by Father John P. Cush

When I was a small boy growing up above Farrell’s Bar on 16th St. in Windsor Terrace, I always saw Easter as a second-class Christmas. I never could understand the concept of the Easter Bunny. He certainly was no match for the main man, Santa Claus. Plus, let’s face it, the Easter Bunny was kind of lame. We never received toys from the Easter Bunny. All we got was colored eggs. To be honest, even though my parents and teachers at Holy Name School told me about the real meaning of Easter, about the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the importance and understanding of the new life given to us from Jesus’ triumph over death never really sunk in my young cranium.
I always wondered about the colored eggs. A holiday where the best you could do is get a bunch of colored eggs really wasn’t for me. My sister used to get the Paas egg-dye kit and would do it for us on Holy Saturday. It sure was no Christmas.
As I grew older, I began to understand the importance of the Paschal Mystery of Christ and its central place in the Christian faith. An important aspect of that understanding came from being able to help prepare and to serve the Sacred Triduum at Cathedral Prep Seminary where I was a high school student. As a seminarian and as a priest, the highlight of my entire liturgical year was the Easter Vigil. I think back to the three times in my priesthood when I was blessed to be the principal celebrant of the great Nightwatch of the Lord’s Resurrection: once at St. Helen’s in Howard Beach, once at the Carmelite Monastery in Brooklyn and once at Cathedral Prep. But even after all these years, I never understood the significance of coloring those Easter eggs!
A few years ago, a parishioner of mine when I was assigned to St. Helen’s forwarded to me an interesting story tying the resurrection of the Lord into the coloring of Easter eggs. I’ll try to relay that great story because I believe it can tell us a great deal about the real meaning of Easter.
Like all good stories, it can begin with the phrase: “once upon a time.” So here’s my version of the story (I’d love to hear yours): Once upon a time, there was a man named Simon of Cyrene. He was a good and just man. He was visiting Jerusalem and was getting ready to celebrate the Passover of the Lord.
Well, Simon went to the market in the city to get provisions for the great feast. He picked up all the necessities for Passover including eggs. The eggs he bought were big, fresh brown eggs that could feed a whole family.

Looked Like Innocence Itself
As Simon went about his business, he noticed a big ruckus. There was a large cohort of Roman centurions, followed by a group of Jewish people, made up of Pharisees, Saduccees and curious people. In the middle of the crowd, another Jew, a gentle man, one who looked like innocence itself. This man with kind eyes was bloodied, his flesh covered in deep gashes and wounds. This man, whom Simon learned was named Jesus, was from Nazareth, and He was going to be crucified. He was a political insurrectionist, someone whom a large number of people thought might be the Messiah, the King of the Jews.
He could barely move and still was forced to bear the weight of His instrument of execution. Simon was mesmerized by the sight but wanted to look the other way, to get away from the whole ugly spectacle. As Simon was trying to leave, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. It was a Roman centurion, and he told Simon that he was recruited to help this Jesus, a convicted criminal, carry the cross.
Simon had to help this man carry the cross. He felt the eyes of all the crowd looking at him, walking alongside the criminal. But he looked into those gentle eyes of Jesus and knew that there was something special about this man. He knew He was innocent and, as they struggled along under the weight of the wood, Jesus told him His story and the Good News that He came to bring.
As they came to the horrible hill, Golgotha, Simon was pushed away from Jesus, but he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay by the side of the man he realized was the Messiah. Simon grew despondent, but Jesus looked at him and told him not to worry, that it would all work out. In three days, he should go back to the place that they met, and Jesus would leave him a sign.

