Homilies for 2012
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December 30, 2012
The Holy Family of
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
As we reflect on how lovingly Mary and Joseph cared for and protected the Child Jesus, let us be aware of needed changes in our beloved country and stand united in order to care for and protect our own children.
JOE SCARBOROUGH has a "Nixon-to-China" moment on his"Morning Joe" program:
"From this day forward, NOTHING can ever be the same again."
We've all said this before: after Columbine; after Arizona; after Aurora; after SO many other numbing hours of murder and massacre. But let this be our true landmark: Let Newtown be the hour after which, in the words of the New Testament [Revelation 21:5], we did all we could do to "make all things new."
Politicians can no longer be ALLOWED to defend the status quo. They MUST instead be forced to defend our children.
Parents can no longer take 'no' for an answer from Washington when the topic turns to protecting our children.
Though entrenched special interests are going to try to muddy the cause in the coming days, the cause of this sickening mass shooting -- like the others -- is no longer a mystery to common-sense Americans. And blessedly, there are MORE common-sense Americans than there are special interests, even if it doesn't always seem that way.
I say 'Good luck!' to the gun lobbyist .
Good luck to the Hollywood lawyer who tries to blunt the righteous anger of millions of parents, by hiding behind twisted readings of OUR Bill of Rights.
I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA's highest ratings over four terms in Congress. I saw this debate over guns as a powerful symbolic struggle between individual rights and government control. ... In the years after Waco and Ruby Ridge, the symbolism of that debate seemed even more powerful to me.
But the symbols of that ideological struggle, they've been shattered by ... violent, mind-numbing video games and gruesome Hollywood movies that dangerously desensitize those who struggle with mental health challenges. And then add in military-styled weapons and high-capacity MAGAZINES to that equation, and tragedy can never be too far behind. ... I've always taken a libertarian's approach to Hollywood's First Amendment rights and gun collectors' Second Amendment rights. ...
But that Friday, a chilling thought crossed my mind as I saw the Times Square ticker over ABC spit out news of yet another tragic shooting ...
... How could I know that within seconds of reading that scrolling headline that the shooter would be an isolated, middle-class white male who spent his days on his computer playing violent video games?
... How did I know that it was far more likely that he had a mental condition than a rational motive?
... And how did I know the end of the story before the real reporting even began? I knew the ending of this story because we've all seen it too often. I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children.
It's time for Washington to stop trying to win endless wars overseas while we're LOSING the war at home. We must give no more ground.
I choose life, and I choose change. ... And for the sake of our children, we must do what's right. And for the sake of this great nation that we love, let's pray to God that we do."
December 25, Christmas Day
Do you like riddles? Here is a Christmas riddle:
Of the 26 letters of the alphabet, which three letters are not only letters - but each is also a word?
A . . . I . . . O
The letter and word “O” is I what want you to think about this Christmas.
First one of the two most beautiful Christmas songs begins with that letter doesn’t it? . . . “O Come All Ye Faithful!”
But more than that this word “O” can have so many different meanings depending on how we say it:
We might say "O???? and this would mean a question????O????
Or we might say:
O!.....and this might mean a surprise…
Or we might say:
Oh….and this might mean a disappointment….
But the most beautiful O….we might say it is the Christmas O….because I is certainly the way Joseph and Mary said O when they looked at baby Jesus in the crib….this is the way the Christmas O is said:
“OHHHHHHHH!” When O is said this way it means: “How wonderful!”
And you know ….this is what our moms and dads said when they first looked into our faces when you were babies: Ohhhhhhh!
And you know what: When we say the “O” this way, we are praying!
And dear parents and other adults….we oldsters can learn to forget saying “O” that way - the magic “O” - the hope felled “O” - the “O” of wonder and surprise.
In his book: “Jesus Christ Before Christianity” by Albert Nolan…he writes that too often fatalism is the prevailing adult attitude….
Too often we say: “Nothing can be done….or “You can’t change the world.” Or “There is nothing new under the sun!”
But Christmas rebukes that….there is something new….and someone wonderful……the Christ Child…..
So…..Oh!.....Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant….to Bethlehem
And let us say before the crib:
“OHOOOOOOO!”
And on this Christmas, let us look into the eyes of our loved ones with new and fresh sight and say to them and of them:
OHOOOOOOO! . . . Praise God for such wondrous gifts!
