If you haven't checked in for a while, don't miss last week's update on the Feast of St. Augustine!

As promised, we want to update you on the Dom Josef's wonderful Mass of Thanksgiving which he celebrated on September 9th in his home parish of Holy Spirit in Annandale.  It was a wonderful event and the parish turned out in force to welcome its son home and to celebrate the Holy Mass with him.  The momentous occasion also brought out six confreres from the Stift, including Dom Albert, a Polish confrere visiting the States for the first time.  Dom Elias preached the Mass, a special treat for him, as he was previously stationed at Holy Spirit when he was still a diocesan priest of Arlington.  It was made all the more festive by the fact that the parish was celebrating the anniversary of its foundation.

Many friends of Josef's went far out of their way to show us all tremendous hospitality and we had a fabulous time.  They too will be commemorated in the pictures below.

The Evening Before...

On Saturday evening, Josef's friends Rick and Jane Steele hosted a wonderful dinner for the canons and many friends at their house.  It was a delightfully relaxed time with wonderful food and terrific company which made us all feel very welcome indeed.  The Steele's hosted Josef, Albert and Gabriel in their home, for which they were very grateful.

There's our hostess, Jane Steele on the left. Viva Rick and Jane!!!

The Mass of Thanksgiving

The Reception After the Mass

Immediately following the Mass there was a reception in the church hall.  Many stayed to receive Josef's first blessing and to catch up with the brethren and each other.  We are all very grateful to all the parishioners and friends who worked so incredibly hard to organize this, especially Laurie McManus who has been there for us in thick and thin!

Homily on the Occasion of Dom Josef’s Mass of Thanksgiving at Holy Spirit Catholic Church on September 9, 2007

By Dom Elias Carr, Can.Reg. 

Meine liebe Brüder und Schwester, heute sollen wir uns erinnern: woher kommen wir, wo stehen wir jetzt und wohin gehen wir? Whoops.  Wrong country. Wrong language.  I need to remember where I am right now.  It's Sunday September 9th; so it must be Holy Spirit.  That means – among other things – that I am home with my friends.

You, my dear brothers and sisters, and I - all of us - need to remember whence we came, where we are now standing and wither we wish to go.  Today offers us just such a precious moment to rest and reflect on these questions.  It is a chance to look back and see how far we as a parish have come in these last forty years, to pause and thank God for the many blessings He has showered upon us and to prepare for a tremendous push to the future, to the fiftieth anniversary of this great parish.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the dedication of a church, Our Mother, the Church, gives us especially powerful readings upon which we should meditate.

These readings illuminate our journey as a people on the way to God.  Let us see how.

First in today's Gospel we hear the story of Jesus coming to the Temple in Jerusalem: the return of the king.  Jesus is the true owner of the Temple because the Temple belongs to the king.  The king is its custodian.  King David's son, King Solomon, built the first Temple in which God agreed to dwell - not for His benefit - but for that of His People Israel. 

The king was the guardian of the Temple.  It was his responsibility to ensure that the worship of God was conducted with dignity and reverence in accordance with the ordinances of God.  The king, who it should be recalled was a layman and not a priest, was not only required to ensure that worship of God was conducted rightly, but also that he himself should epitomize the holiness of Israel in the conduct of his own life and the life of the nation.  Clearly very few kings in Israel lived up to this august vocation.

Yet, Jesus the true Davidic King is different.  He is holy in every way and consistently sought to restore Israel to a godly life at which He stands at the center; Hence, it easy to see why many understand this story as one of purification and reform.  After all, the expulsion of the animals and the money changers from the Temple precincts seems to symbolize an elimination of filth and corruption. 

Yet there is something far more profound going on here.  Jesus is not simply saying that the Temple worship is just fine and only in need of a little adjustment, a minor reform.  No.  Something far more radically is happening.

The crowd cries out “What sign can you show us for doing this?”  A sign is a prophetic action.  At the Temple Jesus has perform a prophetic action recalling in particular the prophet Jeremiah, who warned Jerusalem about the imminent destruction of the Temple of Solomon, the first Temple, by the armies of Babylon.

