'The first place to look for Christ is within ourselves'

"The Call of Advent" is SFMYA.org's Advent series on the messages of Christ's birth as interpreted by friends of our young adult ministry --- priests, deacons and religous.

By REV. PAUL J. HRUBY

I remember reading a Christmas card some years ago with the words "Wise men still seek Him."

Let me suggest that the first place to look for Christ is within ourselves. The good news of the Incarnation is that Jesus continually comes to be born in us.

Globally, each day we face much brokenness — war and genocide, religious and political polarization, a quest for security in a world that is often harsh and uncertain. Creation cries out for a savior to touch the hurts of the human family.

We can be a catalyst in the healing process.

As Jesus rests in us, so must we also learn to rest in him! By creating a sacred place where he can reside within us, we make our own lives available to a God who loves us and desires our love. We then can make Jesus available through every smile and every act of kindness, through our willingness to give and to forgive without ounting the cost.

We’re not perfect, but we know we’re on the right path if we seek him with all our heart!

Rev. Paul J. Hruby is pastor of Incarnation Parish in Glendale.

Statement Of Cardinal Roger Mahony On Failure Of Immigration Reform Legislation

I am deeply disappointed in today’s U.S. Senate vote, which likely ends the movement toward comprehensive immigration reform this year.

I express my gratitude to those Senators who worked diligently and fearlessly to achieve an immigration reform system for our country which would have recognized and affirmed basic human dignity and rights, and which would have strengthened our national security.

Our immigration system remains broken. Without reform, our current system will continue to permit the exploitation of workers, the separation of families, and will handicap efforts to secure our nation’s borders. Each day that this status quo is permitted to exist is a moral failure for our nation, as well as a legislative one.

The Catholic Church will continue to be a voice for justice in urging our legislators to enact comprehensive immigration reform in our nation.

Statement on May 1 Violence at MacArthur Park

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Like most Angelinos, I have been watching innumerable television images of the aftermath of a peaceful and orderly pro-immigrant march and rally on the afternoon of May 1st. I was a member of the march from Vermont and 3rd streets to the MacArthur Park, and I was privileged to address the people present.

Even if a small group of people caused trouble, the entire assembly and the media should not have borne the brunt of seemingly inappropriate police activity. I have seen very clear images of women and children trying to get out of the way of the police, people very frightened, but being treated as if they were criminals. There is no excuse for the unprovoked attacks upon these people, and upon the reporters, camera operators, and other news people.

As Chief William Bratton has remarked publicly several times, something went terribly wrong at MacArthur Park on May 1st, and police personnel up and down the chain of command failed the community.

I welcome the various investigations being undertaken to find out exactly what happened, what the response was to the problem, and who must bear the blame and responsibility. But more—the community needs to know that new procedures and processes are in place to prevent innocent people and media personnel from becoming victims of unacceptable police response. The vast majority of our law enforcement personnel are dedicated and conscientious professionals, and we appreciate all that they do to help and protect us. But something went very wrong on May 1st, and all of us will benefit from the investigations, conclusions, and recommendations.

I appeal to all of our public authorities at every level—city, county, state, and federal—please grant full legal immigration immunity to those who may have been directly affected by the police actions, but who are afraid to come forward and give their testimony in fear of being turned over to immigration authorities. I met many people on May 1 who were marching for one purpose: because they love this country, and because they want to find a way to become legal residents here. Not all were in some legal process at this time. But their testimony about May 1 would be extremely valuable for all of the investigative bodies.

Please assure the immigrant community that they will have full immigration immunity, and encourage them to come forward and to give their own personal testimony from that difficult afternoon.

Let us continue to work together in our community for processes which unite us while helping to learn and establish the truth in order to prevent a repeat of that day.

Shooting of Virginia Tech students 'tremendously sad,' bishop says

By Catholic News Service

BLACKSBURG, Va. (CNS) -- The April 16 shooting spree at Virginia Tech that left at least 32 people dead is "tremendously sad," said Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond.

In a phone interview just hours after the shootings, Teresa Volante, Catholic campus minister at Virginia Tech, said she had sent out an electronic notice that the Newman Center chapel was open for anyone who wanted to stop in and pray.

But she said the center, located just off the campus, was rather quiet at that time since the dormitories on campus were still locked down and the off-campus students had been instructed to stay away.

"I'm here for students to talk to," she said.

