Fr. Timothy M. Alkire, Pastor
“Yes, God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost but may have eternal life. For God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved.” St. John 3:16-17
“The gaze of the Church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of His boundless love.” Pope John Paul in Ecclesia de Eucharistia – On The Eucharist and Its Relationship to the Church
On two other occasions, I had the joy to write pastoral letters to you, my much-loved parishioners: first at the opening of the Jubilee Year 2000 and secondly, at its closing.
Who can imagine the great graces God showered on us all during that blessed Jubilee Year proclaimed by Pope John Paul II? Who can doubt God will continue to shower us with His loving favor?
I come to you now for a third time as we celebrate another auspicious milestone in the pontificate of our beloved Pope John Paul. Our Holy Father has proclaimed, as a great gift to the entire universal Church, a year most especially focused on the greatest gift of the Eucharist – the true Body and Blood of Our Lord. This year is a great opportunity for each and every one of us to grow more deeply and passionately in love with Jesus by pondering deeply His love for us first.
And as the love of Jesus grows in us more firmly, there is an even greater possibility of that love overflowing from this community of faith, to the whole world, wherever Jesus sends us, wherever He needs us.
As I write these words, I am conscious of the great honor and privilege it is to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in your midst. I never fail to recognize the great love of the people of this parish for their Eucharistic Lord at Mass, with an active participation that is very edifying, at Adoration and Benediction where even the youngest are brought to bid their Love goodnight, and by your ongoing commitment to the Perpetual Adoration of Our Lord at St. Elizabeth chapel from whence has flowed miraculous graces – even the restoration of a priest’s vocation.
I cannot fail to mention here my gratitude for those who cooperate so faithfully and worthily with the Church’s liturgy here at St. Boniface: those entrusted with the direction and execution of the sacred music, the extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, the lectors, altar servers and all those who labor so faithfully with little public recognition.
As I write this letter, I choose my words with a certain tenderness and care that reflects the constant care this parish has showered on me and the priests who serve with me. Only God Himself understands the gratitude I offer every day for the years spent with you on our mutual pilgrimage of Faith.
As we celebrate this Year of the Eucharist until next October, I think constantly of the great opportunity God is giving us at this moment of the parish history to advance in holiness – to become great saints. In his encyclical letter to the Church throughout the world, meant to guide our hearts through the Eucharistic year, Pope John Paul II leads us to meditate on the real possibility of holiness, because of the undeniable fact that Our Lord Jesus stays with us every step of our lives.
“Stay with us Lord, for it is almost evening.” ( St. Luke 24:29 ), the two disciples implored Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Their hearts, troubled by His crucifixion which had just occurred, failed to recognize Him immediately. The risen Christ revealed Himself only later, in the “breaking of the bread,” ( St. Luke 24:35 ). And in His Presence, they found great comfort and consolation: “Did not our hearts burn within us as He talked to us on the road…? ( St. Luke 24:32 )
Our Holy Father in his letter, Mane Nobiscum Domine – Stay With Us Lord gives us once again as a parish family, the key to holiness and personal fulfillment – a deep understanding that from the beginning our destiny is bound to the person of Jesus:
“Jesus Christ stands at the center not just of the history of the Church, but also the history of humanity. In Him, humanity finds redemption and fulfillment.” (MND 6,2-3)
As individuals, we all approach Jesus in a deeply personal way. In our individual vocations and diverse circumstances, we approach Him as individual members of His One Body, with the corporate vocation of fulfilling the tasks and duties of our own place in life, of our mission in the Church and in society with the greatest possible perfection for the greater honor and glory of God. We have great faith that God will send each of us where He needs us – to home, factory, farm, school, convent, rectory – to every part of His creation, so that we might be His living witnesses and carriers of His Eternal Truth until the end of time.
In this living out our personal vocations and in the community life of our parish, we recognize we can do nothing fruitful without the perpetual Presence of Jesus. We were created for this union. For this union we have a great hunger, and so many times even when we do not realize for what it is we’re hungering.
