My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Since we cannot see the Holy Spirit, God also uses symbols to tell us when His Holy Spirit is present, but that symbol is not always the same. When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, the Gospel tells us that the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus like a dove (Matthew 3:16). In the description of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, we are told that the Holy Spirit appeared to the disciples as tongues of fire, which came to rest on each one of them (Acts 2:3). Jesus is known as the Christ, which comes from the Greek word that means the one anointed by God’s Holy Spirit, and is recognized as the Messiah, the Hebrew word for the Anointed One. Thus, in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation and the ordination of priests and bishops, the presence of the Holy Spirit is symbolized with sacred chrism, the holy oil that is consecrated by the bishop in the Cathedral at the chrism Mass during Holy Week. It is also by the Apostles’ imposition of hands that the Holy Spirit is given (Acts 8:17-19; 13:3; and 19:6).

Most of the time, however, the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives is invisible and not readily apparent to us. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that we can discern the movement of the Holy Spirit. For example, I see the working of the Holy Spirit in the transition of the Chiara Center from a retreat house to become the Evermode Institute for the formation of Catholic school teachers and catechists. Also, the decision of the Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey in Southern California to send seven priests to our diocese beginning July 1 of this year involved a lot of human conversations and planning, but I believe this was guided by the Holy Spirit rather than mere coincidence.

Because the working of the Holy Spirit is often not readily apparent, perhaps we take the Holy Spirit for granted even in our prayer. We pray as Jesus taught us to “Our Father” or we direct our prayers to Jesus Himself. Even if we do not directly invoke the Holy Spirit in our prayers, the Church teaches that the “Holy Spirit is at work with the Father and the Son from the beginning to the completion of the plan for our salvation. … Consubstantial with the Father and the Son, the Spirit is inseparable from them, both in the inner life of the Trinity and his gift of love for the world” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 686, 689).

The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. The tradition of the Church lists 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, and chastity.

Our celebration of Pentecost is a good occasion for us to recall the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit and pray that the graces bestowed by our Triune God — Father, Son, and Spirit — will guide us through life on our journey to God’s Heavenly Kingdom.

May God give us this grace. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Recently, the priests at the Cathedral rectory and I watched the classic movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I had seen this film in the theater after it first came out in 1968 and wanted to watch it again in light of the many news reports and articles being published about the quantum advances being made in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). I do not want to spoil the story line for you in case you have not seen the movie yet and are thinking of watching it, so suffice it to say that one of the main characters of the movie is HAL, an acronym that stands for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer.

According to the story line, HAL became operational on Jan. 12, 1992, at the University of Illinois at their Coordinated Science Laboratory in Urbana. HAL is responsible for controlling all the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft on its mission to the planet Jupiter. HAL's "eye" is depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot. HAL interacts with the ship's astronaut crew, speaking to them in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner. Programmed to think and feel like a human being, problems emerge when HAL starts to act all too much like a human being, including the human proclivity to do evil deeds. I will leave the specifics for you to watch or read about elsewhere.

It is amazing that this movie was originally released over half a century ago, before there were all the personal computers and smart phones that we have at our fingertips today. At the time, this seemed to me to be just another wild imaginary tale of science fiction. Entertaining yes, but nothing real to worry about.

Fast forward 55 years and now conversations are making casual references to artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, another acronym that stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, that is, a "chatbot" developed by OpenAI and released in November 2022. Transformers are specialized algorithms for finding long-range patterns in sequences of data. A transformer learns to predict not just the next word in a sentence but also to compose an entire essay. This is not just finding data or quotes in a search engine, but generating and composing text. While ChatGPT has gained attention for its detailed responses and articulate answers across many domains of knowledge, it has also been found at times to provide factually incorrect responses with confident self-assurance in its own accuracy, similar to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

ChatGPT is already being used for nefarious purposes. One news story last month reported that employers are catching job applicants using ChatGPT to dress up their job applications and write résumés for them. Another person wrote that he asked ChatGPT for information about himself and was given a false description that accused him of professional misconduct. He wondered if he could sue the computer for libel!

In his August 2021 article in First Things on "The Threat of Artificial Intelligence," Ned Desmond, a senior executive in the technology sector, wrote, "The technologies referred to as 'artificial intelligence' or 'AI' are more momentous than most people realize. Their impact will be at least equal to, and may well exceed, that of electricity, the computer, and the internet. What's more, their impact will be massive and rapid, faster than what the internet has wrought in the past 30 years. Much of it will be wondrous, giving sight to the blind and enabling self-driving vehicles, for example, but AI-engendered technology may also devastate job rolls, enable an all-encompassing surveillance state, and provoke social upheavals yet unforeseen. The time we have to understand this fast-moving technology and establish principles for its governance is very short."