A Rainbow of Colors
Simon left sad and broken and went home. Three days later, on Sunday morning, he realized that he left his bags in the city center. He ran to the place where he was recruited into service, and he saw his food untouched. In the bag were his eggs, no longer brown and rough but beautifully arranged with all the colors of the rainbow, the sign of the Covenant that God had made with Noah all those years ago. Simon knew that his new friend, Jesus, was all right and that everything was going to work out. Later that day, he heard stories from friends that Jesus’ tomb was empty and that others were saying they saw Him walking on the road to Emmaus.
So, I guess the coloring of Easter eggs is something spiritual after all: a sign of new life, the new Covenant sealed in the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Easter may not have the same perks of Santa and all the presents, but it still has some pretty cool stuff after all! Let me know your version of the story of the Easter eggs!

Readings for The Mass of Easter Sunday: The Resurrection of the Lord
Acts 10: 34a, 37-43
Psalm 118: 1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Colossians 3: 1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5: 6b-8
John 20: 1-9 or Luke 24: 1-12 or Luke 24: 13-35

Father John P. Cush, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a doctoral student in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

by Father Robert Lauder

11th in a series

In re-reading Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011, pp. 362), I found some of the statements that the Holy Father makes about the Risen Christ especially interesting. Reflecting on my own experience of receiving religious instruction from grammar school right through college, I think that the mystery of the Resurrection was greatly neglected.

An historian of theology, I suspect, could explain in detail how this happened, but whatever the reason, this central mystery of Christianity should never be neglected in any presentation of the Christian faith.

In discussing the appearances of Christ after the Resurrection, Pope Benedict points out that the apostles don’t seem to recognize the Lord immediately. When they do recognize Him, the Holy Father suggests that they recognize Him from within rather than recognizing Him from His physical appearance. The pope suggests that there is a kind of dialectic of recognition and non-recognition.

He writes the following:

“This dialectic of recognition and non-recognition corresponds to the manner of the apparitions. Jesus comes through closed doors; he suddenly stands in their midst. And in the same way he suddenly withdraws again, as at the end of the Emmaus encounter. His presence is entirely physical, yet he is not bound by physical laws, by the laws of space and time. In this remarkable dialectic of identity and otherness, of real physicality and freedom from the constraints of the body, we see the special mysterious nature of the risen Lord’s new existence. Both elements apply here: he is the same embodied man, and he is the new man, having entered upon a different manner of existence.” (p. 266)

The type of existence that the Risen Lord has passed into is very mysterious to us. I suggest that the dialectic of recognition and non-recognition can be a help to us as we allow our relationship with Christ to develop. We have the Scriptures to guide us and the sacraments to aid us so that there may be times when we are very aware of the presence of Christ in our lives.

In my own life, I find that during some moments when I am praying, the Risen Lord is very real to me. At some other times, I am not aware of His presence. That does not mean He is not present but that I may not be focusing on His presence. That Christ is not bound by physical laws means that He can be present everywhere, that there is not a moment when He forgets us or neglects us. Christ’s conquest of death is a victory for Love.

Commenting on the way that God enters into the lives of people, the Holy Father writes the following:

“It is part of the mystery of God that he acts so gently, that he only gradually builds up his history within the great history of mankind; that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by his contemporaries and by the decisive forces within history; that he suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses to come to mankind only through the faith of the disciples to whom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently at the doors of our hearts and slowly opens our eyes if we open our doors to him.

“And yet – is not this the truly divine way? Not to overwhelm with external power, but to give freedom, to offer and elicit love.” (p. 276)

I believe deeply that giving freedom is the divine way.

Reflecting on the mystery of the Risen Christ in our lives and reading some contemporary Catholic theology, I have come to believe when people die in union with the Risen Christ they enter a new way of existence. They are wherever the Risen Christ is.

For example, I believe that when I celebrate the Eucharist tomorrow morning, my deceased father, mother and sister will be present. I don’t mean that they will be present only in my memory. I mean that they will really be present as will the Blessed Mother and all the saints. Of course it is impossible to imagine this – billions of people standing around the altar!