December 16, 2012
3rd Sunday in Advent - Gaudete Sunday
So today is REJOICE Sunday.
Rejoice in The Lord always; again I say, Rejoice!
Indeed The Lord is near!"
Last week a new game show took place on TV
“Take it All” was its mantra!
I saw it as an ode to greed.
Winners take it all amid great joy. Losers go home empty and sad.
How would John the Baptist have seen it?
I suspect he would have viewed it with scorn.
"Share it! would have been his mantra.
In fact that is precisely what he says in today's Gospel.
"Whoever has 2 cloaks should share with the person who has none!"
The good news about the approaching Christmas Season is that we often share a lot. The only bad news could be we would be too greedy about what we get. But I suspect we are more focused on giving than receiving.
And if so, this is a very freeing thing.
Like the parachutist dropping out of the plane it is only in letting go that she feels the chute unfold and then glimpses the panorama below.
I suspect that John, who was really a wild sort of man living in the desert, would be a parachutist today.
Or maybe he would ride a Harley. He was that kind of guy.
He would do daring things today as he did then. But it would not be to draw attention to himself.
It would be to wake up the people to someone better just over the horizon. And this waking up would involve being freed up: . . . from bad dreams . . . from addictions . . . from whatever inhibits us. Often that might be fear or anxiety.
And in our day just as there are game shows that cater to our freedom, too, there are networks that cater to our anxieties.
John says: Baloney!
Wake up and be hope-FULL!
Jesus is always NEAR!
Immaculate Conception
December 8, 2012
MAGNIFICAT
I am bursting with God news!
I am dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me and look what happened:
I am the most fortunate woman on the earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God, whose very name is holy, set apart from all others
His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor he set down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
Remix translation, from North American Prayer Book
Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2012
The winding roads shall be made straight and the rough ways made smooth…(Luke 3:6)
I live in the desert. Amazingly that is where my “Jesse Tree” blooms! [See above.] And today the Gospel takes us to the desert of old where we meet John the Baptist, the Advent Herald.
He proclaims: “Repent!” This is the way the winding roads will be made straight and the rough ways smooth. Change! Imagine something better!
We all walk on winding roads, do we not?
And sometimes the going gets rough.
Sometimes this is of our doing.
Sometimes it is because of the wrong dong of others.
Or sometimes, it is just the hard knocks of life that slow us down.
In one way or another we all encounter spiritual deserts.
John the Baptist and the Advent season remind us that this is the time to straighten things out.
This is the sacred time to look ahead.
This is the time to cease wallowing in regrets and imagine a better path.
I recently watched a fascinating program of Public TV: “The People versus the State of Illinois.”
It was all about perspective and how we create our own reality.
It was about the possibility of “changing our mind.”
It was premised on the fact that we can change the way we see things.
And our imagination is a key element in changing our mind.
Advent with its purple color, its Advent candles, its Advent Prophet John, speaks to us to change our mind, smooth our road, get over the bumps because something (someone) very good and wonderful waits for us just over our horizon.
The TV program connected imagination with hope.
Of the three cardinal virtues, Faith and Charity seem to take center stage.
But it is their companion Hope that is the Star of Advent.
Hope sprung in Mary’s heart when the angel greeted her.
Hope spring in Joseph’s heart when he too listened to the angel.
The exiles in the desert, fed up with the corruption of the city seized upon hope when John appeared in the desert, not like a shaking reed, but as a beacon of hope.
In each situation, it took imagination to consider something different and something better.
That is always our Advent challenge. In the midst of the shortest days of the year; in the midst of a time when it seems light is about to disappear, we hope for a greater light in our lives.
It is this constant hope for the future that moves St. Paul to address the Philippians and you and me in today’s Second Reading;
“I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you … I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to improve it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Phil. 1:5)
Therein lies our Advent. We must imagine God accomplishing in us even more than we can imagine. But imagine—and our imagination should lead us to God’s.
Breakfast Question:
What do you think of the connection between imagination and hope?
Personal Reflection:
What is my greatest Advent Hope?
First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2012
"I will raise up for David a just shoot;
he shall do what is right and just in the land."