Concerned about such threats, Elon Musk and several other tech executives and artificial-intelligence researchers have called for a pause in the rapid development of powerful new AI tools, saying that a moratorium of six months or more would give the industry time to set safety standards for AI design and head off potential harms of the riskiest AI technologies. Others have called for a longer AI pause and for government regulation.

In an intriguing essay in The Wall Street Journal on April 20, 2023, entitled, "Artificial Intelligence in the Garden of Eden," Peggy Noonan wrote that the icon of the Apple computing company, an apple with a bite taken out of it, made her think of Adam and Eve in the garden and their fall as described in the Book of Genesis. She warns that "developing AI is biting the apple. Something bad is going to happen. I believe those creating, fueling and funding it want, possibly unconsciously, to be God and on some level think they are God."

That's a helpful warning. While the Catholic Church does not view technology as evil, we recognize that technology can be used for good as well as for evil purposes. The late Pope Benedict XVI in his last encyclical letter, Caritas in veritate, dedicated a whole chapter to the use of technology, which he characterized as a form of stewardship as a response to God's command to till and keep the land (cf. Genesis 2:15). He advised: "Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens our horizon. But human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility. Hence the pressing need for formation in an ethically responsible use of technology" (Caritas in veritate, 70). We would do well to heed this sage advice.

May God give us this grace. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The goal of our Lenten practices over the past several weeks has been for us to grow in holiness by turning from our sinful ways and stiving to be more like Christ, our Risen Lord. As we celebrate His resurrection on Easter Sunday, we are filled with hope for the resurrection of our own bodies and the promise of eternal life in God’s kingdom.

One of the ways that we grow in holiness is through pious practices that grant indulgences. An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment for sins, whose guilt is forgiven, which a properly disposed member of the Christian faithful obtains under certain and clearly defined conditions through the intervention of the Church, which, as the minister of Redemption, dispenses and applies authoritatively the treasury of the expiatory works of Christ and the saints. An indulgence is partial or plenary according to whether it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.

Last year on Dec. 8, as we began our Diocesan Year of the Eucharist and opened our Centennial Celebration of the 100th anniversary of the transfer of our diocese from Alton to Springfield, I announced that I had received a decree from the Holy See granting a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions for the Christian faithful who visit our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception here in Springfield or the Church of Ss. Peter and Paul in Alton between the 8th day of December 2022 and the 9th day of December 2023.

The “usual conditions” to gain a plenary indulgence are excluding all attachment to sin, even venial sin, performing the indulgenced work, and fulfilling the three conditions of sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intention of the pope. The “indulgenced work” for this plenary indulgence is to attend a liturgical service celebrating the jubilee or at least spending a suitable period of time devoted to prayers for the people of our diocese to be faithful to the Christian vocation, and recite the Lord’s Prayer, profess the Creed, and offer invocations to the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and Saints Peter and Paul.

The three conditions may be fulfilled several days before or after the performance of the prescribed work; it is, however, fitting that holy Communion be received and the prayer for the intention of the Holy Father be said on the same day the work is performed.

The condition of praying for the intention of the Holy Father involves reciting one Our Father and one Hail Mary or any other prayer according to one’s individual piety and devotion, if recited for this intention.

In addition to plenary indulgences, there are partial indulgences that may be gained every day in the course of our daily lives and ordinary activities.

There are four general concessions by which the Christian faithful are encouraged to infuse their daily lives with a Christian spirit and strive toward the perfection of charity. These four general concessions or grants are as follows:

1. A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, while carrying out their duties and enduring the hardships of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation. This can be done, for example, by offering to God the hardships encountered in one’s daily work or tasks.
2. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who, led by the spirit of faith, give compassionately of themselves or of their goods to serve their brothers and sisters in need. There are a variety of ways to do this, such as volunteering at St. John’s Breadline, donating clothing to the St. Martin de Porres Center, or making a monetary contribution to Catholic Charities or some other charity that helps the poor.
3. A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in a spirit of penance, voluntarily abstain from something that is licit for and pleasing to them. The Lenten requirements of fast and abstinence are actually quite minimal. Thus, we are encouraged to do voluntary penances. Indeed, every Friday throughout the year calls for some form of penance in remembrance of the day Christ died for our sins. By holding our appetites in check, we are moved to regain mastery of our bodies and conform ourselves to the poor and suffering Christ.
4. A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who, in the particular circumstances of daily life, voluntarily give explicit witness to their faith before others. This grant encourages the faithful to profess their faith openly before others, for the glory of God and the building up of the Church. In addition to these four general concessions of partial indulgences that can be gained on a daily basis, there are many other prayers and pious practices by which the faithful can gain partial indulgences and, in some cases, plenary indulgences as well. For example, the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence each day of the year by the devout reading or listening to the Sacred Scriptures for at least a half an hour, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least one-half hour, praying of the Way of the Cross, or recitation of the rosary in a church or an oratory or in a family, a religious community, or in general when several of the faithful are gathered to pray together. Many other prayers impart a partial indulgence.

