Photos from the University chapel at Saint Joseph's University depiciting the candles representing the 406 murder victims in Philadelphia in 2006. The mother of one murder victim, the unforgettable Richard Johnson stands with her son's friends, Sherman and Sal, both sophomores at SJU.

A Remembrance of Philadelphia’s Victims of Violence

FEBRUARY 19, 2007 7 PM UNIVERSITY CHAPEL


We are here, brothers and sisters, to grieve but to grieve creatively focused on the future of our city and our young people.

Being a pastor in a Philadelphia urban church in recent years, I had all that I needed of grieving. There is Marcus, promising student, reduced for life to a childlike state in a wheelchair because of a boy and a gun. There is Paul, who had been a steady member of our church youth club. He now sits in jail because he did not learn how to deal with anger except with a gun. There is Lena who sang in the church choir like a nightingale. A recent college grad, a victim of domestic abuse, Lena was surrounded at her burial by her sorority sisters who sang through their grief. There is Brian with the split personality: a loving father on the one hand, a crazed addict on the other. He pulled a gun on police and they had no choice. There is Troy, so well-liked and handsome, a stupid innocent hanging out on streets where he did not belong. At his funeral his teenage friends, boys and girls, wailed uncontrollably. Then Latrelle whose addicted body could not survive her attempt to stay clean. And Jeffrey, whom I visited in the intensive care unit the first time he was shot. He returned to the streets and did not make it the second time. And our very own Richard who should be sitting here with his Saint Joseph’s University classmates as a college sophomore. Like the 406 murdered after them: Lena, Troy, Jeffrey, and Richard, like the other victims of the street: Paul and Brian, Latrelle and Marcus, they all came into our world surrounded by love. God destined them, too, to be people of love and service in their families and communities. The two of them still living, one in jail and one in a wheelchair have some purpose in life. May the other six, too, have their purpose among us.

Back in the slavery times of Egypt under old Pharoah, the slaves grieved their lot and their suffering. There was self-pity in their grief. There was complaint in their grief. But their grief was not a grief of resignation. They did not resign themselves to their fate. They knew that God did not create them and love them just for the slavery of making bricks for old Pharoah.
God made them for some higher purpose. Their grieving, their self-pity, their complaint to their God was the beginning of their liberation. They named as clearly as they could the source of their grief and God reached out and helped them. After their suffering and their journey God showed them a new reality that amazed them. They were free.

Brothers and sisters, the politicians and police can only help us so much; whoever wants to be Moses among us can do only so much leading. We need to step up in our churches and schools; we who are able must reach back to our younger brothers and sisters and give them a hand so that they can join us on this journey, a journey to free ourselves from the scourge of death that plagues our land.

Others have made this journey. In their grief, so many loving people have created new ways of reaching out to our community. I mention only one that I know well, the Russell Byers Charter School, a great new school under the leadership of Principal Salome Thomas-El, a school born out of the grief of the Byers family in the wake of their husband and father’s murder on the streets of Philadelphia.

May God continue to lead us who grieve to such amazing places where we find balm for our grief and peace and healing for our community.

We asked the mother of a victim of the streets to come forward and be with us this evening. Catherine Young gave birth to the irreplaceable Richard Johnson some twenty years ago. He was a lively person from birth, unforgettable. After his murder on the streets in the summer of 2005, hundreds of Saint Joseph’s Prep boys, his schoolmates, and young people from Richard’s South Philly neighborhood crowded the Church of Gesu for his funeral service. We thank his mother for sharing her grief with us then and in the many months that have passed. And we thank her for joining us this evening and sharing a few words about her hopes in the wake of such tragedy.

The Merion Park waterfall in winter:

Sunday Homily: February 18, 2007 Luke 6, Love your enemies

A recent obituary caught my interest. It told the story of the life of Walter Sondheim, a civic leader in Baltimore Maryland who died this past week at the age of 98. His friends and associates lauded his wonderful skills in working with people and getting them to dream together about doing big civic projects in education and urban renewal. He said himself that it was more important to understand people than it was to like them. People said that, because of his great skills at understanding, he had no enemies.

An unfortunate man, perhaps. Without enemies a person cannot go that extra mile that the Lord talks about when he instructs us to love our enemies.

But Mr Sondheim in his old age at least did not love his enemies like the aged woman who gave her own testimony on the topic: “It is easy for me to love my enemies at this stage of my life. I’ve outlived them all.”

…..The love of enemies is at the heart of the gospel teaching. It is well-known that it is this teaching that attracted Gandhi to Jesus…..