But I no longer think, as I once did, of the death of our loved ones as a separation from us. I believe that when our loved ones die in union with the Risen Christ they are closer to us than ever. Obviously, we cannot see them or touch them or hear them speak. Still, I believe that they are present. This is part of what the Risen Christ’s victory over death means. This is part of what Love’s victory over death means.

by Father Frank Mann

News agencies throughout the world recently captured Manila’s newly elevated Cardinal Luis Tagle crying soon after he was installed. Equally moving was the Holy Father offering a loving and supportive “touch” to Cardinal Tagle when he cradled his face with his hand.
Asked why he became emotional after receiving his ring and red biretta from Pope Benedict, Cardinal Tagle told the news agencies, “I cry easily.”
The cardinal said, “I guess when you’re before a great mystery that you know is beyond you – a calling, a grace, a mission – then you tremble and at the same time you’re happy.”

New Cardinal Luis Tagle of Manila wipes away tears after being made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI during a consistory in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Nov. 24. The pope created six new cardinals from four different continents, representing the Latin rite as well as two Eastern Catholic Churches. Photo © CNS/Paul Haring

The Lord was likewise troubled by the approach of His own death: “My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death.”
We find in the Scriptures, “And being in agony, he was praying fervently; and his sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground.”
Jesus says, “The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me.” He cried for God to remove the cup of suffering. Three times Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
The Gospels record on numerous occasions that our Blessed Lord was distressed, deeply grieved, terribly frightened and in great agony. It is unquestionable that He fully embraced our sorrows and fears. In Hebrews, we find, “In the days of his flesh, he offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his piety.”
Jesus was, as recorded, a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”
There are occasions when Jesus describes Himself as joyful as well. He states, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
The Lord also expressed frustration and anger on many occasions.
When He expelled the money changers out of the temple in Jerusalem at the Passover, the Gospel of John records: “He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, He said, ‘Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!’”
We are likewise reminded of Jesus’ interactions with the religious leaders of His day. He was intensely angered by the callous legalism of the Pharisees. These religious leaders were more committed to fulfilling the letter of the law than to making a difference in the lives of others.
The emotion that is most ascribed to Jesus is that of compassion. We find in the Scriptures a plethora of such references:
“Being moved with compassion (for a leper), Jesus stretched out His hand, and touched him, and said to him – ‘Be cleansed.’”
Moved with compassion, Jesus touched the eyes of the two blind men.
When the Lord saw a bereaved widow wailing for her dead son, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, “Do not weep.”
Beholding the multitudes of people, the Scriptures explain that our Blessed Savior felt compassion for them, because “…they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.”
The powerful message of this blessed season of Advent is that our God has fully immersed Himself in the human condition by becoming one of us. The Almighty did not shield himself from fear, grief, suffering, tears, joy or compassion. Instead, the mystery of “the Word made flesh” is that the Creator and Lord of All comes to us in the person of Jesus and fully embraces a kaleidoscope of human emotions. 
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the definitive model of perfect spirituality and emotional maturity. We likewise enter into the mystery of His divine life when we try to live authentic and unpretentious lives – when we cease “playing” God and are emboldened in being genuinely true to ourselves.

Father Mann is assigned to the staff of the DeSales Media Group. He resides in St. Sebastian’s rectory, Woodside.

ROME (CNS) – Biblical scholars are putting little credence in the authenticity of a newly published text containing a reference to Jesus’ “wife.”

But the tiny papyrus fragment, purportedly dating to the fourth century A.D., is being used to stir a debate about the Church’s attitudes toward marriage, sex and the role of women.

The fragment of papyrus with eight lines of Egyptian Coptic writing is the “only extant ancient text which explicitly portrays Jesus as referring to a wife,” wrote Karen L. King, historian of Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, in an academic paper she delivered Sept. 18 at an international Coptic studies conference in Rome.

“It does not, however, provide evidence that the historical Jesus was married,” she wrote, “given the late date of the fragment and the probable date of original composition,” at the end of the second century.