A full listing of the indulgences granted for various pious practices, prayers, litanies, devotions, and invocations can be found in the Manual of Indulgences, published in 2006 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is available online by searching for Manual of Indulgences.

I encourage us to become more familiar with the Church’s teaching on indulgences and take advantage of this wonderful means of growing in holiness and grace. As we celebrate our Lord’s resurrection this Easter, may we grow in holiness and follow the way that Christ has prepared for us, the path to eternal life.

May God give us this grace. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

There is an old joke about the person who is looking for a parking place in a packed parking lot. In desperation, he offers a prayer to the Blessed Mother with a promise: “Mary, if you find me a parking space, I promise to go to Mass every Sunday from now on.” Miraculously, as he turns down the next aisle, behold! There is an open space! The driver immediately says, “Never mind, Mary, I found one myself!”

The joke comes to mind when we think about how often we pray for something we need or want, but then do not offer thanks to God when we receive it. Worse yet, perhaps we do not even acknowledge that Divine Providence may have played a role in receiving what we had prayed for. Earlier this year at a Monday night football game on Jan. 2, 2023, Damar Hamlin, a football player for the Buffalo Bills, suddenly collapsed and went into cardiac arrest after a seemingly routine tackle. Hamlin lay motionless for more than 18 minutes while receiving medical attention on the field before an ambulance arrived to take him to the hospital. What happened next was described in an article by Ruth Graham in The New York Times:

As the ambulance carrying the injured Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin rolled slowly off the field in Cincinnati Monday night, a huddle of players and team staff knelt in a massive yet intimate circle on the field. They bowed their heads, some placing hands on each other’s shoulders and others with tears streaming down their faces, in a moment of spontaneous prayer led by the team’s chaplain. . . . Video circulated online of Bengals fans reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the stands. . . . Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of football operations at the N.F.L., told reporters, “I think we all have to recognize the power of prayer from coaches, players, the staff and the fans that was in that stadium, and the people watching from around the world. There is power in prayer.”

There is indeed power in prayer, as Damar Hamlin made a miraculous recovery. One week after many people feared he was dead, Hamlin was released from the hospital and returned to his home in Buffalo. Hamlin, who attended Catholic schools as a youth, is a devout Christian. In his first public appearance after being released from the hospital, Hamlin said, “What happened to me on Monday Night Football, I feel, is a direct example of God using me as a vessel to share my passion and my love directly from my heart with the entire world.” He thanked God, friends, family, and medical professionals who “saved [his] life.”

At the NFL Honors event in Phoenix, Ariz., a few days before the Super Bowl, Hamlin said, “First, I would just like to thank God for being here. Every day I’m amazed that my experiences could encourage so many others across the country and even across the world — encourage them to pray, encourage to spread love, and encourage to keep fighting no matter the circumstances. … My entire life, I felt like God was using me to give others hope, and now with a new set of circumstances, I can say he’s doing what he’s always done.”

Not everyone may be as quick to thank God for the gifts we receive. Though provided with so many blessings from God, people often choose to overlook those blessings and instead credit themselves for their accomplishments. It is refreshing to see the faith of this young man and his gratitude to God expressed publicly in a time when nonbelievers and skeptics scoff and ridicule Christians who offer their thoughts and prayers after some tragedy or misfortune. His example reminds us to offer thanks to God in our prayers for the blessings He gives us.

Our instructions for our Lenten journey are clear: Jesus tells us to pray, fast, and give alms. We are told this in our liturgy, and we read it in the Scriptures and the teaching of the Church. These are practices that will lead us to Heaven. Beginning with the pillar of prayer, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 2623-2649) teaches us that there are various forms of prayer. These various forms include prayer of blessing or adoration, prayer of petition, prayer of intercession, prayer of praise, and prayer of thanksgiving.

Since our natural tendency seems to focus on prayers of petition, that is, asking God for something we need or want, it is important remember to include prayers of gratitude when we pray, which is what we do every time we gather for the Eucharist, thanking God for all the gifts He has given us and the many ways in which He answers our prayers.