Jeremiah 33: today’s First Reading
Outside my window there sits an interesting desert plant. Its overall shape is round, but from its center it sends out sharpened spiked leaves.
It has been there unchanged my first year here. Several months ago, it began to grow a stalk. That stalk has soared up now some 12 to 15 feet! (See picture.)
The name of the plant is a “Century Plant."
When the stalk reaches its full maturity, it will drop seeds for the future. Then the root plant below will die, having achieved its purpose. In fact the bottom part of the plant, obscured in shadows, is already beginning to die.
For this Advent it will be my “Jesse Tree.” It will remind me that the time of Jesus is coming. His Kingdom that we pray for in the Our Father is germinating. And the end time will be like my century tree: coming when the time is full; in the meantime we wait in Advent hope.
Just as Jeremiah today speaks of a “just shoot,” Isaiah 11:1-6 also writes: “A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.”
This new Jesse plant of Isaiah will be “filled with the Spirit of the Lord.”
Jesus is the new fresh sprouting plant whose seeds will sprout up through the centuries. He is our “Century Plant.”
Advent - as we approach the solstic -is a dark time.
Just as seed must enter the darkness to germinate, so too for us, we enter the Advent darkness so something new can sprout in our hearts and spirits at Christmas.
In the Gospel today, Jesus calls us to alertness. Do not be drowsy with drunken mess nor anxiety, He tells us. Sometimes we may become drunk or addicted precisely because of anxiety! It seems to be an escape; instead it becomes a prison.
And Advent, instead of a peaceful time, can turn into an anxious time. We shall be busy about many things preparing for Christmas. We may even be anxious lest we fail to “get Christmas right," and get just the right gifts, just the right recipes, just the right whatever.
We can become like high spirited race horses flicking our tails and tossing our heads in consternation!
But right NOW, to begin Advent right, like an anxious race horse, we should get in the Advent starting gate and settle down and figure out: what is really most important for me to do between now and the race to the Christmas finish line?
Here is Paul’s answers. In the Second Reading, he gives us an Advent prescription:
“Brothers and Sisters may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you so that you may strengthen your hearts…” 1 Thess. 3:12
Whatever we do between now and Christmas that makes us more kind, loving, and giving—Right on!
Whatever makes us anxious, (even perhaps some gift giving)—let it go.
Let it be.
Breakfast Question: How can I benefit most from Advent?
For Personal Reflection: How do I make Advent a loving, peaceful time rather than a time of hastle and too much bustle?
November 25, 2012
Feast of Christ the King
Jesus Christ the King? In fact, Jesus was never an earthly king. Rather during his earthly journey, he was the “Suffering Servant” as described by Isaiah.
However, he has triumphed over death itself and now reigns in glory.
And we proclaim him as our “King.”
During the fierce persecuting of the Church in Mexico in the 1920’s, Father Pro, the Jesuit martyr, stood before the firing squad and shouted: “Praise be Jesus Christ our King!”
Earthly kings, rulers, potentates, presidents come and go, just as the anti-Christian government of Mexico did; but Christ continues to reign.
Pilate, Hitler, Stalin, Attila, Genghis Khan are all consigned to the dust bins of history.
And their grand schemes have faded away.
But Christ’s Kingdom, like fertile yeast, continues to ferment and bring forth fruitfulness in our lives.
We are at the edge of Advent and at the edge of the winter solstice. The sun seems to be going away. The shadows lengthen. The days shorten. It would seem that darkness would have its way and it would seem that the sun is abandoning us.
We long for the light. Those of us who may be prone to seasonal depression for lack of light may be emotionally affected.
If the sun seems fickle, Jesus Christ the King is not. He reigns. He is like a king in that he is steady. He is not moved by whim or fancy or the changing of the seasons. In season and out he is faithful in his care for us.
And so, with the martyr Father Pro, we too proclaim: “Praised be Jesus Christ, OUR King!”
November 18, 2012
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Mark is writing his Gospel at a turbulent time. Chaos is about to erupt in the Roman Empire and he writes to Christians so they may stay steadfast and hopeful. Thus he used a particular type of writing called apocalyptic.
This same Gospel could have been written just before Hurricane Sandy; before World Wars 1 or 2; or sometimes in our personal lives when chaos breaks in to disrupt our tranquility!
I wrote a book titled Spirituality In The Midst of Messiness.