When Jesus drives the animals out and overthrows the tables of the money changer, he is directly attacking those services which allowed the Temple to function

for the sake of the pilgrims who came from far away.  At the Temple these pilgrims were able to buy the animals they were required to sacrifice.  The money changers gave them the money they could use to pay the Temple tax because Roman money

had the idolatrous claim written upon it that Caesar Augustus was the Son of God. 

When Jesus attacks these services he is not simply saying that the temple needs to be cleaned up.  He is saying that the Temple’s time is up.  No longer will Israel sacrifice animals to worship God.  God is coming to His people to do something wonderfully new.

Boldly Jesus claims to be a prophet, indeed the very prophet about whom Moses’ foretold and promised.  God would send another with the authority of Moses, the law giver and covenant maker.  This new prophet, this new Moses, would be known by the fact that his prophecies would become true. 

This was the way in which Israel – and we – can verify Jesus’ claim.

Jesus makes a prophecy: “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” 

If this prophecy is fulfilled, than according to Deuteronomy 18, he is the new prophet, the new Moses; if not, he is a false prophet.  So the question is whether he is the prophet, or not? 

The answer depends on the meaning of his statement about the Temple.  What is this temple?  Is it merely a building which in the days of Jesus was the third Temple -- the newly built Temple of Herod the Great –  the one who attempted to kill Jesus when he was an infant which the Bible recalls as the slaughter of the Holy Innocents?  The Gospels tell us that this initially this is what his audience thought.

But they were wrong because they did not understand what Jesus was saying.  The Gospel tells us the answer: “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.  Therefore when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this.”  The resurrection is the fulfillment of this prophecy.  Therefore, Jesus is the great prophet which Moses foretold.

He is not only the true Davidic king but also the new Moses.  But is he not also a priest?  Indeed he is.  The language we have just heard alludes to the holy Eucharist, the celebration in which we – the disciples of Jesus – remember his sacrifice, his atoning death on the cross for sinners, who out of hatred killed Him, and his resurrection, when His Father out of infinite love vindicated him on the third day.  Jesus is the great high priest who secures our forgiveness and makes God’s mercy available to the whole world. This is whence we come. 

We – as a parish – were constituted to celebrate the Eucharist and the mysteries of faith on May 23, 1964 by Bishop John Russell of Richmond under the leadership of Missionhurst priest, Father Paul Cauwe.  Forty years ago today on September 9, 1967 Bishop Russell dedicated the new church of Holy Spirit just off of a rather more modest Braddock Road.  Is there anyone here who as there that joyful day? 

Please stand up and let your brothers and sisters applaud you and your sacrifices.  We thank you for all that you did and have done to see that this church was consecrated for the fitting worship of God. 

God happily came to dwell amongst His people here at Braddock Road and Woodland Way, not only in the celebration of the Mass, but also in his Tabernacle, where his Real Presence has comforted and strengthened His people for forty years. 

The new worship to which Jesus alluded in today’s Gospel is carried to this very day, here on this altar of sacrifice, its meaning is explained from this ambo, and it sanctifying power is brought into the world by you, the worshipers of God, the parishioners of Holy Spirit.  For forty years Holy Spirit’s faithful have been on the way, like Israel of old, on an exodus from sin and death to God’s mercy and holiness. 

Like Israel of old, crossing the Jordan and rejoicing at their arrival in the Land of the Promise, so too do we rejoice for this moment of covenant renewal, reaffirming our identity as God’s people.  Just as Israel of old arrived at that day no longer under the leadership of Moses, but of Joshua, so too does Holy Spirit arrive at today’s celebration no longer under its founding pastor, but under the leadership of a pastor, Father Specht, and his own lieutenants, Fathers Kenna and Searby. 

We pause for a moment to thank God for the blessings of the last four decades, the spiritual fruitfulness of this parish and school.  A stunning sign of the spiritual bounty which this parish has enjoyed is the vocation of Dom Josef Norys, my confrere and fellow Canon Regular of St. Augustine of the abbey of Klosterneuburg in Austria.  Dom Josef embodies in many ways the stories of these forty years: years of turbulence and trials; years of fidelity and faithlessness; years of sin and grace. 