Our Lenten practices should have one singular goal: How can I grow closer to Jesus Christ? Prayer is the best way to do this. St.Teresa of Avila said that “Prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.” This is the key point, for it is in right relationship with Jesus Christ that we find true happiness, as He leads us to the joy of eternal life.

May God give us this grace. Amen.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Bishop Robert Barron, the Bishop of Winona-Rochester and the founder of Word on Fire, wrote an article recently (Jan. 27, 2023), entitled, “Inclusivity and Love,” in which he said, “The other night, I had the privilege of participating in one of the listening sessions for the continental phase of the Synodal process. The basis for our discussion was a lengthy document produced by the Vatican after it had compiled data and testimony from all over the Catholic world. As I have been studying and speaking about synodality, I very much enjoyed the exchange of views. But I found myself increasingly uneasy with two words that feature prominently in the document and that dominated much of our discussion — namely, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘welcoming.’ Again and again, we hear that the Church must become a more inclusive and welcoming place for a variety of groups: women, LGBT+ people, the divorced and civilly remarried, etc. But I have yet to come across a precise definition of either term. What exactly would a welcoming and inclusive Church look like?”

Like Bishop Barron, I also participated online in one of the listening sessions of the “North American Continental Virtual Assembly” held by videoconference, and I too was uneasy about the ambiguous use of the words “inclusivity” and “welcoming,” so I was pleased to see Bishop Barron address this issue in his article.

Bishop Barron answers the question of what a welcoming and inclusive Church would look like by pointing to “the attitude of radical welcome” that Jesus showed to everyone, including sinners, but he adds that “this inclusivity of the Lord was unambiguously and consistently accompanied by his summons to conversion. Indeed, the first word out of Jesus’ mouth in his inaugural address in the Gospel of Mark is not ‘Welcome!’ but rather ‘Repent!’ To the woman caught in adultery, he said, ‘Go and sin no more’; after meeting the Lord, Zacchaeus promised to change his sinful ways and compensate lavishly for his misdeeds; in the presence of Jesus, the good thief acknowledged his own guilt; and the risen Christ compelled the chief of the Apostles, who had three times denied him, three times to affirm his love.”

Thus, Bishop Barron says that he would characterize Our Lord’s approach “not simply as ‘inclusive’ or ‘welcoming,’ but rather as loving. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that to love is ‘to will the good of the other.’ Accordingly, one who truly loves another reaches out in kindness, to be sure, but at the same time he does not hesitate, when necessary, to correct, to warn, even to judge.”

I must add that I am also somewhat uneasy about all the emphasis being put on listening and the ambiguity about the supposed outcome of such listening. Yes, we must listen to what others have to say and we do quite a bit of listening in our diocese through our parish pastoral councils, parish finance councils, school boards, diocesan pastoral council, diocesan finance council, presbyteral council, and the college of consultors, as well as the diocesan synod that we held in 2017 with representatives from each of our diocese’s 129 parishes. But then the question becomes: What do we do with what we have heard? Some would suggest that we must then change doctrines and canon law if we hear that some people do not accept or are not happy with what the Catholic Church has been teaching for almost two thousand years. But that is not the purpose of our listening.

St. John Henry Cardinal Newman gave correct and helpful guidance regarding what to do with what we have heard in his essay, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, which Newman wrote in 1859, just five years after Pope Pius IX promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It was reported that the pope had widely consulted the faithful on this issue before promulgating the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But Newman distinguishes different understandings of what it means “to consult.”

On the one hand, a person may consult a physician about a sickness, the purpose of which is to obtain the doctor’s advice and follow it. On the other hand, Newman points out that “consult” can also refer to ascertaining facts: “Thus we talk of ‘consulting our barometer’ about the weather: the barometer only attests the fact of the state of the atmosphere. In like manner, we may consult a watch or a sundial about the time of day. A physician consults the pulse of his patient; … It is but an index of the state of his health.” It is in this sense that Newman speaks of consulting the faithful: “Doubtless their advice, their opinion, their judgment on the question of definition is not asked; but the matter of fact, that is, their belief, is sought for, as a testimony to that apostolical tradition, on which alone any doctrine whatsoever can be defined.” Thus, when we consult people and find out that they do not like a church teaching, it is like taking their pulse or their temperature and finding that the patient is not healthy and needs healing.

The Great Commission that our Risen Lord gave to His Disciples was not, “Go and listen to all the nations,” but, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

May God give us this grace. Amen.