Later in the afternoon Debbie McClintock, a volunteer who came in to help, told Catholic News Service that a prayer service was scheduled for 7 p.m. at the center.

She said people at the center were calm and were focused on helping anyone who came in.

At St. Mary's Parish, the only Catholic parish in Blacksburg, the receptionist said the pastor, Father James Arsenault, had spent more than three hours at the hospital with those who were wounded before heading over to the university to help there.

She said the church would be open all afternoon, with the Blessed Sacrament exposed for adoration, followed by a special Mass in the evening.

The university president, Charles Steger, called the shootings "a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions."

Bishop DiLorenzo said his heart goes out to the parents and family members of the dead students.

"At this time one cannot help but think of the endless years of commitment, of love and care these parents have invested in their children and then have it all cut down by a bullet is tremendously sad," he said.

"The tragedy really hit home with me," he said, because he learned of it at a chancery luncheon that included two women who have children studying at Virginia Tech. He said that fortunately their children were not harmed.

Emily Flach, a freshman business major who lives on campus, said, "People are just really shocked. It's unbelievable that something like this happened."

She told CNS at 3 p.m. that many students had not eaten all day because of the lockdown and a remaining uncertainty about whether it was safe to go out.

She said her dormitory is about three minutes' walk from West Ambler Johnston, the dormitory where the first shooting occurred about 7:15 a.m. Two hours later the gunman, who was not immediately identified, attacked a classroom in Norris Hall, an engineering building, shooting more than 40 people before he was killed.

The initial death toll was placed at 22, including the gunman, but as the day wore on the number of dead rose to 32.

When Flach learned there would be a prayer service at the Newman Center that evening, she said she thought that was a good idea. "I think the best thing we can do is come together ... and pray for everyone," she said.

Anne Greenwood, a second-year graduate student in history, said she was in a conference room in McBryde Hall, one building over from Norris Hall, where the majority of victims were shot.

She said the first notice the group she was with had about the shootings was when they began receiving campus e-mail around 9:30 a.m. In quick succession, messages from the administration said there had been a shooting in a residence hall, then warned everyone that a gunman was still on campus and that they should stay inside.

Greenwood said the people she was with were unsure whether they were hearing gunshots because of extreme high winds at the time.

"To be quite honest, it was scary as hell," she said.

Speaking with CNS a couple of hours after students were allowed to leave the campus, Greenwood said the impact of the gunman's toll was still hitting her.

"I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that so many died," she said.

The April 16 shooting was the deadliest on-campus attack in U.S. history. Before that the worst was at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966, when a gunman climbed a clock tower and killed 16 people before police killed him.

Last year on the first day of classes for the 2006-07 school year at Virginia Tech, an escaped inmate was captured near the campus after he allegedly shot and killed a sheriff's deputy and a security guard. While the search for the inmate was on, classes were canceled, the Virginia Tech campus was closed and students and staff were ordered to stay indoors.

Virginia Tech has about 25,000 students. Volante said about 800 to 1,000 of the students regularly attend Sunday Mass at the Newman Center or are involved in activities there.

Contributing to this story were Jerry Filteau and Patricia Zapor in Washington.

Message of the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the 22nd World Youth Day, 2007

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

My dear young friends,

On the occasion of the 22nd World Youth Day that will be celebrated in the dioceses on Palm Sunday, I would like to propose for your meditation the words of Jesus: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

Is it possible to love?

Everybody feels the longing to love and to be loved. Yet, how difficult it is to love, and how many mistakes and failures have to be reckoned with in love! There are those who even come to doubt that love is possible. But if emotional delusions or lack of affection can cause us to think that love is utopian, an impossible dream, should we then become resigned? No! Love is possible, and the purpose of my message is to help reawaken in each one of you - you who are the future and hope of humanity, trust in a love that is true, faithful and strong; a love that generates peace and joy; a love that binds people together and allows them to feel free in respect for one another. Let us now go on a journey together in three stages, as we embark on a “discovery” of love.

God, the source of love

The first stage concerns the source of true love. There is only one source, and that is God. Saint John makes this clear when he declares that “God is love” (1 Jn 4: 8,16). He was not simply saying that God loves us, but that the very being of God is love. Here we find ourselves before the most dazzling revelation of the source of love, the mystery of the Trinity: in God, one and triune, there is an everlasting exchange of love between the persons of the Father and the Son, and this love is not an energy or a sentiment, but it is a person; it is the Holy Spirit.

