Blog - February 2010 RSS Feed

Last night I had a marvelous experience talking to a group of more than 300 young people at a Theology on Tap gathering at a bar/restaurant called Metro 53 on East 53 rd Street in Manhattan. That might seem like an odd place to gather, but when you think about it, Jesus went to where the people were, and didn’t mind good food, drink and company.

One of my favorite characters of American literature is Scarlett O’Hara of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. Do you remember her response to any problem or difficulty that came her way? It was always “I’ll think about that tomorrow.

“It” starts tomorrow, Ash Wednesday . What is it ? Lent is the forty days of preparation for Holy Week and Easter. Why do we have it ? To accept in a more intense way the invitation of Jesus to be more closely united with Him on the cross, thereby dying with Him to sin, selfishness, Satan, and eternal death, so to rise with Him on Easter Sunday to a more radiant life of grace, mercy, and spiritual rebirth.

The Riverdale Press recently printed an article about the John Cardinal O’Connor Clergy Residence, a magnificent home for retired priests of the Archdiocese that was built by my predecessor Edward Cardinal Egan.

If seeing is believing, than I wish the entire country could have seen what I saw on Monday when I visited Saint Raymond’s Parish in the Bronx to celebrate the beginning of Catholic Schools Week . If they did, we would have a nation full of believers in Catholic schools, instead of too many skeptics and opponents.

They’re everywhere; ubiquitous is the word that comes to mind. So, watch out. We encounter them in classrooms and hospitals, feeding our elderly and bringing Holy Communion to the infirm; I meet them in prisons and in boardrooms; there they are again cooking and serving meals to our soup kitchens for the poor; they assist in parishes and administer universities; they advocate for peace and push for justice; you’ll find them welcoming immigrants and running shelters and day-care centers.

“State not living up to its obligations to Catholic schools” is the title of an excellent op-ed article written by James D. Cultrara, director for education of the New York State Catholic Conference.