During my third year in upper graduate seminary, I had the privilege of living with two seminarians who were studying for the Archdiocese of Beijing, China. Both students were sent to the United States as part of an agreement that was made between the official, government-sanctioned church in China and the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. The deal that was negotiated was that some of the Chinese seminarians were given permission to study their theology in Roman Catholic institutions from the states and, in return, the Chinese government would loosen their grip on the priests from the "Underground Church" in China who were unjustly imprisoned and mistreated because of the allegiance they held to the universal Catholic Church. The two students who came to live at the University of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary where I studied were named Peter and Joseph; Joseph lived on my floor and Peter lived two floors above me.

Neither Joseph nor Peter spoke any English when they first arrived in the states. Joseph was more diligent in his studies; Peter seemed to adapt more to the "social customs" of his new country without worrying too much about the education that went with it. Fr. (now Bishop) Jerry Kicanis asked me to take Joseph under my wing and tutor him about the culture of the states. As I got to know Joseph, I began to learn of this man's serious intentions in the life of the faith.

Joseph confided in me of his desire to follow the teachings of the underground Church in China. He told me that because he wanted to follow this path in his life, what he would encounter would be quite difficult, that this life might lead him to prison or to much worse. However, as Joseph confided in me, he believed that it was God's will that directed him in this path and that to deny the will of God was to deny the path of life that he was called to follow. With these comments, Joseph made me reflect intensely on the path of sacrifice and suffering on which we are sometimes placed in life and whether we are able to endure this suffering for the sake of the kingdom.

I was thinking about how Joseph chose to follow the will of God, his challenge to remain obedient and avoid temptation in the world. At the time that I lived with Joseph, I was paralleling his future struggles with that of Cardinal Ignatius Jung, who served 30 years in prison and another decade under house arrest on account of his adherence to the same faith that he was called by God to live and punished by a government as a result of this adherence to the faith. For the sake of Cardinal Jung, for the sake of Father Joseph, I pray that each of us in this holy place are able to say with conviction the same words that serve the basis for their lives: "thy will be done" and "lead us not into temptation."

As we commemorate our Lord's suffering and death on this Good Friday, I am certain that each of us have our own challenges in our lives and in our ministries that we must overcome and temptations to take the easy way out of the challenges which we face. The challenges might be simple ones: to go on a diet, how to manage our department's finances, or in which programs we will choose to invest and which programs we will not. Some challenges might seem more difficult: how to stay faithful in our respective vocations or how to love another person when that other person has wronged us in some way. None of these challenges come anywhere close to the suffering our Lord endured on the cross. None of us could even come close to enduring what Christ had to endure in those final hours.

I have learned the hard way in my life that following the will of God is a whole lot harder than following the will of society - society has a much different plan in life than God does. The old joke that is used in the life of ministry is that if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. Society has plans for us in this world and those plans usually are hedonistic by nature.

God has one plan for us - to get us to heaven. He has given us the tools to achieve this goal; He has given us His Son to show us the way. All we have to do is hold on to Christ and to follow the blueprint for salvation he has set for us in the Bible and the teachings of the Church - all we are called to do is hold on for the ride and allow Christ to steer this boat and to carry us to the other side.

As a parish priest in this small little corner of the diocese, I am going through my own parish struggles that make me wish that I could walk around the cross rather than through it. I certainly do not desire to endure this type of suffering and I think to myself that those who choose to suffer must be crazy - it probably is easier to allow someone else to endure the burden of a crisis than to have to deal with this crisis yourself.

It is at those times, especially at those times, that I pull myself away from the crisis itself, I place myself in front of that crucifix or the Blessed Sacrament, and I realize that, through this prayer, suffering can be a good thing in the life of the believer. Suffering can be a good thing because it reminds us of the suffering of Christ and what he had to endure for our salvation. Being a casual reader of the Christians that lived in the early centuries of the Church, I reflected on what these particular men and women had to endure for the sake of the faith. Some were verbally attacked; some literally put their lives on the line. Eleven of the twelve apostles of Christ died a martyr's death so that the Church would have life.

What is remarkable to me, in reflecting on the writings of the early Church, is the desire of these holy men and women to follow the example of Christ in their daily lives, especially in times of persecution. In the worst of times, these saintly people connected their suffering to the sufferings of Christ; they let go of their own lives and desires and allowed Christ to carry them through the sufferings they had to endure.

