Chaplain Celebrates Mass at John Paul II’s Tomb

On December 6, 2013, Blessed John Paul II Shrine Chaplain Father Gregory Gresko concelebrated Mass at the tomb of Blessed John Paul II in Saint Peter’s Basilica. He reflected upon his experience here:

To be at the tomb of Blessed John Paul II is to be reminded of the beauty of dwelling in the house of the Lord, gazing on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplating His temple, as the Psalmist says in Ps 27. To celebrate the Eucharist on the altar containing the holy remains of the man whom the Church soon will recognize as Saint John Paul II is in itself a confirmation in faith as the Church has just concluded the 2012-13 Year of Faith -- confirmation of the greatness of the Communion of Saints to which each one of us as Christian faithful is called, but also of the spiritual presence of the saints among us, most strongly whenever we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. The tomb of Blessed John Paul II is a reminder of God’s call to holiness that is written on the hearts of all people who call themselves Christian, who are consecrated into the Lord in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. It is a firm reminder that every one of us is called by God to become a saint in whatever state of life we find ourselves – to embrace a life of genuine holiness by following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in the daily path of this earthly journey, until we realize the promise of everlasting life in the beatific vision of God’s heavenly Kingdom. As the Gospel of the two blind men reminds us (Mt 9.27-31), Jesus is ready to enlighten our darkness in this Advent season through the gift of His healing touch, if we only would have faith and hope-filled trust in Him. May this Advent be a time when we ask the Holy Spirit to open our hearts with the gift of a stronger faith, so that inspired by ever stronger hope, we might believe more fervently with open hearts to God’s perfect Love incarnate in the Infant Jesus this Christmas.

For more about his experience and for photos from the Mass, check out the Blessed John Paul II Shrine website.

Human Life Is Sacred

In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.

-Job 12:10

Every human life is sacred. Blessed John Paul II often reminded us of this, and that is why our final Year of Faith reflection is on the dignity of the human person. 

The topic of human life is covered in the Catechism of the Catholic Church under the Fifth Commandment, you shall not kill. The section begins with:

‘Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstances claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being’ (as quoted in CCC, 2258).

Scripture tells us that all human life is to be protected and respected from the first moment of existence until natural death. This is because “the human person has been willed for its own sake in the image and likeness of the living and holy God” (2319).

The Christian Faith Rests On The Trinity

Wherever there is love, there is a trinity: a lover, a beloved, and a fountain of love.

-St. Augustine

The Christian faith rests on the mystery of the Trinity.

The mystery is there in every revelation God has given to man. The mystery is there when we are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). And the mystery is there in any loving relationship, like in the Holy Family depicted above. 

When we speak of the Trinity, we speak of the Father. “Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father in relation to his only Son, who is eternally Son only in relation to his Father…” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 240).

We also speak of the Son, named by the Nicene Creed as “the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.”

We also speak of the Holy Spirit, who was “sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father” (244). The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, as that fountain of love between the two that abundantly overflows.

I Believe In God

Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 198).

Everything we believe, and in fact, everything that we are depends on God. He is one, without limit, and Lord over heaven and earth. The people of Israel tell us this about God in the Hebrew Scriptures, and they knew because He mercifully chose to reveal His own name to them:

To disclose one’s name is to make oneself known to others; in a way it is to hand oneself over by becoming accessible, capable of being known more intimately and addressed personally (203).

God revealed Himself to Moses in the burning bush as YHWH, or “I AM WHO AM.”  This name reveals everything about God, but at the same time, it reveals almost nothing. It is “mysterious just as God is mystery. It is at once a name revealed and something like the refusal of a name, and hence it better expresses God as what he is—infinitely above everything that we can understand or say…” (206).

The name indicates that God is hidden, yet very much present at the same time.

Papal Intentions for August

Pope Francis’s general intention for this month is, that “parents and teachers may help the new generation to grow in upright conscience and life.” Let us pray that they fulfill their vocations to be living witnesses to the faith.