“When the disciples on the way to Emmaus asked Jesus to stay ‘with’ them, He responded by giving them a much greater gift: through the Sacrament of the Eucharist He found a way to stay ‘in’ them. Receiving the Eucharist means entering into a profound communion with Jesus. ‘Abide in me, and I in you’ (St. John 15:4). This relationship of profound and mutual ‘abiding’ enables us to have a certain foretaste of heaven on earth. Is this not the greatest of human yearnings? Is this not what God had in mind when He brought about in history His plan of salvation? God has placed in human hearts a ‘hunger’ for His word (cf Amos 8:11), a hunger which will be satisfied only by full union with Him. Eucharistic communion was given so that we might be ‘sated’ with God here on earth, in expectation of our complete fulfillment in heaven.” (MND, 19)
Until that moment of complete union in heaven, we must make the time in our busy schedules for Jesus, in expectation of our future complete oneness with Him. There will be many things intervening in our lives to try to persuade us that we do not have time to offer Jesus. Most especially, the press of our daily business or work may have the effect of pushing Christ to the edges, the margins of our lives. In that way, we offer Jesus “leftovers” which can be squeezed in, the marginal time, the weary time.
But we have been created for Him, for intimacy with Him, for union with Him! Our work is the means to provide our sustenance and our dignity, but we have been created first for Him! We should all strive to do our work with human perfection – the competence God gave us to do it, and with Christian perfection, for love of God’s Will and as a service to mankind. No matter how insignificant or dull our work may seem, work done with this focus helps to shape the world where we are, in a Christian way. Our work, no matter how humble or grand can be incorporated into God’s work of creation and His ongoing work of redemption. Our work or schedules should never become an excuse, however, for avoiding the purpose of our creation – union with God.
Following the teaching of Pope John Paul, I offer some points to ponder for the fruitful parish celebration of this Year of the Eucharist. And when I write fruitful, I mean a year that will leave us hungrier for God, more confirmed in His Grace, closer to heaven and without doubt, more deeply in love with Him.
First, let’s all redouble our efforts in prayer. Prayer is life-giving conversation with God.
“Amid our questions and difficulties, and even our bitter disappointments, the divine Wayfarer continues to walk at our side, opening to us the Scriptures and leading us to a deeper understanding of the mysteries of God.” (MND, 2)
In prayer we share with God our deepest hopes, our needs spiritual and temporal, our temptations, our joys. We praise Him and adore Him. In prayer God answers us with a share of His Divine Life – Grace. Prayer is a natural and supernatural exchange between God and His children almost too much for our minds to comprehend: we speak to Him in the ways a human can, and God responds as God always responds -- directly to our souls, sharing with us His own Life, and all the fruits that flow from that sharing. We increase in faith, hope and charity and if we are open, we realize a profound deepening in our love and affection for Him.
A very excellent prayer to draw us to ponder deeply the lives of Jesus and our Blessed Mother is the rosary. As we consider the Glorious, Joyful, Sorrowful and Luminous events in the lives of Our Lord and Our Mother while reciting the prayers, we are drawn into the significance of these events, not only in the lives of Jesus and Mary, but in our own lives as well. In other words, how does the Resurrection not only impact my life, but how is it crucial to my salvation? How does the Annunciation not only give hope to the whole world, but to me personally? How does the Agony in the Garden help me spiritually, really, in moments when I suffer the daily crosses in my life, seemingly alone? How does the Institution of the Eucharist feed me completely, and through me others?
Our Holy Father calls Mary, “…a woman of the Eucharist in her whole life.” ( EE, 53 ) She leads us surely and safely into the profound depth of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for us. To know the Son, we must first know the Mother. John Paul expresses the importance of the rosary during the Eucharistic Year:
“This traditional prayer, so highly recommended by the Magisterium (the teaching office of the Church) and so dear to the People of God has a markedly biblical and evangelical character, focused on the name and the face of Jesus as contemplated in the mysteries and by the repetition of the ‘Hail Mary.’