And when we understand how these early Christians allowed Christ to carry them through their sufferings, the Footprints prayer does not become just a nice thing to for us read but a summary statement concerning the type of life these Church fathers and mothers chose to lead, a type of life we are called to lead ourselves. When we choose the life of suffering, the passage from Matthew 11 does not become a feel-good reading we hear once every three years at Mass - it becomes our modus operandi in the way we choose our life: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

One of my favorite passages on suffering comes from The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, a first century saint that joyfully walked the path of suffering, knowing that the presence of the Lord was on the other side. Even at the advent of his death, St. Polycarp ecstatically offered this prayer of deliverance to God, which serves as an inspiration to the way I am challenged to seek the Lord's presence during the times of my own suffering and grief. St. Polycarp prays,

O Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ… I give You thanks that You have counted me, worthy of this day and this hour, that I should have a part in the number of Your martyrs, in the cup of your Christ, to the resurrection of eternal life, both of soul and body… I praise You for all things, I bless You, I glorify You, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, with whom, to You, and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.

(By the way, I'll give a month's salary to anyone who names their first child Polycarp or any set of triplets Shadrach, Mishach and Abednego. That's a whole $3.50 for anyone who wants it.)

In my own journey towards and through the priesthood, I have encountered many priests and religious who have suffered a great deal in their struggles, both personally and professionally. I thought to myself how any of these priests were able to remain priests through their own personal crises. I came to find out that the example of suffering that they endured became an inspiration for me. Because of their love for me in God's name, even with their own personal struggles, they became the ones responsible for my priesthood today, just as I, with all my personal struggles, am mandated in my faith life to endure my sufferings for the sake of others.

When I was three or four years old, my family lived two blocks away from St. Dominic's Catholic Church in Bolingbrook, Illinois. The pastor of the parish at the time was Fr. Edmond Gregory, someone whom I really didn't know (and still do not). What I do remember about Fr. Gregory during my early time on earth was the way he was gentle with me whenever I attended church. Whenever I used to attend Church there during that time, I was a tad bit restless sitting in the pews (and as you know, I have matured to become such a mature, calm, sugar-induced bundle of energy). I remember how, at times, I used to sneak up into the sanctuary during Mass and stand by the pastor as he said the prayers. I also remember how Fr. Gregory never chastised me for doing this. Instead, whenever I was getting restless, Fr. Gregory used to put a seat next to his chair at the altar and if I ended up making a cameo appearance during Mass in the sanctuary; he always gave me the best seat in the house, right next to him.

As I got a little older (now I was four or five), I wanted to say Mass just like the priest did. The priests at St. Dominic's did not want to discourage me because they were always seeking vocations, so every so often, they would give me an old bag of hosts to take home, so that I could play Mass with my family. I really didn't know how to celebrate Mass but I really loved passing out hosts to everyone in my family, so I pretty much skipped the readings and went straight for the communion. And when communion time came, my brother Ben would sneak into the room, grab a couple hosts, and leave the room just as quickly. Even at six years old, I was driving people crazy about leaving Mass early… I do not know how Fr. Gregory will be remembered by others in the world - I came to find that he, like all of us, had struggles in his life - but in my mind it was my small moments with him that made all the difference to me and made my road to the priesthood a special one. As a priest today, whenever I challenge myself to spend time with the kids at whatever parish I am assigned, I remember to treat them with the same respect and dignity that Fr. Gregory afforded me when I was growing up.

When I moved to Sandwich, Illinois in 1974, the pastor of that particular parish was one Fr. Thomas Kane, a Camboni Father who incardinated into the Rockford diocese and served St. Paul's for almost twenty years. I came to find out that Fr. Kane lived a life full of suffering. While he was a Camboni Missionary, he devoted his life to serve as a chaplain for the armed services during the Korean conflict. During this conflict, Fr. Kane was captured by enemy troops and lived much of the war in a prison camp, undergoing great sufferings during that time.

I don't know if I could have handled those hardships. In a way, I think to myself how priests like Ron Nietzke would ever want to serve in the armed services, knowing, as was the case with Ron, that you might be sent to Afghanistan or Iraq or some other location where your life was constantly in peril. But even after twenty years of living with these horrendous experiences and the struggles he had to endure after the fact, Fr. Kane devoted his life to encourage my vocational call and my own desire to become a priest. Fr. Kane took me under his wing so that I could serve in very important capacities as a teenager, capacities like washing his dog (the filthiest Dalmatian I had ever met) and doing basic maintenance work around the parish.

