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Id
Parochial Vicar: Fr. Francisco Sánchez Ramos, M.Id
Parochial Vicar: Fr. Dickson Saviour
2352 SAINT RAYMOND AVE
BRONX, N.Y. 10462
(PARKING AT ZEREGA AND GLEBE)
( 718 828 2380) / b265@archny.org
www.santamariaparish.us/
June 2nd 2019–7th Sunday of Easter 2 de Junio del 2019 – Séptimo Domingo de Pascua
8:15am Connie & Cosmo Ciminello Reserve la fecha: Sábado, 16 de Noviembre del 2019
12:00 del mediodía a 5:00 pm
5:00pm For The Deceased Members of the Oquendo Celebración del 25 Aniversario de los Misioneros
Family Identes en Santa María
AMORIS LÆTITIA AMORIS LÆTITIA
OF THE HOLY FATHER DEL SANTO PADRE
FRANCIS FRANCISCO
TO BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND DEACONS A OBISPOS, SACERDOTES Y DIÁCONOS.
CONSECRATED PERSONS PERSONAS CONSAGRADAS
CHRISTIAN MARRIED COUPLES PAREJAS CASADAS CRISTIANAS
AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL Y TODOS LOS LAICOS FIELES
ON LOVE IN THE FAMILY SOBRE EL AMOR EN LA FAMILIA
133. The love of friendship unifies all aspects of marital life 133. El amor de amistad unifica todos los aspectos de la vida
and helps family members to grow constantly. This love matrimonial, y ayuda a los miembros de la familia a seguir
must be freely and generously expressed in words and acts. adelante en todas las etapas. Por eso, los gestos que expresan ese
In the family, “three words need to be used. I want to repeat amor deben ser constantemente cultivados, sin mezquindad,
this! Three words: ‘Please’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Sorry’. Three llenos de palabras generosas. En la familia « es necesario usar
essential words!”. “In our families when we are not tres palabras. Quisiera repetirlo. Tres palabras: permiso, gracias,
overbearing and ask: ‘May I?’; in our families when we are perdón. ¡Tres palabras clave! ». « Cuando en una familia no se
not selfish and can say: ‘Thank you!’; and in our families es entrometido y se pide “permiso”, cuando en una familia no se
when someone realizes that he or she did something wrong es egoísta y se aprende a decir “gracias”, y cuando en una familia
and is able to say ‘Sorry!’, our family experiences peace and uno se da cuenta que hizo algo malo y sabe pedir “perdón”, en
joy”. Let us not be stingy about using these words, but keep esa familia hay paz y hay alegría ». No seamos mezquinos en el
repeating them, day after day. For “certain silences are uso de estas palabras, seamos generosos para repetirlas día a día,
oppressive, even at times within families, between porque « algunos silencios pesan, a veces incluso en la familia,
husbands and wives, between parents and children, among entre marido y mujer, entre padres e hijos, entre hermanos ». En
siblings”. The right words, spoken at the right time, daily cambio, las palabras adecuadas, dichas en el momento justo,
protect and nurture love. protegen y alimentan el amor día tras día.
134. All this occurs through a process of constant growth. 134. Todo esto se realiza en un camino de permanente
The very special form of love that is marriage is called to crecimiento. Esta forma tan particular de amor que es el
embody what Saint Thomas Aquinas said about charity in matrimonio, está llamada a una constante maduración, porque
general. “Charity”, he says, “by its very nature, has no limit hay que aplicarle siempre aquello que santo Tomás de Aquino
to its increase, for it is a participation in that infinite charity decía de la caridad: « La caridad, en razón de su naturaleza, no
which is the Holy Spirit… Nor on the part of the subject can tiene límite de aumento, ya que es una participación de la
its limit be fixed, because as charity grows, so too does its infinita caridad, que es el Espíritu Santo […] Tampoco por parte
capacity for an even greater increase”. Saint Paul also del sujeto se le puede prefijar un límite, porque al crecer la
prays: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love caridad, sobrecrece también la capacidad para un aumento
to one another” (1 Th 3:12), and again, “concerning superior ». San Pablo exhortaba con fuerza: « Que el Señor os
fraternal love… we urge you, beloved, to do so more and haga progresar y sobreabundar en el amor de unos con otros »
more” (1 Th 4:9-10). More and more! Marital love is not (1 Ts 3,12); y añade: « En cuanto al amor mutuo […] os
defended primarily by presenting indissolubility as a duty, exhortamos, hermanos, a que sigáis progresando más y más »
or by repeating doctrine, but by helping it to grow ever (1 Ts 4,9-10). Más y más. El amor matrimonial no se cuida ante
stronger under the impulse of grace. A love that fails to todo hablando de la indisolubilidad como una obligación, o
grow is at risk. Growth can only occur if we respond to repitiendo una doctrina, sino afianzándolo gracias a un
God’s grace through constant acts of love, acts of kindness crecimiento constante bajo el impulso de la gracia. El amor que
that become ever more frequent, intense, generous, tender no crece comienza a corre riesgos, y sólo podemos crecer
and cheerful. Husbands and wives “become conscious of respondiendo a la gracia divina con más actos de amor, con actos
their unity and experience it more deeply from day to day”. de cariño más frecuentes, más intensos, más generosos, más
The gift of God’s love poured out upon the spouses is also a tiernos, más alegres. El marido y la mujer « experimentando el
summons to constant growth in grace. sentido de su unidad y lográndola más plenamente cada día ».