The Cross of Christ fully reveals the love of God

How is God-Love revealed to us? We have now reached the second stage of our journey. Even though the signs of divine love are already clearly present in creation, the full revelation of the intimate mystery of God came to us through the Incarnation when God himself became man. In Christ, true God and true Man, we have come to know love in all its magnitude. In fact, as I wrote in the Encyclical Deus caritas est, “the real novelty of the New Testament lies not so much in new ideas as in the figure of Christ himself, who gives flesh and blood to those conceptsCan unprecedented realism” (n. 12). The manifestation of divine love is total and perfect in the Cross where, we are told by Saint Paul, “God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us” (Romams 5:8). Therefore, each one of us can truly say: “Christ loved me and gave himself up for me” (cf Epiphany 5:2). Redeemed by his blood, no human life is useless or of little value, because each of us is loved personally by Him with a passionate and faithful love, a love without limits. The Cross, for the world a folly, for many believers a scandal, is in fact the “wisdom of God” for those who allow themselves to be touched right to the innermost depths of their being, “for God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25). Moreover, the Crucifix, which after the Resurrection would carry forever the marks of his passion, exposes the “distortions” and lies about God that underlie violence, vengeance and exclusion. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes upon himself the sins of the world and eradicates hatred from the heart of humankind. This is the true “revolution” that He brings about: love.

Loving our neighbour as Christ loves us

Now we have arrived at the third stage of our reflection. Christ cried out from the Cross: “I am thirsty” (Jn 19:28). This shows us his burning thirst to love and to be loved by each one of us. It is only by coming to perceive the depth and intensity of such a mystery that we can realise the need and urgency to love him as He has loved us. This also entails the commitment to even give our lives, if necessary, for our brothers and sisters sustained by love for Him. God had already said in the Old Testament: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18), but the innovation introduced by Christ is the fact that to love as he loves us means loving everyone without distinction, even our enemies, “to the end” (cf John 13:1).

Witnesses to the love of Christ

I would like to linger for a moment on three areas of daily life where you, my dear young friends, are particularly called to demonstrate the love of God. The first area is the Church, our spiritual family, made up of all the disciples of Christ. Mindful of his words: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35), you should stimulate, with your enthusiasm and charity, the activities of the parishes, the communities, the ecclesial movements and the youth groups to which you belong. Be attentive in your concern for the welfare of others, faithful to the commitments you have made. Do not hesitate to joyfully abstain from some of your entertainments; cheerfully accept the necessary sacrifices; testify to your faithful love for Jesus by proclaiming his Gospel, especially among young people of your age.

Preparing for the future

The second area, where you are called to express your love and grow in it, is your preparation for the future that awaits you. If you are engaged to be married, God has a project of love for your future as a couple and as a family. Therefore, it is essential that you discover it with the help of the Church, free from the common prejudice that says that Christianity with its commandments and prohibitions places obstacles to the joy of love and impedes you from fully enjoying the happiness that a man and woman seek in their reciprocal love. The love of a man and woman is at the origin of the human family and the couple formed by a man and a woman has its foundation in God’s original plan (cf Genesis 2:18-25). Learning to love each other as a couple is a wonderful journey, yet it requires a demanding “apprenticeship”. The period of engagement, very necessary in order to form a couple, is a time of expectation and preparation that needs to be lived in purity of gesture and words. It allows you to mature in love, in concern and in attention for each other; it helps you to practise self-control and to develop your respect for each other. These are the characteristics of true love that does not place emphasis on seeking its own satisfaction or its own welfare. In your prayer together, ask the Lord to watch over and increase your love and to purify it of all selfishness. Do not hesitate to respond generously to the Lord’s call, for Christian matrimony is truly and wholly a vocation in the Church. Likewise, dear young men and women, be ready to say “yes” if God should call you to follow the path of ministerial priesthood or the consecrated life. Your example will be one of encouragement for many of your peers who are seeking true happiness.

Growing in love each day

The third area of commitment that comes with love is that of daily life with its multiple relationships. I am particularly referring to family, studies, work and free time. Dear young friends, cultivate your talents, not only to obtain a social position, but also to help others to “grow”. Develop your capacities, not only in order to become more “competitive” and “productive”, but to be “witnesses of charity”. In addition to your professional training, also make an effort to acquire religious knowledge that will help you to carry out your mission in a responsible way. In particular, I invite you to carefully study the social doctrine of the Church so that its principles may inspire and guide your action in the world. May the Holy Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be able to offer your contribution to the building up of the “civilisation of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!