In Chapter 2, I pointed out that we need to discern the difference between messiness and chaos.
Messiness is a given in the human situation and so we must muddle through messiness.
However with chaos, we need to recognize it for what it is and get moving! There is an old saying: "If you are going through hell, don't stop!"
So there can be moments in all our lives when Mark's words today seem to apply to our own lives: ".. when the sun seems to darkened, the moon does not give its light, and the stars seem to be falling from the sky"
In those times MOVE and seek help!
This Gospel speaks also of end times. But we are not to speculate about that.
The Entrance Antiphon for today's Mass is from Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet. He reminds us that even in the worst of times: "… the Lord thinks thoughts of peace and not affliction. You will call upon me and I will answer!"
November 11, 2012
32th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Beware of the Scribes" … MK 12:38
There is an independent movie out: Two Americans; you would have to search hard to find it, but it is worth a view. The two Americans in this documentary are a nine year-old girl who is a Latino American citizen, and the famous lawman, “Toughest Sheriff in the West!” Joe Arpio of Phoenix.
While the nine year-old was at school, the sheriff’s deputies raided a local car wash. They arrested her parents who both worked there; the father had worked there 13 years. They were without papers, so they were taken to jail.
When the nine year-old came home from school, she faced an empty house having no idea where her parents were. Luckily for her she had an aunt who took her in.
Sheriff Joe is a performer. He sings at comedy improv, and he is a great hit at banquets and assemblies around the Phoenix area. I was at a banquet one night at a Catholic gathering where he was the main entertainer. He had the folks in stitches telling them how his prisoners have to wear pink underwear and get green covered baloney sandwiches. All the elite folks there laughed and applauded. I walked out.
The movie shows Joe addressing a large hall with hundreds of white folks, median age maybe 75.
Again Joe gave them the old pink underwear spiel and baloney sandwich take off and they ate it up.
The crowd's median age is probably 75. When one woman was interviewed, she said, “We all love Sheriff Joe. Prison is about punishment and these people Joe puts in Tent City need their punishment.”
(As a matter of fact, a large number of folks incarcerated in Tent City have not even come up for trial and many of them are there for petty crimes.)
The movie goes on to show Sheriff Joe holding a thermometer up to a tent flap which registers 132 degrees in the summer Arizona heat.
Back to the nine year old: She first mourns the loss of her parents. But she knows injustice when she sees it. She becomes active in pleading the case for her parents. Eventually, she bravely testifies in Congress.
Sheriff Joe has just run for re-election. Millions of dollars have poured in to his campaign from all over America. His campaign has pictured him as a friend of animals. He is. He puts abandoned pets in air conditioned cells, people in tents.
His opponent notes that 400 molestation cases were ignored by Sheriff Joe while his posses were out rounding up undocumented Mexicans from their places of employment.
But that’s okay because the public loves the “Sheriff Joe Show.” He is re-elected by a wide margin.
Most of the white folks over in Sun City are celebrating. It is a great day for crime and punishment.
Which brings us back to today’s Gospel, “Beware of the Scribes…”Is there any connection? Maybe.
In another Gospel (LK 15: 1-10), they and the Pharisees are well described:
In this Gospel the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing close to Jesus, and the good people, the law abiding folks, the nice people, people like the Sun City crowd—in those days called Scribes and Pharisees did not like it at all. (If the Pharisees were anything at all, they were “law abiding.”)
Would they have liked it if Jesus fed those evil doers baloney sandwiches with green stuff hanging on it? Seems likely.
And then in this alternate Gospel, Jesus talks about a lost lamb; must have been a lost lambs because when the shepherd finds it in the wilderness, he places it over his shoulders.
Can we find a lost lamb in today’s gospel? I think so. How about the little 9 year old girl who comes home to find her house abandoned?
In every Gospel, we need to find ourselves. Who would we have stood with in the situations Jesus describes? With the Scribes and Pharisees? With the sinners? With the lost lamb? Each of us needs to ask those questions for this Gospel to be relevant at all.
Breakfast Question: Why do people take delight in degrading prisoners which goes beyond any sentencing?
Personal Reflection: Where am I in today’s Gospel?