The Holy Father’s missionary intention for this month is, that “the local Church in Africa, faithfully proclaiming the Gospel, may promote peace and justice.” In the face of many troubles, let us pray that the people of Africa find peace in spreading the Word of God.

Let us pray with Pope Francis, then, for the manifestation of the faith in our homes, in our schools, and especially in the African Church. For pastoral comments on these intentions, see the Vatican news site.

The Mirror of Faith

The Church…guards [this preaching and faith] with care, as dwelling in but a single house, and similarly believes as if having but one soul and a single heart, and preaches, teaches, and hands on this faith with a unanimous voice, as if possessing only one mouth.

-St. Irenaeus of Lyon

The Church carries with her a creed, for communion “in faith needs a common language of faith, normative for all and uniting all in the same confession of faith” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 185). In one brief formula, gathered from the Scriptures and summarizing the whole of the Good News, the people of the Church are able to declare their one love for the one Truth in Jesus Christ.

The word “formula” might seem off-putting, and earthily out of place when it comes to things above this world. The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church explains why this formula is necessary, though:

Without fixed forms, the content of the faith would dissipate. That is why the Church attaches great importance to definite sentences, the precise wording of which was usually achieved painstakingly, so as to protect the message of Christ from misunderstandings and falsifications. Furthermore, creeds are important when the Church’s faith has to be translated into different cultures while being preserved in its essentials, because a common faith is the foundation of the Church’s unity (25).

We call these forms, “professions of faith,” “creeds,” or “symbols of faith,” and they stand as points of reference for catechesis (CCC, 187). 

The Light Of Faith Illumines Human Relationships

Once we discover the full light of Christ’s love, we realize that each of the loves in our own lives had always contained a ray of that light, and we understand its ultimate destination. That fact that our human loves contain that ray of light also helps us to see how all love is meant to share in the complete self-gift of the Son of God for our sake. In this circular movement, the light of faith illumines all our human relationships, which can then be lived in union with the gentle love of Christ.

-Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei

The Assurance Of Things Hoped For

Every minute of every day, through every experience and encounter that we have, God invites us into His company. In order to believe, our hearts must be ready to listen and respond to God’s invitation.

This response is faith, and it involves completely submitting our intellect and our will to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is a free abandonment to the truth, “by trust in the person who bears witness to it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 177). Faith stakes everything on a relationship with this person, Jesus Christ, accepting Him as revelation of the one, all-merciful and all-powerful God.

The Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church (YOUCAT) lays out the qualities of faith in bullet points:

Faith is knowledge and trust. It has seven characteristics:

• Faith is a sheer gift of God, which we receive when we fervently ask for it.
• Faith is the supernatural power that is absolutely necessary if we are to attain salvation.
• Faith requires the free will and clear understanding of a person when he accepts the divine invitation.
• Faith is absolutely certain, because Jesus guarantees it.
• Faith is incomplete unless it leads to active love.
• Faith grows when we listen more and more carefully to God’s Word and enter a lively exchange with him in prayer.
• Faith gives us even now a foretaste of the joy of heaven (21).

Faith is an authentically human act, in which our “intellect and will cooperate with divine grace” (CCC, 155). God does give us “motives of credibility,” in the miracles of Christ, the witness of saints, true prophecies, and in the fruitfulness of the Church (CCC, 156). Still faith “seeks understanding,” calling the believer to dive deeper into “a more penetrating knowledge,” which “will in turn call forth a greater faith, increasingly set afire by love” (CCC, 158).

The Lamp To My Feet And Light To My Path

In our last Year of Faith reflection, we touched on the revelation of Jesus Christ entrusted to us in Sacred Scripture. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) explains that in “order to reveal himself to men, in the condescension of his goodness God speaks to them in human words…” (101). Scripture is a gift to men and women, for otherwise we would not understand what God so mercifully wants to tell us.