The best source of evidence giving an account of Jesus’ life and ministry is still the Gospels in the New Testament, King told reporters the next day, “and they are silent about his marital status.”

But she said the fragment is “direct evidence” that early Christians started debating in the second century whether Jesus could have been married or not.

Father Juan Chapa, a New Testament scholar at the University of Navarra in Spain, told Catholic News Service that the “Gospels don’t mention marriage, not because they wanted to hide something, but because it was clear that Jesus did not get married, and it’s consistent in the church’s tradition.”

He also noted that the gnostic gospel genre to which the fragment evidently belongs is one of the stories about Jesus that mainly take place after the resurrection, using language that is heavily allegorical. Thus, he said, the fragment’s relevant words — “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife’” — were likely not meant as a literal assertion about the life of the historical Jesus.

King said that the significance of the fragment lies in the light it might shed on debates in the early church over the necessity of celibacy to living a holy life.

According to Michael Peppard, a professor of theology and Coptic language at Fordham University, a belief in asceticism saw rapid development in the second to fourth centuries, especially in Egypt where Christian monasticism was born.

Some bishops at the time “were saying that the highest ideal was asceticism,” which included renouncing “all the trappings and worries of material life,” including marriage.

But Peppard said other bishops in the same period “were figuring out how to give everyone their space,” and letting it be known it was all right for Christians to live in the world.

The new text published by King may be a sign of early Christians “pushing back” against asceticism and moving closer to mainstream Jewish attitudes “of blessing sex and procreation,” Peppard said.

Catholic teaching, Father Chapa said, holds that “Jesus’ celibacy, by differentiating him from other rabbis, underlines his unique mission to fulfill the kingdom of God, and shows how he embodied the love of God” by renouncing conjugal love.

King said the reference to Jesus’ wife could just be a symbol of the Church, akin to the Gospel allegory of Jesus as bridegroom of the Church.

“What if what’s missing is saying, ‘My wife is the church?’”King said.

But both Peppard and King argue that the word does refer to a real person, since the line just below it includes the words: “…she will be able to be my disciple…”

The “wife” in question could be a “spiritual wife,” Peppard said. Other texts from the same period uphold “the image of an unconsummated spiritual marriage where the best kind of husband and wife live celibately,” he said.

King acknowledged that there would be continued debate over the authenticity of the fragment, whose paper trail goes back only to the 1980s.

“I would say it’s a forgery,” Alin Suciu, a papyrologist at the University of Hamburg who was attending the conference with King, told the Associated Press. “The script doesn’t look authentic” compared to other fourth-century Coptic papyri.

But Roger Bagnall, a papyrologist and director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University, studied the handwriting, the grammar and how the ink was absorbed by the plant fibers, and he concluded it was likely to date from the period between 350 and 400 A.D.

“We can’t ever know or be 100 percent sure if it’s authentic or a forgery,” Peppard said.

by Father Thomas Catania

FAMOUS FOR SAYING, among other things, that “anyone who dislikes children and dogs can’t be all bad,” W.C. Fields has gone down in our dark comic tradition as one of the great curmudgeons; we may forgive that acid remark, but that is only because we won’t take it altogether seriously. Not like dogs? Well, maybe. But not like children? Why, that’s unnatural! (Although ask a kindergarten teacher on a January afternoon at 1:30, and see what you get.)

We are habituated to picturing the chubby-cheeked cherub of art and developing a mist in our corneas. So we may assume that the image of the Gospel today — Jesus “taking a little child into their midst” and saying “[w]hoever welcomes a little child such as this … welcomes me” — must be reinforcing that instinct that sees the child as the lovable innocent. The image then also reinforces a picture of Jesus Himself as a lovable innocent — an image that does not tally with the Gospel image of His blunt directness, His prophetic energy and His defiance of the powers-that-be, which resulted in His execution.

