This week Catholic Charities held its annual review meeting which gives the leadership and Board of Directors the opportunity to report to the Bishop on the many extraordinary projects that our Diocesan Catholic Charities carries on in behalf of the vulnerable and needy in our midst.  The largest social service network outside of the government in all of Long island, this is the face of the Catholic Church to pregnant teens, elderly couples, special needs children and their families and a host of other persons and groups who depend on the Church to help them cope with life and become self-reliant with dignity and meaning in their lives.

In the past three weeks, there were graduations from our three diocesan high schools, McGann Mercy in Riverhead, Holy Trinity in Hicksville and St, John the Baptist in West Islip.  Almost 1,000 seniors received diplomas and are going on to some of the best colleges in the area and in our country, thanks to the dedicated faculty and administration at these three Catholic schools.

In May it was my privilege to ordain ten men to the permanent diaconate and assign them to serve in parishes around our diocese.  On June 12, the cathedral was filled with family and loved ones and parishioners of the three men ordained to the priesthood after completing their years of formation at our seminary in Huntington.  A fourth, whom I ordained last year, has completed his studies in theology at the Gregorian University in Rome last week will join them in parish assignments to St James. Seaford, St Brigid, Westbury, St Joseph Ronkonkoma and St. Patrick, Smithtown.

A month ago, 65 men and women received graduate degrees in theology, divinity and pastoral studies after completing their work at the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Huntington.  With great joy many will gather in the Cathedral of St. Agnes this week for graduations from the Pastoral Formation Institute for all those who will receive their certificates from the PFI in various areas of religious studies.

In the meantime throughout the year, almost every weekend has seen a charismatic retreat which gathered Spanish speaking members of our parishes for prayer, and deepening of their spiritual lives.  On our campuses, adult and peer ministers attuned to the spiritual and special needs of Catholics in the colleges and universities that make Long Island so attractive to the young collegians of our parishes and those from other parts of the country.  I pray we may find vocations to priesthood and religious life among some of them which is why Fr. Brian Barr and his cohort of priests have made themselves available to offer Mass on these campuses and to conduct retreats for college age students throughout the school year.

In the meantime, my colleagues who oversee the needs of the clergy, the coordination of social outreach in our parishes, the efforts at communications in all the media from this newspaper to Telecare to our website, the various organs of diocesan life like the Presbyteral Council and the Diocesan Pastoral Council, in short, all those who assist me in the many activities that help the fifth largest Catholic Church in the United States function, will gather with me next week to review the year’s efforts and to begin preparations for what we will undertake as a diocese when the summer holidays are over.

What do all these have in common?  Many things not the least of which is that they are all aspects of a healthy and vibrant expression of the Spirit who animates this Diocese of Rockville Centre.  They also are the many ways that the office of bishop is carried on in service to the People of God, a service offered in strict union and collaboration with my brother priests, your pastors and their staffs. But, what all these, including the parishes, all have in common is that they all are assisted by the annual Catholic Ministries Appeal.

None of these could continue to function without your support of the Catholic Ministries Appeal (CMA). The Diocese has only two real sources of income. One is the annual assessment, called the Cathedraticum, to which every parish contributes a small percentage of its income so that the Bishop and the Diocese can carry on essential work of the Church, only a portion of which I have mentioned above.  The second source is your generosity to the CMA.

Unfortunately the number giving has decreased and, while the average gift is somewhat greater every year, the overall donations through the CMA have grown little and seem to be flat or a little behind last year.  Our pastors are working hard to make their goals.  Many lay people continue to offer their efforts to encourage parishioners and others to give to the CMA which literally touches the lives of all the Catholics on Long Island and many thousands who are not Catholic.

So as we start to look ahead in anticipation of some summer days on this most beautiful part of God’s earth, I would like to ask each and everyone of you to help me.  This week or next or any day before you go on vacation, stop and ask yourself if you can give a little more to the CMA before you and your family go off on your holidays.  If you have stopped giving, for whatever reason, think about this fact: no money from the CMA enriches anyone or adds to anyone’s salaries or benefits who work in this Diocese beginning with your bishop on down to every other person who serves you.  The CMA contributions go exclusively to the five areas of the Diocese that are so much more in need because today’s needs are greater than yesterdays.  So, even if it is only a small amount, that doesn’t matter.  What matters is the generous heart that makes a sacrifice to help others.  And that sacrifice, however large or small, will multiply itself because of your goodness and your care.