You are familiar with one of the most moving episodes in the famous movie about Gandhi’s life. It bears retelling. In 1947 when independence finally came to India, Gandhi was distressed that the country was split in two, into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. In the violence that followed independence, he fasted almost to the point of death in order to bring it to an end. One scene during the fast depicts an encounter that Gandhi has with a Hindu man. The Hindu came to him and said “I am going to hell.” Gandhi asked him why. He said he had killed a Muslim boy and he describes the boy’s death as a particularly brutal murder. Gandhi in a calm and measured voice replied, “I know a way out of hell. Find a child with no parents and raise it.” The man’s face lightens immediately with these promising words of direction. And then Gandhi adds: “Only make sure it is a Muslim child and raise it as a Muslim.” It is then that the man realizes how hard it is to get out of hell and to love one’s enemies.

……But finally and really the only thing worth remembering from these words: The foundation and the wonder about this teaching regarding the love of enemies is this: God loves the enemies of God. God forgives the enemies that want to tear down the image of God. If we are to become holy as the heavenly Father of Jesus, then we, too, must love our enemies. There is no higher calling and no greater grace for which to pray.

I hope the young couple don't imitate the weather; but two months can make a big difference!

Sunday, February 4, 2007 Luke 5

“When they brought their nets to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”

As a little boy, I remember standing on the beach in the early morning at Beach Haven, NJ and watching the weathered fishermen dragging their boat onto the beach and emptying their nets, sorting through the fish and showing off their skill to the summer visitors from the city who did not know a fluke from a float. Their image comes to my mind when I hear the gospel about the sorting of good fish from bad found in the dragnets of Matthew’s parable or the gospel about Jesus cooking a fish breakfast for the disciples on the shore of Lake Galilee, this among John’s stories of the resurrection, or Luke’s gospel read today about the miraculous catch of fish.

The fishermen I would see at Beach Haven launched their boats into the surf in the early morning light each day and harvested the fish from the off-shore nets they had carefully tethered there. The rest of the day some spent as carpenters or policemen or lifeguards or garbage men. There was always day work for those who did not want to spend the rest of the day in Hudson’s, the bar two blocks from the ocean. But in the men of the fishing profession in Galilee, in Peter, James, John and Andrew, Jesus saw some extraordinary passion, a passion that one generally does not associate with fishermen. If the men in Galilee were anything like the ones at Beach Haven, Jesus picked smelly, hard-scrapple, rough-tongued men to be his followers. It is astounding that they sacrificed everything for him and that their actions transformed the Western world.

This story today of the miraculous catch of fish is one of my favorites. It is a formative story for those of us who love the image of the nets overloaded with fish. In every culture that flourished along the sea or along big lakes this image is an image of plenty and success. Amid the suffering of Jesus and the pain that often accompanies repentance, it is so comforting to have this image of distended nets, an image of success and plenty. It is a formative story, too, for those of us who understand full well what the astounded Peter means when he says to the Lord: “Depart from me for I am a sinful man”; a formative story even for those who have said milder words of reluctance in the face of something astounding: “Why me?”; a formative story, too, for those of us who have ever felt supported by some inexplicable courage beyond ourselves and who thus can resonate to Jesus’ words to Peter: “Do not be afraid.”

“When they brought their nets to the shore, they left everything and followed him.”

I am standing here with Dr. Valerie Dudley, the Director of Institutional Diversity at Saint Joseph's University

The Fieldhouse is the site of dance, music and prayer to celebrate this year the 78th Birthday of

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Usually the building bursts with enthusiasm for the basketball teams. But on this day we fill the building with the Spirit. This year we commissioned about 60 students and sent them off on their day of service. But the crowd of neighbors and friends stayed behind to celebrate.

Epiphany Sunday January 8, 2006 SJU Chapel

(From the archives but still something I would preach this year of 2007!)

The beginning of this second week of January ends our extended Christmas with the final feasts that the Church attaches to the season. Today we celebrate the Feast of Epiphany, the revelation of the child Jesus, the Word made Flesh, to all nations and peoples represented by the Three Kings.

Let me speak briefly about the event that is the center of this feast, about how artists have presented the event to us especially with a particular gesture and then briefly reflect on this gesture.

We know the story of the Epiphany. The wise men, the Magi, the Kings from the East follow the sign of a star in the sky and come to the house in Bethlehem where the child is living with Joseph and Mary. “They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts.”

There is a dark side to the story, of course, in the background lurks King Herod who is kept in the dark about the identity of this child who might be a rival for his throne. The Wise Men know the identity of the child but King Herod does not. So in a panic of paranoia he kills all the male babies for miles around, hoping to eliminate his tiny rival. By the time of the slaughter Joseph and Mary and the Baby have already escaped into Egypt.