At the time, there was a High School Seminary in Madison, Wisconsin that was still very active. It was Fr. Kane who encouraged me to enter the seminary and paid half of the $1500 yearly fee that provided me with room, board and tuition for the year.

When I was in college, the most influential priest of the time was a man from St. Peter's Parish in Geneva, Illinois named Fr. Jim McLaughlin. Fr. Jim suffered his own hardships in life - some years ago, a plane on which he was traveling was hijacked by a group of terrorists and for a period of time during the Reagan administration, Fr. Jim was called to minister to those hijacked prisoners during this horrendous ordeal.

And even through all his own personal suffering, Fr. Jim always took time in his life to serve as a shepherd for me and encouraged me to serve as a priest nevertheless, especially during a time when my own mother had died in a horrible auto accident and I was deciding whether I wished to serve as a priest in my life or to turn towards another direction.

In upper graduate seminary, my most important influence was a Jesuit priest named Fr. Pat Boyle, a former chaplain in the United States Army who served in Vietnam alongside the troops who fought in the war. Fr. Boyle (or "the colonel" as he was known in the seminary) generally appears as one of those crusty old curmudgeons that we would want to avoid, but throughout my difficult times in the priesthood it was Fr. Boyle who provided the type of support that made it possible for me to sit here today.

Fr. Gregory… Fr. Kane… Fr. McLaughlin… Fr. Boyle… all these men encountered a literal life of suffering that was real in my life, a reality that can only be understood if you actually live the life. In my own life, I think to myself that whatever evils may have fallen upon me, whatever challenges I am called to encounter, I look at the lives of others who have influenced me and realize that my struggles pale in comparison to theirs. Despite their trials and tribulations, they stayed the course. I reflect in my life concerning whether I have enough fortitude, wisdom, council, and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit to endure the struggles that have been placed before me and whether I have allowed the Holy Spirit to strengthen my heart in the same way it strengthened the saints and sinners on this road to salvation. I ask if I have allowed the same Spirit who lived in the heart of Christ to live in my heart as well. It is for this reason that I continue to endure my ministry. It is for this reason that I devote myself to present the yoke of Christ to those who are in need.

I wish to conclude my homily today with a somewhat lengthy mediation from a man named Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who spent 23 years in a Soviet prison after being convicted for supposedly spying on Russia as a "Vatican spy." Prior to his death in 1984, Fr. Ciszek wrote about the reason he chose to accept the path that God asked of him and why, as a result, he accepted the imprisonment that accompanied this path. For me, I read this reflection and realize that in the larger picture, the sufferings of others like Polycarp, Peter and Paul, like Frs. Gregory, McLaughlin, Kane and Boyle, like Cardinal Ignatius Jung, Fr. Joseph Zong and Fr. Walter Ciszek, serve as my inspiration to allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen my heart in order to follow God's will. This is what Fr. Ciszek writes:

Choosing to do God's will and experiencing the spiritual freedom that followed was my greatest joy and the source of tremendous interior strength. For to know that he directed me in all my actions, that he sustained me with his grace, gave me a sense of peace and courage beyond description. Even in moments of human discouragement, the consciousness that I was fulfilling God's will in all that happened to me would serve to dispel all doubt and desolation. Whatever the trials of the moment, whatever the hardships or sufferings, more important than all these was the knowledge that they had been sent by God and served his divine providence. I could not always fathom the depths of his providence or pretend to understand his wisdom, but I was secure in the knowledge that by abandoning myself to his will I was doing as perfectly as I could his will for me.

Spiritual freedom of this sort, as I knew from bitter experience, is not something that can be attained overnight or ever possessed in its final form. Every new day, every new hour of every day, every new circumstance and situation, every new act is a new opportunity to exercise this freedom. What is required for growth is an attitude of acceptance and openness to the will of God, rather than some planned approach or calculated method. Even ascetical practices such as penances, fasting, or mortifications can be hindrances rather than helps if they are self-imposed. Striving instead to eliminate all self-will, to accept God's will revealed in the circumstances of daily life, is the surest way to achieve growth in conformity to the will of God. It will provide more than enough virtue to be practiced, suffering to be sustained, pain to be borne; more importantly still, it will make us fit instruments to achieve his designs, not only for our own salvation but for others as well. The service of God must take preference over all else.

May God bless us all in our lives of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. May God fill our hearts in the fruits of these disciplines, the fruits of service, sacrifice and suffering.

This is our prayer.