So please let’s make an end of the year, beginning of summer effort to give a little more, give a little extra, give something from your heart to the CMA before you go off on vacation.  And may the God who watches over us watch over, protect you and your family during these summer months wherever you may be relaxing and being refreshed by the beauty of God’s creation and the joyful fun of family and friends together.

If you can help, please do so.  Contributions can be made using this form and sending it to:

Catholic Ministries Appeal
Diocese of Rockville Centre
P.O. Box 4000
Rockville Centre, NY 11571-4000

Gifts to the Catholic Ministries Appeal may also be made via your credit card.  Make your donation online by visiting www.drvc.org/make-a-donation.html .

St. Patrick’s currently has received $85,339.09.00
in pledges from 388 families toward our goal of $130,000.00.

Bishop William Murphy  

A few weeks ago I was waiting to get off a ship and there was a family of five waiting in a circle as they sat on the floor.  Each of them had their cell phones out, texting someone while totally ignoring those they were with.  In our preoccupation and self-absorption we easily miss what is going on around us and the presence of those we are with.  Today’s gospel presents the visit of Jesus to the home of Martha and Mary.  We see Martha is working hard on the details of hospitality while Mary simply sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to him.  Both attitudes are important to make Jesus feel welcome.  But we know from personal experience that the greatest source of joy is the attentiveness of others.  When we are down and out and family and friends are there to listen and help, we are encouraged.  When we have good news our joy is increased by the attentive receptiveness of those we share it with.

Both Martha and Mary are good people.  In reflecting on this passage, we can say that Mary saw the goodness in Jesus and allowed that goodness to touch her, while Martha looked to the good things she was doing to make Jesus know he was welcomed and loved.  In a retreat given in the last parish I was in, the priest made the point of the value of being physically present when he said, “There is more Jesus in the meatballs than there is in the mass card.”  The point he was making was that when there is sadness and death it is much better to personally go see the bereaved than to just send a mass card.  It is not the meatballs that are remembered, but the fact that we took the time to be present with them.  The presence of those we love and are concerned about becomes clear to us when we pray for them.  Part of the answer to our prayers for them is our concern and presence to them.

In looking at our lives and the source of our joy it becomes clear that self-absorption does not bring us happiness.  In fact it brings us just the opposite: anger, disappointment and frustration.  These are the foundation of complaints and negative attitudes.  In the book I quoted last week, With Love and Prayers by F. Washington Jarvis, he offers this thought in his talk entitled Beyond Self-Absorption: “There is a great tendency in all of us to withdraw into ourselves, or into safe little cliques of like-minded people - to live sheltered, claustrophobic, risk-free, boring lives.  Our first inclination is to step back safely into ourselves, into our little group.  When we see a homeless man begging for money on the street, we try to look the other way and walk by him.  We instinctively recoil from contact with him..... We all nod gravely and approvingly when we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, but in real life we find it very hard to stop and help someone; we’re constantly warned of all the possible risks.  ‘Don’t get involved’ is the motto by which many people live.”

We are who we are today because God did get involved with us in Jesus.  He did not just watch from heaven the human race we are part of continue to go its own, limited, self-absorbed way.  Who knows what kind of world we would be living in and who we would be if Jesus had not come.  But he did.  He came to save us from all that separates us from God and one another.  As the human race we were like the man beaten up and left for dead in last Sunday’s gospel.  Jesus did not receive the red carpet treatment when he came into our world.  He was born in a stable and left this world through the shame, pain and rejection of the cross.  Yet nothing was more important to him than his presence to us and among us.  That gained for him our presence now and for all eternity.  God did not tolerate and watch from the outside - he became one with us so that we might be one with him and each other forever.  In the same talk quoted above Jarvis says, “The Judeo-Christian revelation calls us to something greater than toleration.  It calls us to involve ourselves in the lives of other people.  It calls us to go against our natural, innate tendencies to self-absorption.  It furthermore calls us not just to go beyond toleration to involvement, but it calls us to a certain quality of involvement: it calls us to care.  It calls us not just to tolerate, not just to involve ourselves, but to love one another.”  That is why Jesus goes to the house of Martha and Mary.  It is why they prepared for his arrival and spent time in his presence.  It is the very reason we are at this mass - that we might immerse ourselves at the feet of Jesus and be filled with the life and joy Mary knew from the moment she sat at his feet.  She gave him her time, attention and love and was nurtured and given life by his time, attention and love.  Jesus does the same for us at every mass and each time we turn to him in prayer.  He lets us know how important we are to him and one another as he listens attentively to our prayers, opens his mind and heart to us and he calls us to love one another as he loves us.  As we reveal our lives and hearts to him, he opens his mind and heart to us.

Father Walden