(MND, 9)
Let me also take the opportunity this letter offers me to invite you once again to consecration to our Blessed Mother. In consecration, we freely give ourselves over to the Immaculata’s patronage, protection and Motherly intercession as she leads us by prayer and loving example, to imitate her life as pattern of our human holiness. Our Mother teaches us by her complete surrender to God that it is possible to love Him without limits and thereby to offer to Him His own gift to us: our very lives. What a joy that we will celebrate the 150 th anniversary of the proclamation this December 8 th , of her Immaculate Conception. At our special Mass of Thanksgiving for the Feast that evening, I encourage all who are already consecrated to her to join us in a parish-wide reconsecrating, and for those who are not yet consecrated to her, to entrust themselves to her on that most appropriate night of nights.
I encourage all parishioners, and all who come here, to a tender reunion with their Mother every month in her Village of the Immaculata, and to a tender visit welcoming her into the home in the Schoenstatt shrines now blessing so many families with her Motherly company, traveling as our humble Mother traveled centuries ago to Bethlehem – quietly and lovingly. Mary’s role in God’s plan of salvation may never be underestimated, as in her constant Eucharistic faith:
“In a certain sense Mary lived her Eucharistic faith even before the institution of the Eucharist, by the very fact that she offered her virginal womb for the Incarnation of God’s Word. The Eucharist, while commemorating the passion and resurrection, is also in continuity with the incarnation. At the Annunciation, Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of His Body and Blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord’s Body and Blood.”
(EE, 55,1)
The Pope so clearly teaches us that receiving Our Lord in the Eucharist takes us to the school of surrender, the school of our Blessed Mother.
“Experiencing the memorial of Christ’s death in the Eucharist also means continually receiving this gift. It means accepting – like John – the one who is given to us anew as our Mother. It also means taking on a commitment to be conformed to Christ, putting ourselves at the school of His Mother and allowing her to accompany us. Mary is present, with the Church and as the Mother of the Church, at each of our celebrations of the Eucharist. If the Church and the Eucharist are inseparably united, the same ought to be said of Mary and the Eucharist.” (EE, 57, 2)
During this Year of the Eucharist, let’s also develop an ever-deeper love for the Eucharist in the Holy Mass. Pope John Paul clearly teaches the centrality of the Mass in our lives as Roman Catholics.
“The ‘breaking of bread’ – as the Eucharist was called in earliest times – has always been at the center of the Church’s life. Through it Christ makes present within time the mystery of His death and resurrection. In it He is received in person as the ‘living bread come down from heaven’ (St. John 6:51), and with Him we receive the pledge of eternal life and a foretaste of the eternal banquet of the heavenly Jerusalem.” (MND, 3)
How intimately Jesus reaches out to us, offers us intimate and tender union with Himself in His own Body and Blood. In his encyclical letter for the Jubilee Year, the Pope again emphasizes the magnitude of this Gift of all Gifts.
“…in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, the Savior, who took flesh in Mary’s womb twenty centuries ago, continues to offer Himself to humanity as the source of divine life.” (Tertio Millenio Adveniente – As the Third Millennium Draws Near, 55)
Might it be possible, as we continue this intense year of pilgrimage focused on the Eucharist, to attend Mass more frequently? Might it be possible to attend Mass at least one time during the week, in addition to fulfilling our Lord’s Day “obligation?” Might it be possible to attend Mass on the First Friday of every month, as I’ve witnessed some of our youth doing, thereby receiving Holy Communion with Love Himself, and inheriting His great promise to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the famous 17 th century vision: “The all-powerful love of My Heart will grant to all those who shall receive Communion on the First Friday of nine consecutive months the grace of final repentance; they shall not die under my displeasure, nor without receiving their Sacraments; My Heart shall be their assured refuge at that last hour.”
Even one extra Mass during the week will cause a great growth in our spiritual lives preparing us for our glorious destiny with Him, as our Holy Father explains.
“…while the Eucharist makes present what occurred in the past, it also impels us toward the future, when Christ will come again at the end of history…this makes the Sacrament of the Eucharist an event which draws us into itself and fills our Christian journey with hope.” (MND, 15, 2)
The Pope has emphasized again and again that indeed, the Mass should have the central place in our lives.