'Dare to love' by following the example of the saints

My dear young friends, I want to invite you to "dare to love." Do not desire anything less for your life than a love that is strong and beautiful and that is capable of making the whole of your existence a joyful undertaking of giving yourselves as a gift to God and your brothers and sisters, in imitation of the One who vanquished hatred and death forever through love (cf Revelations 5:13). Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women, between rich and poor, between cultures and civilisations. This is shown to us in the lives of the saints. They are true friends of God who channel and reflect this very first love. Try to know them better, entrust yourselves to their intercession, and strive to live as they did. I shall just mention Mother Teresa. In order to respond instantly to the cry of Jesus, “I thirst,” a cry that had touched her deeply, she began to take in the people who were dying on the streets of Calcutta in India. From that time onward, the only desire of her life was to quench the thirst of love felt by Jesus, not with words, but with concrete action by recognising his disfigured countenance thirsting for love in the faces of the poorest of the poor. Blessed Teresa put the teachings of the Lord into practice: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). The message of this humble witness of divine love has spread around the whole world.

The secret of love

Each one of us, my dear friends, has been given the possibility of reaching this same level of love, but only by having recourse to the indispensable support of divine Grace. Only the Lord’s help will allow us to keep away from resignation when faced with the enormity of the task to be undertaken. It instills in us the courage to accomplish that which is humanly inconceivable. Above all, the Eucharist is the great school of love. When we participate regularly and with devotion in Holy Mass, when we spend a sustained time of adoration in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, it is easier to understand the length, breadth, height and depth of his love that goes beyond all knowledge (cf Epiphany 3:17-18). By sharing the Eucharistic Bread with our brothers and sisters of the Church community, we feel compelled, like Our Lady with Elizabeth, to render “in haste” the love of Christ into generous service towards our brothers and sisters.

Towards the encounter in Sydney

On this subject, the recommendation of the apostle John is illuminating: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth” (1 John 3: 18-19). Dear young people, it is in this spirit that I invite you to experience the next World Youth Day together with your bishops in your respective dioceses. This will be an important stage on the way to the meeting in Sydney where the theme will be: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). May Mary, the Mother of Christ and of the Church, help you to let that cry ring out everywhere, the cry that has changed the world: “God is love!” I am together with you all in prayer and extend to you my heartfelt blessing.

From the Vatican, 27 January 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2007

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

“They shall look on Him whom they have pierced” (Jn 19:37). This is the biblical theme that this year guides our Lenten reflection. Lent is a favourable time to learn to stay with Mary and John, the beloved disciple, close to Him who on the Cross, consummated for all mankind the sacrifice of His life (cf. Jn 19:25). With a more fervent participation let us direct our gaze, therefore, in this time of penance and prayer, at Christ crucified who, dying on Calvary, revealed fully for us the love of God. In the Encyclical Deus caritas est, I dwelt upon this theme of love, highlighting its two fundamental forms: agape and eros.

God’s love: agape and eros

The term agape, which appears many times in the New Testament, indicates the self-giving love of one who looks exclusively for the good of the other. The word eros, on the other hand, denotes the love of one who desires to possess what he or she lacks and yearns for union with the beloved. The love with which God surrounds us is undoubtedly agape. Indeed, can man give to God some good that He does not already possess? All that the human creature is and has is divine gift. It is the creature then, who is in need of God in everything. But God’s love is also eros. In the Old Testament, the Creator of the universe manifests toward the people whom He has chosen as His own a predilection that transcends every human motivation. The prophet Hosea expresses this divine passion with daring images such as the love of a man for an adulterous woman (cf. 3:1-3). For his part, Ezekiel, speaking of God’s relationship with the people of Israel, is not afraid to use strong and passionate language (cf. 16:1-22). These biblical texts indicate that eros is part of God’s very heart: the Almighty awaits the “yes” of His creatures as a young bridegroom that of his bride. Unfortunately, from its very origins, mankind, seduced by the lies of the Evil One, rejected God’s love in the illusion of a self-sufficiency that is impossible (cf. Gn 3:1-7). Turning in on himself, Adam withdrew from that source of life who is God Himself, and became the first of “those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage” (Heb 2:15). God, however, did not give up. On the contrary, man’s “no” was the decisive impulse that moved Him to manifest His love in all of its redeeming strength.