El don del amor divino que se derrama en los esposos es al
mismo tiempo un llamado a un constante desarrollo de ese
regalo de la gracia.
REFLECTION
Acts of the Apostles 7:55-60; Book of Revelation 22: 12-14.16-17.20; Saint John 17: 20-26.
Jesus’ Last Wish
The 17th chapter of John's Gospel comes at the conclusion of Jesus' Farewell
Discourse delivered to the disciples at the Last Supper. The whole of this chapter is a
prayer of Jesus, commending himself to the Father and expressing his care and
concern for his disciples. Christ prays for unity; not some vague feel-good notion of
unity but he prays that those of us who are his disciples may be one with Jesus as
Jesus is one with the Father. He does not simply just pray for their well-being. Rather,
He prays to the Father for the one thing that is necessary, which is the unity of His
disciples.
In this moment He is not talking about our internal personal unity, or our
organizational unity. Neither He is talking about our unity with God. Of course, these
are crucial elements in our spiritual and religious life and have a close connection with
the unity between us Jesus is referring to.
This is how Jesus put it: Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.
And although Jesus made this statement in response to accusations that he could cast out demons by the power of the devil, the statement
remains true and applicable to every kingdom, city or household. If a household is united it will remain but if it is divided it will be ruined.
What is the nature of this Christian unity? And do we have it? Do we convince others by our behavior that Christ is in us? How is it created?
How is it maintained? How is it broken? How can it be repaired?
There are many ways to envision unity. For some people, unity means sameness, uniformity. Jean-Henri Fabre (1823-195), the
famous French naturalist did an experiment with some Processionary Caterpillars. These little insects will follow the next caterpillar ahead of
them, no matter where that caterpillar happens to be going.
Fabre arranged a bunch of these Caterpillars in a neat circle, each one touching the one just ahead. Faithful to their DNA, each one followed the
next one. In the middle of the circle Fabre put some of the caterpillars' favourite food. Would they stop following, even for a moment, just for a
bite of lunch? Not on your life. The food was there within inches, but they just kept on following each other in circles until they collapsed and
died from hunger.
Sameness, uniformity, can lead to problems.
For other people, unity means: I want everybody to be like me…things must go as I believe they should. A parish priest witnessed a
major fight over wood piles. This church had a wood stove in the center of the sanctuary that heated the building. Two groups that didn't get
along with each other took turns stoking the fire and keeping it lit.
However, one group claimed that they were working harder than the other group to provide the wood. As a result, both groups provided the
wood but in separate piles. One child while reading the scripture one Sunday used his own version of the well know text from Ephesians: One
faith, one Lord, one baptism… and two wood piles. And he was sadly right, because it seems that their one God and Father of all was their own
view of themselves, as made manifest in the wood piles that they created.
This is what we usually think of as unity. Either I’ll convince you and conform you to myself, or you’ll convince me and conform me to yourself
so that we no longer differ nor disagree on anything. Then, if that doesn’t work, we’ll just agree to disagree, and therefore limit our
conversation to the weather or sports…. Until we cannot stand it any longer.
Unity is more than a philosophy or a posture. Unity, according to Jesus in John 17, is a reflection of God to the world, is the
reflection of the nature of the Father and the Son.
A mirror mounted in a beautiful hardwood frame fell to the ground and shattered into dozens of pieces, but because of the way it had been
mounted the fractured pieces remained nestled in the wooden frame. It was a shattered unity. And in its shattered unity it could only reflect a
distorted image. Our unity is like the mirror. The Spirit frames the Church, uniting us one to another as a gift for the purpose of reflecting God
to the world. When the mirror is whole and spotless, it reflects the beauty of God and the light of his glory into the darkness of our broken
world. This unity, however, is easily shattered by pride, roughness, jealously, and individualism, with the result that the image of God we
reflect to the world is distorted and not attractive. How many time have you heard non-Christians say: I like your Jesus, but I do not like your
Church? But we must think about how to develop and improve this unity.