“Holy Mass needs to be set at the center of the Christian life and celebrated in a dignified manner by every community, in accordance with established norms, with the participation of the assembly…and with a serious concern that singing and liturgical music be suitably ‘sacred.’” (MND, 17)
Even daily Mass would not be impossible for some, and the time well-spent with Our Lord, truly present in His Sacrifice, making ourselves completely available to Him, uniting ourselves to Him as completely as possible here on earth, will without any doubt produce great fruit in our particular vocations, but most especially in our families. A family nourished frequently with the Body and Blood of Our Lord will no doubt experience all of the challenges of a modern society constantly in battle with unchanging Truth, but will also receive all the strength necessary to persevere in virtue and even heroic love.
If ever there was an age in need of Christian heroism it is now. The Eucharist creates, guides and sustains heroic love – even when that love is surrounded by a culture of death. Have faith! God is stronger!
As John Paul II teaches us, in the Eucharist, the Father establishes fellowship with us.
“The Eucharist was born, on the evening of Holy Thursday, in the setting of the Passover meal…As such, it expresses the fellowship which God wishes to establish with us and which we ourselves must build with one another.”
(MND, 15)
Thus, any good we do outside the church building comes from our participation in the Eucharist. When I see the many good deeds flowing from the charity of the parishioners of St. Boniface: visiting the sick, bringing Holy Communion to shut-ins, building homes for the poor, ministering to the grieving, sharing the burdens of those hard pressed by life, I experience the joy of knowing that your goodness flows from your intimate Communion with Jesus.
“Once we have truly met the Risen One by partaking of His Body and Blood, we cannot keep to ourselves the joy we have experienced. The encounter with Christ, constantly intensified and deepened in the Eucharist, issues in the Church and in every Christian an urgent summons to testimony and evangelization.” (MND24)
We are sent forth from the Mass to do our part to establish here and now the reign of Jesus Christ our True King. The fruit of our Holy Communion with Him will be evident and often practical, quite possibly even attracting others who do not yet know Him to ask Him, “…where do You live?” ( St. John 1:39 ), and to answer His piercing invitation, “Come and see.” ( St. John 1:39 )
Our Holy Father never fails in his letters and talks about the Eucharist to remind us of the undeniable connection between Holy Communion with Christ and Reconciliation with Him.
“The two Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance are very closely connected. Because the Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of the Cross, perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to a continuous need for conversion…If a Christian’s conscience is burdened by serious sin, then the path of penance through the Sacrament of Reconciliation becomes necessary for full participation in the Eucharistic Sacrifice.” (EE 37, 1)
As your pastor who loves you, I strongly encourage you all to make the Sacrament of Reconciliation a regular practice in your spiritual lives. This Sacrament was instituted by Christ as recorded in St. John’s Gospel, chapter 20, verse 20. It is His Will that we confess our sins to a priest. Confession every single month of our lives is an excellent habit to form, and it will help to form the habits of your children and grandchildren for generations to come. We simply must break out of that pattern of Confession twice a year (Advent and Lent) and the idea that to drink deeply from the fountain of God’s Mercy, we must have committed a mortal sin. God’s Mercy must flow through us, and we will be inclined to allow it to flow through us to others when we ourselves frequently receive it.
I thank you for the opportunity you’ve given your priests to increase the number of hours dedicated to the confessional since 1994. And I firmly believe that with the weekly opportunities and three priests hearing Confession every First Friday evening until the very last person in line has received absolution, there is no reason why every man, woman and child in the parish cannot admit Jesus and His Mercy monthly in Confession.
It makes me so happy when I read the Pope’s emphasis that each of us has been created to love and to be loved. What a comforting thought! Our capacity to love is increased with the time we spend in the Presence of Jesus. John Paul writes that “The Presence of Jesus in the tabernacle must be a kind of magnetic pole attracting an ever-greater number of souls,” ( MND 18 ), and calls attention to the need for increased Eucharistic Adoration, “…a particular commitment for individual parishes and religious communities.” ( MND 18, 2 )
We will continue our weekly Adoration and Benediction each and every Sunday night until the Lord returns in His Glory – that is, until the end of time. He is the Strength and Love we need, strengthening the Communion we have already received with His Body at Mass. As your pastor who loves you, I beg even greater numbers of my parishioners to join this blessed, peaceful time of Adoration each Sunday – precisely because we are in love with Him and recognize again that we have been created for the loving conversation that happens between us and Him every Sunday night.