The Church venerates Sacred Scripture as one utterance, one Word from God the Father who speaks lovingly to His children. Although this one Word was written by human authors, all parts of the Old and New Testaments are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit:

"God chose men and while employed by Him they made use of their powers and abilities, so that with Him acting in them and through them, they, as true authors, consigned to writing everything and only those things which He wanted" (Dei Verbum, 11).

Now the Christian Church does not take all parts of the Scripture word for word, but understands that, “Christianity is the religion of the ‘Word,’ of God, a word which is ‘not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living’” (CCC, 108):

The Bible is not meant to convey precise historical information or scientific findings to us. Moreover, the authors were children of their time. They shared the cultural ideas of the world around them and often were also dominated by its errors. Nevertheless, everything that man must know about God and the way of his salvation is found with infallible certainty in Sacred Scripture (YOUCAT, 15).

This is why the faithful must look to the Holy Spirit, the interpreter of Scripture, and recognize that there are literal and spiritual senses to what we read. We must pay attention to what the sacred author’s intention is, first being “attentive ‘to the content and unity of the whole Scripture’” (CCC, 112). Second, the Scriptures should be read within the Tradition of the Church, within “the faith that gave rise to them” (YOUCAT, 16). Third, pay attention to the “analogy of faith,” or the “coherence of the truths of faith among themselves” (CCC, 112-114).

Evangelium Vitae Day

This coming weekend, Pope Francis will gather with faithful pilgrims to celebrate Evangelium Vitae, in support of the sanctity of every human life. According to the Year of Faith site:

It will offer the opportunity for the faithful from around the world to gather with the Holy Father in a communal witness to the sacred value of all life: The lives of the aged, the lives of the sick, the lives of the dying, the lives of the unborn, the lives of the physically and mentally challenged, and the lives of all those who suffer. In addition, this event will offer the occasion to celebrate, affirm, and encourage all those who so tenderly and with self-abandonment follow in the footsteps of the Good Shepherd by tending to the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of those who are aged, disabled, ill, unborn, homebound, dying or who suffer in any way. It is our hope that the number of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square will be so great that all the world will be able to hear from Rome our Church’s choral expression of the very heart of Jesus’ redemptive mission: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10, Cf. Evangelium Vitae, 1).

For those in Washington D.C., the Blessed John Paul II Shrine will be celebrating a Holy Hour of Healing & Reparation corresponding to the event, from 3pm-4pm this Saturday June 14. This will be a traditional holy hour with Exposition and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The Divine Mercy Chaplet will be prayed, and silent prayer will follow before Benediction.

Come join us in interceding for the dignity of every human person!

Sunday’s Worldwide Adoration

This Sunday, the Church will celebrate the Year of Faith with an historic event: Worldwide Eucharistic Adoration. The theme is “One Lord, One Faith,” and so cathedrals throughout the world will synchronize with St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and expose the Blessed Sacrament for Adoration at the same time. This way, all of the faithful can be in communion with Pope Francis in Eucharistic Adoration.

On Sunday June 2, from 5:00pm-6:00pm in Rome, Pope Francis will kneel before the Eucharistic Lord. Dioceses around the world will join at exactly this time, which conveniently lands at 11:00am D.C. time, but occurs in the wee hours of the morning for others. People are very enthusiastic, though, and honored to pray with the Church for the Pope’s intentions. These are:

For the Church spread throughout the world and united today in the adoration of the Most Holy Eucharist as a sign of unity. May the Lord make her ever more obedient to hearing his Word in order to stand before the world ‘ever more beautiful, without stain or blemish, but holy and blameless.’ That through her faithful announcement, the Word that saves may still resonate as the bearer of mercy and may increase love to give full meaning to pain and suffering, giving back joy and serenity.

For those around the world who still suffer slavery and who are victims of war, human trafficking, drug running, and slave labor. For the children and women who are suffering from every type of violence. May their silent scream for help be heard by a vigilant Church so that, gazing upon the crucified Christ, she may not forget the many brothers and sisters who are left at the mercy of violence. Also, for all those who find themselves in economically precarious situations, above all for the unemployed, the elderly, migrants, the homeless, prisoners, and those who experience marginalization. That the Church’s prayer and its active nearness give them comfort and assistance in hope and strength and courage in defending human dignity.