I will not embarrass him too much but only offer a brief testimonial.  Were it not for his amazing faith in God, in his incredible readiness to do the will of the Lord whatever was asked of him, whatever it would cost him, not only giving up family and friends, but indeed his home, his culture and even his mother tongue, I doubt that I would have had the courage to see my vocation as a Canon through.  Dom Josef was for me prophetic sign at a critical moment in my discernment.  He showed me that this call to Klosterneuburg and to the canonical life was not a spiritual self-deception or pious self-indulgence, but that it was something truly from God for the good of His priests and His people, not only here in America, but indeed in Europe and who knows where else.

Dom Josef found Christ again after a long time away and he found him here at Holy Spirit.  Through the RCIA classes of Father Pokorsky he began to fall in love with the God who has always loved him.  He made may life long friends and began to take his place in this parish.  The positive and life giving Catholic culture of this parish nourished his call and he accepted his vocation from God to be a priest and religious. 

Dom Josef – like all of you here – like all of us here – is the Temple of God, as Paul told the Corinthians in the Second Reading.  It is not that each one of us is a miniature temple with the Holy Spirit floating around in our hearts.  This is a misunderstanding due to the defect of the English language.  It should say “YOU ALL as a people are the Temple of God.”  We as a people, bound together to one another by baptism, by faith, hope and love, by a common profession of faith and our obedience to our pastors are the Temple of God.  The Spirit dwells in us as a people and as persons, not as individuals, isolated and separated.  It is by this common life of the Church as a parish that we are God’s temple.  This is where we stand today as God’s Temple. 

Forty years of prayer, struggle and sacrifice as well as forty years of joys and festivity have brought us to this happy days when we celebrate and thank God for a new priest from our parish and remember the founders of the parish.  But we should not dwell on the present or the past alone.  We Christians are by our faith a forward looking people because we are going somewhere.  Our roots are in the faith we have received from the Apostles and their successors right down to Bishop Loverde and his brother bishops.  It is a traditional faith that is rooted in history but by this very apostolic tradition is directed to the future, to our resurrections and to the new Creation.

Writing in last week’s bulletin, Father Specht exhorted the parishioners to direct our hearts and eyes to the future, to ten years hence, to the fiftieth anniversary of Holy Spirit in 2017.  Where are we going as a parish? This was precisely the question posed to Israel of old, in the first reading from the book of Nehemiah. 

As God’s People we listen to this reading and beyond to the entire message of

the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, books that tells the story of Israel finding its way forward, after the Babylonian exile, when Israel has to learn to live as God’s people in a hostile and confusing world.  The way forward for us is the same as it was for the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  It is the clarion call of reform and conversion. 

It is the challenge to discover how we can become more authentically God’s people in these next ten years.  As individuals, couples, families and a parish everyone needs to recommit themselves to a God-centered life. 

If we do this we can look forward to the fiftieth anniversary as a new Pentecost for Holy Spirit. 

After all, Pentecost, the harvest festival, happened fifty days after the Resurrection, the event which is the origin of the Church, and is in a real and profound way the origin of this parish forty years ago.  On Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on Our Lady, the apostles and the holy women, so that they could boldly proclaim the Gospel and reap the first harvest of conversions as many in Jerusalem came to believe that Jesus is LORD.

When and if a God centered life is fostered and cultivated here at Holy Spirit what can we expect to harvest in ten years?  We can expect to see stronger marriages, united families, children who embrace the faith of their families as their own faith, vocations to the priesthood, the religious life and to other forms of dedication to God and finally to evangelization and to mission.

And here is my special plea.  The Fathers of Missionhurst, priests from Europe, founded and fostered this parish for nearly twenty years.  Now this parish is mature and stands on its own feet, vibrant and full of life.  Now is the time for this parish to return this gracious service to Europe, a continent that is seeking God, but needs a lot of love. 

Our mission as canons in Europe – in Austria and Norway – and someday we hope here in the States – is to help those many European who have lost Christ find him again or indeed find him for the very first time.  This is a critical mission to which we, American Catholics are called today.  This is a mission which needs committed Catholics of every vocation and it cannot be left to priests alone.  It demands the efforts of the whole Church: families, singles, religious, deacons and priests. 

Therefore, in ten years at the Pentecost of Holy Spirit Catholic Church on September 9, 2017 I hope that we may be again together to celebrate a solemn Eucharist to the praise and glory of God with the strong bonds of mission and evangelization electrifying this parish -- here in Virginia and over there in Europe. 

This is where I hope we might go together.

Now let us begin to make it happen. 

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