as having real value to us? The legendary love of St. Nicholas points the way.