We will also continue to adore Him on the first Friday of every month. How I understand myself personally the many demands made on our time, which tempt us to believe we have no time for Adoration on the first Fridays. But ponder deeply the meaning of this Adoration, of how Jesus remains with us really and truly in the Eucharist! Ponder how joyful He is when we visit Him, how much good is done in our souls and in others through our lives, which have become more fervent in His Presence.
As your pastor who loves you, I beg you to come and spend an hour in His Presence, not only during the first Fridays of this Year of the Eucharist but every year that follows until He comes to lead us safely Home. May one day, our list for Adoration be dark with scores and scores of names!
The children of St. Boniface School will continue to come to visit Him on the first Fridays and I pray also that one day youth throughout the whole world will have this wonderful privilege every month in their schools – to spend time with the Fount of all Knowledge, Wisdom and Purity, in regular, monthly Adoration.
To the children and youth of our parish, I feel in my soul that this is a particularly important moment to express in this direct way, my tender and fatherly love for you all. More than anything, I want for each of you to fall in love – head over heels in love, with Jesus your King in the Eucharist. The Pope agrees with me: “I would like the young people to gather around the Eucharist as the vital source which nourishes their faith and enthusiasm.” ( MND, 4 )
Young people! You may feel you have nothing to say to Him, or you may not know how to begin your conversation with Jesus. Here is my fatherly advice: simply come and speak naturally to Jesus. Share your hopes and dreams for the future, your plans, your joys, your sadness at times, your temptations, your good resolutions and your needs. Jesus will listen to you! And He will fill your souls with His Life and give you strength to carry on as His faithful friends!
I take all of you children and youth to the very Heart of Jesus at every, single Mass and lovingly ask Him to bless you with every grace to lead you to a joyful and useful life in His service, no matter to what vocation He calls you. Ask Him! “What do you want from me?” And when He knows it’s the right time, He will tell you. And from all of you, I hope to witness myself many future priests and Sisters and happy marriages – all centered on Jesus who loves you!
“This year let us also celebrate with particular devotion the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, with its traditional procession. Our faith in the God who took flesh in order to become our companion along the way needs to be everywhere proclaimed, especially in our streets and homes, as an expression of our grateful love and as an inexhaustible source of blessings.” (MND 18, 3)
In 2005 our celebration of 40 Hours of Eucharistic Adoration will not coincide with the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ) because of the priestly ordination of one of our seminarians. We will celebrate these 40 Hours to close the Year of the Eucharist in October. Faithful to the counsel of our Holy Father, we will once again bring Jesus into the streets to proclaim our belief that He is Lord of all His creation, and to invite anyone who sees Him passing by with those who love Him to join us in the praise of Our Savior.
Mindful that Pope John Paul has not asked for anything extraordinary in the celebration of this year we have already begun, it is my deepest hope and desire that at the end of this Eucharistic Year, the parish of St. Boniface, and all who come here will have been renewed by the Lord’s faithfulness to us in His Body and Blood but also by our fidelity to Him, our response born out of deep love for Him and our desire to be completely transformed by Him.
Jesus wants this renewal in us. When renewal leads to deeper love and when love leads to service to family, neighbor and to all those we meet, then truly the Light of Jesus Christ will continue to shine from this place with a renewed brilliance and deeper intensity.
And I close this letter to you, the little flock entrusted at this moment to my care, with the most tender and personal longing that the Eucharist will be, now and ever more your Everything.
* * *
Fr. Timothy M. Alkire, MI
Pastor
Feast of Jesus Christ King
November 21, 2004
Come then, good Shepherd, bread Divine
Still show to us Thy mercy sign;
Oh, feed us, still keep us Thine;
So we may see Thy glories shine
In fields of immortality.
O Thou, the wisest, mightiest, best,
Our present food, our future rest,
Come, make us each Thy chosen guest,
Co-heirs of Thine, and comrades blest
With saints whose dwelling is with Thee.
• - St. Thomas Aquinas
Mary, Queen and Mother, pray for us!
St. Boniface, pray for us!
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us!
St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, pray for us!