But the part of the story that most engages me is the adoration of Jesus by the Wise Men. Here is a scene that catches the imagination with its storybook quality. For centuries this scene has been an attractive one for artists of all kinds. Mary and Joseph are usually depicted outdoors; often Mary is holding the child in her lap. But here also was an opportunity to illustrate artistic skills. It was all very well to paint the pictures of shepherds and sheep and livestock at the manger in Bethlehem. But such a canvas was drab and colorless compared to the possibilities offered by the presence of kings at Bethlehem. The artists get carried away picturing the horses and camels and all the hangers on and servants. And they especially picture the kings with colorful and even exotic attire. These kings are elegant clothes trees.

I am not much of a dresser myself. And the same might be said for most of the Jesuits here at the University. We do, of course, have a few flamboyant dressers among the Jesuits. Our Jesuit friend, the African American liturgist, Father J.Glenn Murray, travels with his own beautiful chasuble for his liturgical celebrations. He would not be caught dead in anything as plain as this.

Just last week I saw an exhibit of the works of the famous 15th Century painter, the Dominican Fra Angelico. He was called Angelic to highlight his artistic skill as on par with the theological skill of the Dominican Thomas Aquinas, the theologian who was called the Angelic Doctor. I saw four different paintings that Fra Angelico made of the Adoration of the Magi. He depicts some pretty sharp dudes. You know how he as a Dominican wore a white cassock-like garment with a dark scapular. His paintings show another side of dressing. He dresses his kings in garments of brilliant yellow, red, blue or pink. And their cloaks are often contrasting gold studded and golden braided material. Their shoes are of different colors. In one painting the kings are still wearing on their heels their elegant golden spurs, having just jumped off their horses and rushed to the side of the child and his mother. The kings wear delicate gold crowns. Their attendants are dressed almost as well with a variety of accessories: decorated swords, purses hanging from their belts and caps of all descriptions, a riot of color and style.

But what a surprise: there is no vanity or haughtiness among these wise men. Their entire attention is focused on the child. In each scene one of the kings-- sometimes Fra Angelico painted them as almost boy-kings, like Prince Harry or William; he did not always paint them as old and learned-looking men (one of the Jesuits reminded me, by the way, that astronomy is a science of the young person)—In each of the four paintings, while the other two kings look on, one of the kings is kneeling at the feet of the Virgin Mary. His crown is set aside on the ground. He is reaching for the baby Jesus resting in Mary’s lap so that he can kiss the baby’s feet. The earthly king kneels and kisses the feet of the baby. All four of the paintings of the Adoration of the Magi, so different one from another, focus on this very sweet and tender action.

Fra Angelico painted these wonderful pictures in the quiet of a monastery. While outside the walls even the Pope was raising money and arms for the wars that ebbed and flowed over the countryside that is now modern Italy. And the Dominican preachers traveled from town to town warning people to prepare their souls for the plagues and famines that so often swept over the population of medieval towns.

We have forgotten the wars that fractured Italy generation after generation. Our part of the world need not keep in mind the threat of plague and famine. What survives as an emblem of the religious and artistic heritage from six hundred years ago is this tender gesture: a king forgetting himself, reversing roles, falling on his knees and reaching out to touch and kiss the feet of this baby.

As it is so worth saving these pieces of art by Fra Angelico, so it is so worth saving this gesture that he paints with such grace. How do we save this gesture and make it a part of our everyday lives? How do we surrender our pride and our self-indulgence? How can we reach out and touch the lives of the poor and powerless?

It is easy for any one of us to forget this gesture as a lesson in humility, as a lesson in what is truly holy. There are men who kiss the feet of babies in order to gain a popular following. All the major politicians allow for such photo opportunities. Surely you will say, Hitler kissed babies, too, before sending their young fathers off to slaughter the Jews in the crematoria.

Most of us in the past week have reviewed the year 2005. The news of suffering seemed to overwhelm our hearts from time to time. Plague, violence and natural disaster claimed the headlines often over long stretches of days; bloodshed and fear for the future countered every good piece of news from Iraq; at home we have a safe haven, yes, but within the global context, our nation must do more to kiss the feet of the world’s children.

Let us at least in our mind’s eye, practice this kind of humble kiss ourselves. Let it remind us of how much we and our world needs to reach out to nourish our children, born and unborn. There is so much to love and protect and nourish in this year to come. May God give us everything we need throughout this blessed year of 2006.

NEW YEARS' DAY, 2007


Eileen and I went to visit Lisa. God and the staff at Pine Run keep her beautiful still. She just would not open her eyes for this picture but we were happy to see her in any case and wish her a happy new year.



Maybe she will be with God this year. She has waited long enough.