The Cross reveals the fullness of God’s love

It is in the mystery of the Cross that the overwhelming power of the heavenly Father’s mercy is revealed in all of its fullness. In order to win back the love of His creature, He accepted to pay a very high price: the blood of His only begotten Son. Death, which for the first Adam was an extreme sign of loneliness and powerlessness, was thus transformed in the supreme act of love and freedom of the new Adam. One could very well assert, therefore, together with Saint Maximus the Confessor, that Christ “died, if one could say so, divinely, because He died freely” (Ambigua, 91, 1956). On the Cross, God’s eros for us is made manifest. Eros is indeed – as Pseudo-Dionysius expresses it – that force “that does not allow the lover to remain in himself but moves him to become one with the beloved” (De divinis nominibus, IV, 13: PG 3, 712). Is there more “mad eros” (N. Cabasilas, Vita in Cristo, 648) than that which led the Son of God to make Himself one with us even to the point of suffering as His own the consequences of our offences?

“Him whom they have pierced”

Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced in the Cross! He is the unsurpassing revelation of God’s love, a love in which eros and agape, far from being opposed, enlighten each other. On the Cross, it is God Himself who begs the love of His creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us. The Apostle Thomas recognized Jesus as “Lord and God” when he put his hand into the wound of His side. Not surprisingly, many of the saints found in the Heart of Jesus the deepest expression of this mystery of love. One could rightly say that the revelation of God’s eros toward man is, in reality, the supreme expression of His agape. In all truth, only the love that unites the free gift of oneself with the impassioned desire for reciprocity instills a joy, which eases the heaviest of burdens. Jesus said: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself” (Jn 12:32). The response the Lord ardently desires of us is above all that we welcome His love and allow ourselves to be drawn to Him. Accepting His love, however, is not enough. We need to respond to such love and devote ourselves to communicating it to others. Christ “draws me to Himself” in order to unite Himself to me, so that I learn to love the brothers with His own love.

Blood and water

“They shall look on Him whom they have pierced.” Let us look with trust at the pierced side of Jesus from which flow “blood and water” (Jn 19:34)! The Fathers of the Church considered these elements as symbols of the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Through the water of Baptism, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, we are given access to the intimacy of Trinitarian love. In the Lenten journey, memorial of our Baptism, we are exhorted to come out of ourselves in order to open ourselves, in trustful abandonment, to the merciful embrace of the Father (cf. Saint John Chrysostom, Catecheses, 3,14ff). Blood, symbol of the love of the Good Shepherd, flows into us especially in the Eucharistic mystery: “The Eucharist draws us into Jesus’ act of self-oblation … we enter into the very dynamic of His self-giving” (Encyclical Deus caritas est, 13). Let us live Lent then, as a “Eucharistic” time in which, welcoming the love of Jesus, we learn to spread it around us with every word and deed. Contemplating “Him whom they have pierced” moves us in this way to open our hearts to others, recognizing the wounds inflicted upon the dignity of the human person; it moves us, in particular, to fight every form of contempt for life and human exploitation and to alleviate the tragedies of loneliness and abandonment of so many people. May Lent be for every Christian a renewed experience of God’s love given to us in Christ, a love that each day we, in turn, must “regive” to our neighbour, especially to the one who suffers most and is in need. Only in this way will we be able to participate fully in the joy of Easter. May Mary, Mother of Beautiful Love, guide us in this Lenten journey, a journey of authentic conversion to the love of Christ. I wish you, dear brothers and sisters, a fruitful Lenten journey, imparting with affection to all of you, a special Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 21 November 2006.

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

Theology on Tap planning continues

SFMYA has confirmed ST. John Baptist de la Salle Parish as the location for this year's Theology on Tap series which begins July 15.

We are working on promoting TOT. Our Web site is announcing the location and dates; however, work needs to be done on several of the site's pages. We also need to archive previous TOTs as well. So if you find that some things are out of place, don't worry, it will all be fixed soon.

The coordinating team is working on securing the speakers we have planned for the series. Other things we need to work on are food, hospitality and promotion.

We look forward to bringing you TOT again this year.