It is no coincidence that this event is planned for the Feast of Corpus Christi, a day that the Church sets aside to celebrate devotion to the body and blood of Christ. This day was very special for Blessed John Paul II, which is something we will touch on later this week.

Faith Transmitted To All Generations

God desires that all men know the truth of Jesus Christ. Before He ascended into heaven, Christ Himself gave the Church a mission, to go and “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). Therefore, all Christians must proclaim the truth of the Gospel, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, “so that all men can freely make a decision for Christ” (YOUCAT).

The Gospel has been transmitted in two ways. It was first transmitted orally by the Apostles, through their fellowship, their preaching, their teaching, and the guidance they gave. Second, it was transmitted in writing, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The latter we see clearly in the Sacred Scriptures, but the former way is somewhat less tangible. This is why the apostles appointed bishops as successors, so that this teaching could be handed on and preserved with authority. Guided by the Holy Spirit, apostolic succession makes the “living transmission” of the Gospel possible (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 78). This way, the “Father’s self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit, remains present and active in the Church,” or as the Catechism puts it, God is able to continue speaking with the Spouse of His Son (79).

As Catholics, we accept and honor both Sacred Scripture and Tradition. For “there exists a close connection and communication” between them, and both, “flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end” (Dei Verbum, 9). This end is the fruitful transmission of the Word of God in its entirety throughout the world.

Loving Revelation

All that is said about God presupposes something said by God.

       -St. Edith Stein (1891-1942)

In our last reflection on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we affirmed the possibility of knowing God through natural reason. Movements in creation and in our souls can lead us to a certainty in the existence of God.  

Reason isn’t the only thing He leaves us with, though. Out of love for His creation, God revealed Himself to man by opening Himself and voluntarily speaking to the world. God freely showed Himself to man so that we may know Him: 

Just as in human love one can know something about the beloved person only if he opens his heart to us, so too we know something about God’s inmost thoughts only because the eternal and mysterious God has opened himself to us out of love (YouCat, 17).

God first made Himself known to Adam and Eve, when “he invited them to intimate communion with himself and clothed them with resplendent grace and justice” (CCC, 54).

God continued to reveal Himself after the Fall, when men were scattered and divided by sin. He first did this in the covenant with Noah and then when He selcted Abraham as patriarch of the chosen people, who were specially called “to prepare for that day when God would gather all his children into the unity of the Church” (60).

Prayer And Family

Earlier this month, the Blessed John Paul II Shrine continued its Year of Faith Lecture Series with a lively presentation on Prayer and Family, given by Msgr. Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Church in Washington, D.C.

In his talk, Msgr. Pope encouraged parents to make more time for silence in their households, to focus on being “substantial witnesses to the faith” for their children, and to simply read more Scripture and Bible stories. Family structure is very important in forming a prayerful climate in the household, he said, and so he also gave listeners practical advice on how to intentionally form “structures of grace” in the home.

Msgr. Pope’s lecture is available for viewing on the Shrine’s website, as well as past lectures on the topics of Images of the Nativity: Rediscovering the Soul of the Family, and Catholic Manhood: The Man of God.

The Blessed John Paul II Shrine is hosting this lecture series to promote the Church’s Year of Faith and to advance both Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI’s call for a New Evangelization. Those of our readers who will be in Washington, D.C. on April 13 should mark their calendars for the next lecture, on The Gift of Fatherhood in Faith.

The Church Has Confidence in Young People

...the Church has confidence in young people, she hopes in them and in their energies, she needs them and their vitality, to continue to live with renewed enthusiasm the mission entrusted them by Christ. I very much hope, therefore, that the Year of Faith may be, also for the younger generation, a precious opportunity to rediscover and strengthen our friendship with Christ, from which to derive joy and enthusiasm to profoundly transform cultures and societies.

                -Pope Benedict XVI to Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Culture