ÿþ<HEAD> <TITLE>Byzantine Catholic Priest: the Homilies of Father J. Michael Venditti</TITLE> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="linkicon.ico"> <BODY BACKGROUND="back.jpg" TEXT=#000000 LINK=#7c6262 VLINK=#7c6262 alink=#7c6262> <FONT FACE="Maiandra GD"> <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> <!-- /* $WEFT -- Created by: Michael Venditti (admin@fathervenditti.com) on 7/20/2016 -- */ @font-face { font-family: Maiandra GD; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; src: url(MAIANDR2.eot); } @font-face { font-family: Maiandra GD; font-style: oblique; font-weight: normal; src: url(MAIANDR3.eot); } --> </STYLE> </HEAD> <p align=center><img src="header.jpg"> <table align=center border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0 rules=none width=95% cols=2> <tr> <td align=left valign=top width=20%><font face="Maiandra GD" color=#7c6262 size=+1>Funeral of John M. Venditti, Sr.* <p><hr noshade align=center color=#7c6262><p>Mass of Christian Burial.<br><br><small>Lessons from the ritual, according to the ordinary form of the Roman Rite:<br><br>" Job 1:1-22;<br>" Luke 16:19-31.</small> </font><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><font face="Maiandra GD" color=#7c6262 size=-1><p align=left><a href="index.htm">ByzantineCatholicPriest.com</a>.</font> <td align=right valign=middle width-80%><font face="Maiandra GD"><p align=justify>11:00 AM 10/26/2006  Now, this is a moment I ve been dreading for some months, and not for the obvious reasons you might think. Certainly it s sad to bury one s own father, but it s not unheard of most of us have to do it at some point. <img src="dad.jpg" align=right hspace=15 vspace=5>But when the person you re dealing with was so well known, it adds an extra dimension of inconvenience from the priest s point of view regardless of whether the priest is a member of the family in that most of the people who show up for these things have no real idea of why they are there, or why they should be there. Most of us here probably think that we re here to listen to speeches about what a wonderful person the deceased was, to offer condolences to his family, and to participate in or, more accurately, sit and watch pretty ceremonies designed to emotionally numb the bereaved and us as well against the stark reality that someone we were close to is dead. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;And we can do that if you want; there s certainly a lot of wonderful things I could say about my father; he was a man of great faith and great virtue, and in many more hidden ways than the obvious ones with which you are familiar. But we will not be doing that, because that s not what we re here for, believe it or not. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;And believe it you probably will not, because, if you re like most people, you probably do not understand that it s not the policy of the Catholic Church to do such a thing anyway. The fact that that s ignored by almost everyone doesn t help those of us who don t ignore it. But what you have to understand is that I not only look like my father, I am my father, and proud of it; and I learned from him the practiced art of standing on principle regardless of who gets annoyed. And, for the most part, we enjoyed annoying many of the same kinds people; so, what better tribute to him than to annoy them one more time. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;So, go with me, for the sake of argument, and assume that I m right, that it s not the policy of the Church to engage in the typical Roy and Dale  Happy Trails to You send off that is the fodder of so many funerals today, replete with the syrupy, sentimental homiletic mixture of light comedy and nostalgia that marks the eulogies of the pagans. What then are we supposed to do? <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;The easy answer, of course, is that we re here to pray. In point of fact, this is true regardless of the occasion, whether it be a funeral or a wedding or an ordinary Sunday Mass: whenever we are in this building our purpose, and our focus, is our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. The fact that this is a funeral the fact that we are not all Catholics or even Christians here today changes nothing; we are here for and because of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Every funeral, even the funeral of a well known public servant, even the funeral of one s own father, must be focused on Christ. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;And, consequently, the message of the Church on the occasion of a funeral, is the same regardless of who s died. I didn t realize that at first. Early in my priesthood I had assumed that, when the time came to bury a member of my own family, it would somehow be different from all the other hundreds of funerals I had already performed at that point. But when the time came to bury my father s father, more years ago than I care to recall, I couldn t bring myself to say anything different than what I had said at any other funeral I had celebrated; because the message of the Church at the time of death never changes. And that message is simple. I m going to say it in the fashion of the Eastern Churches because, having served these last eight years as a priest of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, it is the manner with which I am familiar. And that message is this: Christ is risen from the dead; by death he conquered death; and to those in the graves he granted life. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Now, in our Church we typically only say that during the Easter season where it would obviously be appropriate. In fact, we sing it three times at the beginning of every service, three times at the end of every service, and about three thousand times during the service. In fact, we sing it so many times that, by the time Ascension Thursday comes around, we re tired of saying it. That, of course, doesn t mean that we all know what it means. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;So, what does it mean? Well, let s look at it: <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp; Christ is risen from the dead.... OK, we understand that part; it s the central mystery of our faith. But  ...by death he conquered death?...To those in the graves he granted life? How does that work. Christ is risen, surely; but people are still dying. How does his death conquer death if we still have to die? <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Believe it or not, I first began to understand this through the example of someone who was not a Christian: our old friend Job from the Old Testament, whose story we just heard. You remember Job. He dealt with the whole issue of death and how to react to it two thousand years before Christ was born. Job, recall, was a man who lost everything property, health, even his children and for no reason. <img src="job.jpg" align=left hspace=15 vspace=5>And when his friends came to pay their respects, they found him seated upon the ground, covered in sackcloth and ashes, deep in grief and prayer. What Job was not was hysterical; and this perplexed his friends, because they couldn t conceive of the kind of loss Job had suffered. First he lost his flocks, then he lost all his children when the roof of the house fell it, then he lost his health and his whole body was covered with painful sores. And after each one of these catastrophes, Job would sit down on the ground and pray. And this so exacerbated his wife that she finally said to him,  What s wrong with you? Why don t you curse God and die? And Job dealt with her the way every good Jewish husband does with respect to his wife: he ignored her. Job's grief, after all, did not stem from the fact that he didn't understand what had happened to him and needed someone to explain it to him; he understood it all to well; better, in fact, than those who had come to comfort him; better, certainly, than those who actually encouraged him to question his own faith since, as they reasoned, a God worthy of Job's worship would not have allowed these things to happen; which angered Job so that, even in the midst of his grief, he could not resist the compulsion to teach them the truth, speaking some of the most electrifying words in the Bible: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." What an extraordinary thing to say under those circumstances. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;We don t react like that, of course, because we re not Job, and we don t have the faith of a Job; at lease not most of us. And that s very ironic because we have a source of hope that Job and his friends did not have. For Job and his people the death of the body was the end. They didn t believe that there was anything after that. The concept of an afterlife did not develop until much later among the Jews, with the advent of a party of rabbis called the Pharisees. Which makes Job s rebuke of his friends all the more remarkable. We might be able to comprehend Job s statement of faith had Job known Christ, but he didn t. Christ had not been born. We, on the other hand, know Christ. We know that Christ is God. We know that Christ lived, suffered, and died as a man. We know that Christ rose from the tomb and conquered death, as we so often say. And when we are faced with death whether it s the death of someone close to us, or the prospect of our own death as we grow older we find ourselves unable to run away from the questions we normally like to run away from: questions like,  What do I believe is going to happen to me when I die? <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Which is why I chose the Gospel lesson that I did, which touches on that question very directly. It deals with those mysteries which, in the Catholic religion, we traditionally call the Four Last Things: heaven, hell, death and judgment. It s message is pretty clear, or at least it seems so. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;The rich man in the parable has used his wealth to isolate himself from what is ugly in the world around him, as rich people often do. But it doesn t work, because the beggar, Lazarus, is  laid at his gate, as our Lord puts it. Which puts the rich man in an awkward position; because, now, in order to continue to isolate himself, he has to pretend that Lazarus isn t there; he has to ignore him, which he does, for which he ends being sent to hell. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Now, there are two points that are worth noticing here: first, the obvious fact that the rich man s retribution, and consequently Lazarus reward, do not come in this life; they come in the next, when Lazarus is sent to heaven to rest in the bosom of Abraham and the Rich Man goes to hell. The Rich Man is very remorseful for how he s lived and for ignoring the beggar at his gate; but by that time it s too late: any opportunity he may have had to change his life is gone. Lazarus can t even reach across the gulf to cool the Rich Man s tongue because, as Abraham clearly explains to him, the judgment made against him at the time of his death is final. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;But what s really remarkable to me, anyway is that, having had the finality of his plight explained to him by Abraham, the Rich Man lapses into a fit of charity: in the midst of this unbearable torment, brought on, of course, by his own neglect, the Rich Man wants to spare his brothers, who are also rich, from the same fate. He asks Abraham to send Lazarus to them, like Marley s ghost, so they can be warned to change their ways before it s too late. It seems on the surface, anyway to be an extremely magnanimous gesture; and it occurs to us, I think, that Abraham should look favorably on such a request. After all, it s probably the first time in this Rich Man s existence that he s thought of the needs of others rather than his own. But Abraham rejects the idea. He tells the Rich Man that, even for his brothers, it s too late. And we find that sobering because his brothers are not yet dead. Presumably they still have a chance to change their ways, but they are not to be permitted this warning. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;It seems so unfair, but then Abraham explains why: they have Moses, they have the prophets, they have the Scriptures; they need nothing more. Everything they need to learn what they must do to be saved has already been provided. If they choose to ignore it, it is their own choice and their own fault. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Why were the writings of Moses and the Prophets not enough to teach these men how to live in order to be saved? Well, one reason may be because, even by our Lord s time, the books of Moses and the Prophets in the Old Testament were already a thousand years old. Everyone was familiar with them; they were read regularly as part of the synagogue service, and maybe that was the problem. <img src="lazarus-richman.jpg" align=right hspace=15 vspace=5>They had become ritualized. Just like the gospel is for us. We hear the words of our Divine Savior read to us Sunday after Sunday; but how often do we listen to what those words are trying to tell us? It s not as if the gospels are written in some kind of peculiar code which we need a theologian to decipher. Our Lord s lessons in these parables are too often painfully clear. It s just that we don t listen. Just like the Rich Man didn t listen, just like his bothers didn t listen, until it was too late. And then we run the risk of having one of those  head-slapping moments at the time of judgment wherein we say,  Oh, you mean I was supposed to actually apply that to my own life?! Who would have thought? <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;There is a second point about this parable, as I said, to which I would draw your attention; and it s a point that s made by St. Cyril of Alexandria in his commentary on Luke s gospel. He points out the fact that the Rich Man is never named by Jesus in the parable, he simply calls him  a Rich Man ; but the poor man he mentions by name. Why? Because the Rich Man, lacking in compassion, was nameless in God s presence. And then he quotes Psalm 15, verse 4, in which God says, concerning those who do not fear him,  I will not make mention of their names with My Lips. It s a chilling statement about the harshness and finality of God s judgment at the moment of death. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Which brings us back to our original question:  Christ is risen from the dead; by death he conquered death... ; but, what exactly does that mean: to conquer death? Does it mean that, now, no one is supposed to die? If so, then something is terribly wrong. No. Nothing is wrong. Because that s not what it means. The resurrection of Christ conquers death, not by making it so that no one dies, but by making death irrelevant. We pass from this world because this world is not our destiny. And there you have the catch, because that s something that can only be taken on faith. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;So, when we are faced with death, whether our own or someone else s, our reaction to it is a measure of our faith. Do I live for this world or do I live for something higher, something better, something more worthy of me, something that was meant for me from the beginning? And should we make the choice to live not for this world but for the next, it s a struggle, certainly; but it s not a struggle we are forced to make alone. So many graces there are that Christ has offered to us in the Holy Mysteries of his Church: the grace we carry with us always because of our baptism; the grace of his very presence to nourish us in the Blessed Eucharist, the miracle of which we will witness very shortly; even the grace of confession and absolution, because Christ presumes that we will fail from time to time. He knows this because, while being at the same time God, he is also man. Being inadequate to the task does not mean you surrender; it means you make a leap of faith. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;St. Paul said once that Faith is the substance of things hoped for. What do you hope for? To live forever? That s not necessarily a bad idea depending upon what you mean. If you mean that you never want to leave this world never want to die well, good luck, because that s not gonna happen. You can jog all you want, eat a low-carb diet, drink protein shakes up the wazoo, you re still going to die; and it s occasions like this, when we have to deal with the death of someone we knew and loved all our lives, that drive the point home. As Tennison said,  Don t ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, meaning that we re all going the same way. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;But, if by  live forever we mean what Christ meant, meaning that we will some day leave this world behind and join him in another, to await that day when this world and everything it represents will pass away, then we will approach life and death with a very different attitude, and, hopefully, live our lives differently. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;And that is the message of the Church at every funeral. And that s why, even at the funeral of my own father, I cannot succumb to the fashion of the day and give you cute stories about my father and what a great guy he was, and will not permit anyone else to do so while we are in this church, even while I m sure that s what some of you would have preferred. But that s for people without faith. People who believe in nothing need the consolation that stories and remembrances bring because they have nothing else. But I will not give you that, because when I stand here and, more importantly, when I stand over there I am much more than my father s son: I am a priest of Jesus Christ, and my only message is his. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;So, now we continue with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, bringing into our presence, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the real flesh and blood of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. It is my duty to remind you that, if you are not a Catholic or even if you are, but have not been frequenting Holy Mass and Confession as you should then you should not approach for Holy Communion. And finally, I would ask you to keep, as your particular intention during this Mass, the soul of my father, that through the efficaciousness of our prayers today, the Lord will speed his soul on it s journey and keep it safe until the final resurrection, when this world will pass away, when soul and body will be reunited, and we will all see God in the face, confront the truth of the lives we have lived, and hopefully enjoy forever the never-ending fruits of lives lived in grace. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Glory to Jesus Christ. <p align=center><img src="signature.jpg"> <blockquote><font face="Maiandra GD" color=#7c6262><p align=justify>* <small>The following obituary appeared in the "Milestones" section of the <i>NIH Record,</i> Vol. LVIII, No. 24, December 1, 2006: <p align=justify>Dr. John M. Venditti, 79, who spent 26 years as chief of the Drug Evaluation Branch, National Cancer Institute, during his 39 years at NIH, died on Oct. 21 at home in Bethesda. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Born in Baltimore, he attended St. Dominic Parochial School, Mt. St. Joseph High School, the University of Maryland and received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from George Washington University Medical Center Institute for Biomedical Sciences. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;During the early 1950 s, Venditti s laboratory work was instrumental in the development of a number of anticancer drugs. He was considered one of the world s leading experts on drug interactions, a subject on which he published extensively. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;For many years, he was an active member of NCI s acute leukemia task force, and from 1966 through 1986, he directed the NCI anticancer drug screening program, a worldwide network of research and development projects for the discovery of improved chemotherapy. In 1983, he established National Cooperative Drug Discovery Groups, consortia of academic, industrial and government organizations, thus mobilizing the nation s top scientific talent in the fight against cancer. He directed that program until his retirement from government service in 1987. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;While at NCI, Venditti was a party to a number of agreements for scientific exchanges with Germany, Japan and Russia. He served as U.S. delegate to the First International Conference on Anticancer Screening Methodology held in Geneva in 1974 and was a U.S. representative on the anticancer screening panel of the World Health Organization. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;After his retirement from NCI, Venditti held a number of private-sector positions including vice president and director of research at Microbiotest, Inc., of Sterling, Va.; senior associate at Technical Resources International of Rockville and senior scientist at SAIC-Frederick, a subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Venditti was an author on more than 160 scientific publications and a number of book chapters in the field of cancer research and had been scientific editor of the journal Cancer Chemotherapy Reports. He was a member emeritus of the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He was also a member of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and Sigma Xi, the national science honor society. <br>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Survivors include his wife Nancy; three children, Nancy V. Gauss of Gunnison, Colo., Rev. J. Michael Venditti of Allentown, Pa., and Mary Ruth Yao of Silver Spring; and three grandchildren.</small></blockquote> </tr> </table>