Mahatma Gandhi used human awareness of our vulnerability to promote peace and unity. He applied the Hinduist/Buddhist
conception of Ahimsa or non-violence. Gandhi meditated on the deep significance of the epic war poem Bhagavad Gita and
arrived to an apparently paradoxical conclusion. In the text, the sage Krishna explains to the young warrior Arjuna that,
despite his desire to avoid violence, his duty is to go to war. Therefore, at an immediate level, the Bhagavad Gita can be
interpreted as a compelling support for the absolute necessity of war: War belongs to the structure of the universe. This
collides with the human impulse to reject brutality in all its forms. Even more, Arjuna’s rejection of battle seems even more
justified and natural because he sees his own relatives arrayed for battle opposite him: How can we know happiness if we
kill our own kinsmen? But Gandhi was able to explain from this text the importance of non-violence and unity. He was
able to understand that the Bhagavad Gita does not endorse a literal policy of warfare at all, but rather stands for the war
going in our bodies between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. This is a deep insight on human nature that allowed
Gandhi to successfully promote the abolition of the caste system.
The foregoing strongly resembles the Gospel teaching, that was no stranger to Gandhi. A deeper awareness of our vulnerability fosters
the unity and compassion so desperately needed to transform a world of violence into one of mutual care and concern. To teach this, St.
Paul’s uses the illustration of the body: For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same
function (Rom 12:4). Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all
baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit... (1 Cor 12:12-
13)”
When the first humans, as recorded in the narrative of Genesis, ate the forbidden fruit, they had an awakening, they suddenly knew that they
were naked. They were vulnerable. They were mortal. And they quickly covered up that awareness by sewing fig leaves into clothing, they did
have an awakening to their utter vulnerability. In a sense, they did suffer a death, the death of their own sense of security, they became aware
of their own humanity and their own mortality.
Anthropologists and psychologists tell us that the human species began its development of reason and self-awareness at whatever time we first
became aware of our own mortality, the reality that we would one day die. This awareness of our eventual death and general weakness has a
significant role in shaping who we are as people, and as people of faith. The loss of our ignorance about our mortality has shaped and impacted
the way that we have behaved for millennia.
Our judgment is skewed by our skewed understandings of ourselves. When we deny our own vulnerability and need, we reduce our capacity for
mercy; yet our own need for mercy never ceases. A deeper awareness of our interconnection would help us to understand a collective
responsibility for each other that would draw us together, helping us to dismantle our punitive judgment.
Some people say that the best motivator for unity is a common enemy. This is a contentious issue, but there is some truth in it: the devil does
not want us to be united. The devil is seeking ways to divide every Christian community. One of the greatest obstacles in Christian witnessing
to an unbelieving world is surely the counter-witness of division in our communities and among Christians. But if we are aware of this
vulnerability to the evil one that we all share, our unity will be strengthened.
But the unity He desires is not simply the result of harmonious human interaction, or the end product of a human growth-and-
development seminar. This unity is not something that we must work to achieve or attain. It already exists. Christ broke down the barrier
between Jews and Gentiles and brought them together in the one new creation. Paul makes a bold declaration when he says: There is no longer
Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal 3:28).
The Apostles, when unity was challenged, applied the principle that later was formulated by St Augustine, which says, in essentials, unity;
in non-essentials, diversity and in all things charity. So we must distinguish whether the values or principles we are trying to
promote in the community are essentials or peripherals. We must allow diversity in community and not expect everyone to be in the same
mold, so long as core values and principles are respected. We have to be careful when we argue that we base our judgments on the spirit of the
Gospel, or when we hold that consequences will be tragic if our advice is not followed. And all this, keeping in mind that a superior has always
a special charism, in the midst of his/her limitations and struggles.
The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 4, prescribes the ingredients necessary for preserve and increase unity. First, he calls the Ephesians to be
completely humble.
Everyone strives to be above the other, in some way or another. Humility is manifested in the freedom to reject personal imposition of our
preference on others. Unity is possible when we reject personal preferences and submit to other in the name of Christ. Everyone has something
that you do not agree with in the community. One might prefer we change the name; another might prefer we keep it. One might prefer a
different time schedule, or songs we sing or positioning of the chairs, etc.
Paul also urged the Ephesian church members to be gentle. Gentleness is that inner peacefulness that flows to the outside, even in the midst
of hardship and aggression. Gentleness is the ready disposition to forgive when wronged, and the eagerness to appreciate the goodness in
others. What will happen if we are all contentious, and irritating? Unity inevitably vanishes.
And the third call of Paul towards unity is to patiently bear one another in love. In other words, true forgiveness. Unity cannot be on the
basis of “putting up” with one another. If we feel we have to “put up” with someone, time will come when we will not be able to continue doing
it. We will get tired of the situation or of the person who is burdensome… and we will explode. But if we patiently bear one another in love, we
would not only reflect the spirit of Christ to them but we will also call them to repentance, because love will make us to care for each other.
Ultimately, if we welcome the peace that Christ gives us, we will be able to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:
3).
En última instancia, si acogemos la paz que Cristo nos da, podremos preservar la unidad del Espíritu con el vínculo de la paz (Ef 4,
3).
Luis Casasús
Superior General de
los Misioneros Identes