If we are to get this story straight — and draw from it what Mark intends — we have to put aside the image of the chubby-cheeked child and, with it, the inappropriate (for this passage, at least) image of Jesus as the naïve innocent.

It is true that Mark’s Jesus is, like the author of James, castigating the “jealousy and strife,” the “conflicts and disputes,” the “quarrel[s] and fight[s]” represented by the disciples’ contending about “who [of them] was the most important,” and thus anticipating the “envy” that plagues every human society — including the Church — that has ever existed. It is also true that James’ words identify “[w]isdom from above” as “innocent.” But James is speaking of the nature of God and calling God “innocent” does not mean to depict the Almighty as a chubby-cheeked naïf. Rather, the “innocence” to which James alludes is the deliberate will, inherent in God, never to harm or hurt but rather, always, to fill with life and with a share of His own limitless vitality. Quite simply, God is never envious and therefore never has recourse to the cheap tricks we humans use to “get back” at one another when “[w]hat [we] desire [we] do not obtain … [we] cannot acquire.” None of that characterizes the God of Israel, the God of Jesus, and it does not characterize Jesus. It is not naïvete, but the deliberate will to invest with new life that marks the Jesus of the Gospels. It is His conscious decision to go toward the cross — to “give his life as a ransom for the many” — that constitutes His “innocence.”

Now, back to this little kid in the Gospel. If you insist, he or she is an “innocent” but a most remarkable “innocent” — one who deliberately wills to eradicate the envy and jealousy that generate conflict and who instead wants to invest other people with a new, godlike vitality. (Forgive me, but at one point I worked with first-graders and, no, what I have written doesn’t describe what I remember.) Such an “innocent” is a miraculous presence, a gust of energy, a vital spirit that transforms whatever is around him or her. Ah! Now you’re getting it: This little kid is a figure of Jesus. Mark’s Jesus can “wrap his arms” around the child, because the child and He are one.

But there is a reason why this lesson is addressed to the disciples, who, like you and me, give in to odd and irrelevant discussions about who is most important. The child, who is a figure of Jesus, draws his or her identity from his or her begetter — Jesus has His identity from the Father, just as a child has his or hers from the parents who gave him or her birth. The analogy is plain: A real disciple takes his or her identity from Jesus, just as Jesus takes His from God. The Almighty “who deliberately wills to invest with new life” all who come to Him, the God of the covenant, is the identity of Jesus. The “innocence” of the Almighty God, though scoffed at and, as James notes “murdered,” when it was manifest in the “innocent” Jesus, must be what characterizes the disciple. The real disciple has no identity, no energy, no vitality that does not somehow point back to Jesus. The disciple, like a child drawing his identity from his parent, draws his identity, nature and behavior from Jesus.

Today, we might use DNA or parental nurturing to suggest that there is something built into the child to continue his or her parents’ character. Mark probably would have found our language more confusing than we find his simple picture. The arrow, however, in both cases lands closely on the same bull’s-eye: Disciples, the “children of the Father,” as Jesus is the Child of the Father, are, if we are really disciples, “innocent” as Jesus is. We are infused (through baptism by the spirit of the Father) with a “will to invest with new life” those who are part of our life story.

That brings us back to W.C. Fields. (Oh?) Why would anyone dislike children, especially if they are “disciples of Jesus?”

Two thoughts: “Disciples” of Jesus “want to invest” people with life — with a sense of their value in God’s eyes, with a conviction that faith (a relationship with God) dignifies and enhances them as persons. Do we, as a rule, bring people to sense that they have that dignity simply because they are God’s creation, or do we tend to castigate and criticize as though we were the prophets and not the disciples of the Arch-Prophet? Then, do we go back, with humble consistency, to the “wisdom from above” so as to ensure that we are representing in our words and actions the Father of Jesus, who was prepared to see His Child not “be served, but serve” and “to give his life as a ransom for the many.”

How evident are Jesus’ characteristics in us “children” who say we are His disciples?

