'Great Power'

Cardinal O'Connor looked rested and sounded upbeat this week as he both celebrated and preached at his Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral for the first time since his Aug. 31 surgery.

"I don't want to brag because I may fall off this pulpit," the cardinal joked as he began his homily at the Oct. 31 Mass. "But I told you I'd be back, with or without hair." (Cardinal's Homily)

The cardinal, who lost his hair during recently completed radiation treatments, had preached at all but two Sunday Masses since early September but he was not a celebrant. On Sunday, however, he returned as principal celebrant to thunderous applause.

In his homily and in remarks at the end of Mass, the cardinal asked for prayers for victims of the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, welcomed 66 members of the Passionist order--including two who were concelebrants--and thanked the media for their "very kind" coverage of his health since the surgery to remove a small brain tumor followed by five weeks of radiation.

He told Massgoers he hopes to be back to full-time duties soon, but is nevertheless at peace with whatever the future holds.

"Forgive my constantly personalizing this. It won't last much longer, I hope--but I'm deeply indebted to you for your prayers...they've been coming to me with great power," the cardinal said in remarks before the final blessing.

"God knows what the future will bring for me. Whatever it is, I'm completely serene in his will," he said. "I truly hope to get back to full-time work so that I can serve you to the best of my capacity...If this is to be, so be it. But it will be advanced by your prayers."

The cardinal's comments on the EgyptAir disaster also came at the end of Mass, when his secretary, Father Gregory Mustaciuolo, handed him an update on the crash--which occurred around 2 a.m. Sunday when the Boeing 767 plunged into the Atlantic off Nantucket one hour after takeoff from New York's Kennedy International Airport.

Although little hope was held for finding anyone alive, rescue teams Sunday morning were searching for possible survivors among the 199 passengers, including 129 Americans and 18 crew members on board.

The cardinal asked Massgoers to "pray for them, and if some have died may God have mercy on their souls."

On Monday, the cardinal called the airport's Catholic chaplain, Father James T. Devine, offering prayers and support. He also offered to go to the Ramada hotel in Queens to meet with victims' family members who may have gathered there. However, the families stopped only briefly in Queens en route to Providence, R.I., where the recovery effort is centered.

Also on Sunday, addressing members of the press at the start of his homily, the cardinal said that in his 16 years as archbishop he has had a professional relationship with the media. "You have written or said what you think you should, I have written or said what I think I should, without anyone's trying to offer special favor," he said.

"But during the past couple of months, during my special situation, I have to thank you for the graciousness with which you have reported this. You can say whatever you say, but you have...been really very, very kind, and I would be remiss if I did not express my gratitude."

He evoked smiles from the congregation as he read selections from a year 2000 calendar based on the book "Children's Letters to God," which featured a child's letter to God for each month. For January, the letter was, "Dear God: Our teacher told us about the millennium. When you started this world, did you ever think it would last this long?"

The entry for September read, "Dear God: We read Thomas Edison made light. But in Sunday school they said you did it. I bet he stoled your idea."

Speaking of the Passionists, who were marking the Oct. 20 feast day of their founder, St. Paul of the Cross, the cardinal said members of their congregation who conducted annual retreats in the Philadelphia parish of his boyhood were very influential in fostering his vocation.

He recalled being impressed by the large black cross that would be erected in the church sanctuary during the retreats, and the Passionist distinctive black habit with a sash around the waist which held a cross.

"I would always think of that sash as the sword of the spirit," the cardinal said, noting the Passionists' devotion to the suffering Christ on the cross, and its power to bring about salvation.

"The Passionists taught me to love the cross, together with the power of suffering that every one of us can use for the salvation of our own souls and those of others."

He noted the "critical" role of the Passionists during the "enlightenment" period in 18th-century Europe, when philosophers and other influential thinkers came to believe that the human mind is able "to penetrate into all the mysteries of the universe."

The philosophers began to chart a course of "limitless progress for mankind," he said, leading many to attribute "quasi-divine qualities to human reason and to challenge most of the traditional doctrines of Christianity."

"Enter St. Paul of the Cross," who had the "most profound insight into those ideas that would later become the enlightenment," he said.

The saint did not rely on secular arguments or even the "clever" arguments made by the Church in that era. Instead, he recognized that "as critical as were the teachings and preachings of Christ on earth, it was Christ's cross and his sufferings that made possible the salvation of souls," he told the congregation.

"For almost 300 years the Passionists have taught the clear teachings of the Church, but always the clearest of all the indispensibility of the cross," he said.

Passionists from the Province of St. Paul of the Cross, the 220-member Eastern U.S. province, were invited to the cathedral by the cardinal, who is cardinal-protecter of the order's Basilica of SS. John and Paul in Rome.

Among those attending were Bishop Norbert Dorsey, C.P., of Orlando, Fla., and Father Terence Kristofak, C.P., superior of the Province of St. Paul of the Cross based in South River, N.J., both of whom concelebrated.

Father Kristofak, in remarks at the end of Mass, thanked the cardinal for "welcoming us, encouraging us and loving us." He presented the cardinal with a crystal replica of the cathedral.

Some 15 Passionists serve in the archdiocese, many of them at Cardinal Spellman Retreat Center in the Bronx where they operate the Passionist Spiritual Center of Riverdale and the Riverdale Center for Religious Research.

Passionist Communications, which produces The Sunday Mass seen on TV each week, is based in St. Catharine's parish in Pelham.

After the cathedral Mass, Father Jerome W. Bracken, C.P., of the Passionists' Immaculate Conception Monastery in Queens, said he was "delighted" to hear the cardinal's personal remembrances of the Passionists and the cross that they wear in their sash. "It really captured how a young person might see that symbol as the sword of truth," he said.