Readings for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20

Psalm 54: 3-4, 5, 6 and 8

James 3:16 – 4:3

Mark 9: 30-37

by Father John Cush

I have to admit that I hate going to the doctor. I am the very worst type of patient. One might describe me as a doctor’s nightmare. I am the living epitome of the old adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Armed with the Internet and with watching too many medical dramas on television, at the first sign of an illness, I suddenly become a combination of Dr. House and Dr. Welby. When I finally get the courage to go to the doctor, fueled usually by a combination of fear and exhaustion, I expect the worst and, thanks be to God, I am usually wrong. Usually, it takes my family and friends to actually get me to go to the doctor!

In today’s Gospel, taken from the Evangelist Mark, we see the divine physician, Jesus Christ, our Lord, in action. Jesus heals not only one but two people from their illnesses, thus revealing Himself a little bit more to be the Messiah as well as engendering faith in the crowds who watch these two healings.

In the healing of the daughter of the synagogue official, Jarius’ daughter, we see a tremendous event: Christ raises this child from her illness unto death. Jarius goes to the Lord to ask for the healing of his daughter. In the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage for 12 years, we see that the Lord’s very presence, a mere casual encounter is enough for healing for the one who has faith. The woman brings herself to Jesus and experiences his healing.

Notice that in the first case, someone has to bring Jesus to the sick in order to effect the healing. Jarius goes and seeks the Lord, not for himself, but for his poor, sick daughter. In the second case, the woman with the hemorrhage actually gets the courage to go to the Lord for her cure.

Both bringing someone to Jesus as well as bringing ourselves to Jesus are essential aspects of a mature spiritual life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, whose publication was now almost 20 years ago and which stills remains exactly what Blessed John Paul II describes it – “a sure norm for teaching the faith” – describes both of these aspects in its section on prayer.

In the Catechism, part four, section three, chapter one, article three, numbers 2324-2326, we hear about the power of intercessory prayer. We learn that intercessory prayer permits us to pray as Jesus does. When we go to the Lord, through the power and gift of intercessory prayer, we exercise the priestly power of our baptism. We, each in our own ways, assist the Lord in acting as mediator with him.

We should not be frightened to bring the needs of others before the Lord. We should not fear to lay the needs of others before our good and loving gentle Lord. We should feel free to lay down our burdens on the one who bears the sorrows and the burdens of the whole world, Christ our Lord.

A dear friend who serves as a director of religious education used to say when she would lead prayer at meetings with parents the following beautiful expression of faith: “Give your problems, your fears, your worries, your anxieties to Jesus now. They’ll all still be waiting for you when you leave, but maybe, just maybe they’ll feel a little lighter.”

The key, I think, is found in a simple, short little line found in today’s Gospel from Mark: “Do not be afraid. Just have faith.”

Easy to say, hard to do. Do we believe that Jesus wants to heal us? Do we believe that Jesus loves us enough to help us? Do we believe that we are worthy to be helped by Jesus?

The truth is, Jesus wants to help us; He wants to heal us. It is within his very nature to desire this for us. His name means “God saves” and that is precisely what Jesus does for us. We are, in and of ourselves, not worthy of such great love.

However, we are made worthy, through Him, with Him and in Him. His arms are open wide on the cross in an embrace of love for you and me. He desires only our good.

Who have we brought to Jesus lately? Have we brought ourselves to Jesus, the Doctor of our Souls, lately? The power of intercession, that power that Jesus exhibited in his earthy ministry and that continues now with Him in glory, is shared with us. May we always have the courage to pray for this grace.

Wisdom 1,13-15; 2, 23-24 2

Corinthians 8, 7; 9, 13-15

Mark 5, 21-24,35-43

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

On Sunday, we will celebrate the annual Catechetical Sunday, a day on which we remember our responsibility to transmit the faith to others, especially the next generation.  The theme of this year’s celebration is, “Do this in memory of me.”  These are the words that conclude the consecration, the words of the Lord Himself, which remind us of the great truth that has been handed on to us.  By doing what Jesus did, we make Him present to ourselves in the Eucharistic celebration.  Jesus took bread and wine, said the customary blessing, and did something very different.  He proclaimed the bread and wine to be His own body and blood to be poured out for the salvation of the world.  It is this fact that we must transmit to the world for succeeding generations.

The faith, as has been said, is caught, not taught. How important witness is to the transmission of the faith. While instruction is our means of witness many times, we must live the faith so that others might truly come to believe. Recently, the experience of World Youth Day in Madrid was a great witness to me of the vibrant faith of almost two million young people from around the world who do believe and are convinced that what we do in the memory of the Lord makes Him present to us today.

The first and foremost place of witness and instruction is the family. No one can teach or witness as well as the family. This is our problem today as families lack  stability and cohesion. As the time that is spent together is lessened, the ability to transmit the faith has suffered terribly.  We must do whatever is in our power to restore the ability of families to transmit the faith to their children.  It is, however, our culture, and in part the vast expansion of social media today, that seems to dictate what people come to believe is essential to their lives.  As a consequence, we must use every means available to us, especially the media and social networks, to bring the faith to the members of a new and ever hungry generation that seeks meaning and value in their lives.

In the past, a good majority of our children attended Catholic schools, mainly staffed by Religious sisters and brothers.  This is no longer the case.  Our laity make up the vast majority of Catholic school teachers, but our children are not attending in the numbers that they have in the past. Therefore, we must double our efforts to make our religious education programs stronger, not only in quality, but also in quantity.  As we look to the quality of our religious education, our Secretariat for Catholic Education and Formation, under the direction of Sister Angela Gannon, C.S.J., is working on expanding and improving the training opportunities available to our catechetical teachers, both in Catholic schools and religious education programs.

One of the frontiers yet to be challenged is the children who attend public schools who not currently under instruction. It has been estimated that at least 100,000 young people who are baptized Catholics are not attending instruction in our parish programs today. The Secretariat for Catholic Education and Formation is working on a plan for outreach. Many times this may mean working with parent associations in public schools which can inform others of the availability of religious education, and perhaps even a revival of our released-time program which largely has fallen into disuse for many valid reasons.

One of the new initiatives we have begun as part of the Elizabeth Anne Seton Trust is the giving of grants to parishes that request them for a three-year period to improve their religious education programs, which would include the hiring of trained staff.  This initiative is one that I have long sought. Now I will be able to live up to that promise through the wonderful compliance of our parishes with their contributions to the Elizabeth Anne Seton Trust which assists Catholic education in general, and will now include religious education programs.

A further concern that we must deal with is the recently mandated sex education programs in our public schools. We have requested from the New York City Board of Education the curriculum to be inserted into the teaching of the public schools, but have yet to receive that curriculum. As I have stated publicly, however, we will assist our parents in public schools to assert their parental rights regarding opting out of the program or modifying it once we have received the curriculum.

In no way are we against sex education. However, this is the responsibility of the family which at times can employ others to assist them and no one can take away that right. The reasons given, unfortunately, for reinstituting mandatory sex education are hardly valid and may even be considered racist since they have focused on the inability of black and Hispanic families to convey sexual education to their children. This well meaning but inefficient approach to the communication of values is something we cannot tolerate. Information about sexual activity will not give young people a value system that will allow them to integrate sexual activity into their personalities. It will, however, encourage them to experiment in what the culture tells them is inevitable.

Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we put out into the deep because we repeat the words of Jesus and say “Do this in memory of me.”  There is much that we do in the memory of Jesus, but we must teach as He did with wisdom, understanding and effectiveness. Join me as we celebrate this Catechetical Sunday to pray that our efforts in communicating and transmitting the faith will be blessed by the Lord and will be effective here in Brooklyn and Queens.