Short Reflections As We Enter November:
Sandy: A majority of reputable scientists believe the severity of Sandy was influenced by GLOBAL WARMING, and future storms will be as well. Is any of the electorate giving any consideration to these facts as they prepare to vote?
All Saints, November 1: One of the newest canonized saints is Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a Green Saint in every sense of the word; last week she was named a Doctor of the Church. Google her name and learn more about this remarkable woman.
All Souls, November 2: No departed loved one is ever forgotten. How consoling!
The whole month of November is dedicated to the souls of the faithful departed.
Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 4, 2012:
“Love your neighbor as yourself…” proclaims Jesus. This loving of neighbor is the whole Catholic rationale for having concern for the common good of the whole community, not just my concerns, or 10, 20, 30, 40,50, 60, 70, 80, 90% BUT the whole community.
This is what we ponder as we prepare to vote.
November 6, Election Day:
As we look at our ballots, we will nowhere fine a perfect candidate in either party. They are all flawed, as each of us is. And so we ponder, and hopefully seek the Spirit to guide us in the wisest choices.
We seek wisdom, but as Henry Alford writes in “How To Love”:
“The tricky part of wisdom is that it usually necessitates a bicameral mind-set:
at its heart, wisdom is the knowledge of what is true, right, or just. BUT, it also needs a healthy sense of doubt, because without that, you are an ideologue.”*
Come Holy Spirit, help us, despite our doubts, to choose wisely for all that will hopefully benefit the common good. Help us to love all our neighbors as ourselves. Amen
A SPECIAL NOTE: Much has been written in the Catholic Press and Secular Press about a “Religious Liberty” issue surrounding our coming election. I have just read a short and excellent resource on this issue written by my friend, Doctor Patrick Whelan, a medical specialist doctor, Douglas Kmeic, Ronald Reagan’s constitutional advisor, and Dr. Ed. Gaffney, an expert on liberty questions. You can download it from Amazon for a Kindle eReader for 99 cents! The title is: America Undecided, Catholic, Independent, and Social Justice Perspectives on Election 2012.
*This is not a part of my homily and only appears on this section of my webpage: (No politician should be endorsed from any pulpit.) After thoughtful reflection, with a clear conscience and hope for the common good: I have supported the campaigns of:
Senate Nebraska: Bob Kerrey • House Nebraska: Ewing
Senate Arizona: Carmona • House Arizona: Sinema and Kirkpatrick
President: Obama)
October 28, 2012
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Two years ago, after experiencing eye pain, I was sent immediately to a Retina Specialist. He said I was about to experience macular degeneration in my one and only good eye. The other right eye can only read the top letter on the eye chart.
If I were to lose sight in my left eye, I would be legally blind. Dr. Dugal, an international expert on eye treatment ,informed me that would have been the result if the malady had occurred a few years earlier.
However, at that time they began experimenting with a drug used to stop bleeding in colon cancer and got permission from the USDA to attempt to insert it into the eye itself to see if it could produce the same results as in the colon. They got permission. They did experiment, and it worked. So now, every four weeks I get an injection in my left eye that is successful in preventing bleeding there. I am grateful!
But what if that new drug had not been available? As I walked Buddy this morning, I realized I could not do that anymore for fear of automobiles. I would not be able to drive. No TV. No movies. No real appreciation of the fall colors. My whole world would shrink and be confining. However, I would still have the best of medical care; Buddy would have to learn to be a guide dog for short walks, and I world have a circle of family and friends to stand with me.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a blind beggar, Bartimaeus. He would have had none of the support system you and I would have: no social security, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no structure of society that could provide a safety net, no government that gave a hoot for him. As a beggar he would have been scorned as a “taker in the dirt looking for a handout.”
So this beggar cries out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me,” after being rebuked for his uppityness. After all, who was this beggar to call after Jesus!
But some of the disciples replied: “Take courage. Get up. Jesus is calling you!” He got up. He went to Jesus. He was cured.
The blind man was isolated in a hostile environment. Sometimes you and I may feel the way he did.But the message of today’s Gospel is the same for us: “Take courage. Get up. Jesus is calling you too.
Breakfast Question: Where do we find Bartimaeus today in our world?
Personal Reflection: When am I blind and refuse to see?
October 14, 2012
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Through a generous bequest, from my deceased friend, Charles Fritz, I recently received a brand new 2013 Malibu automobile. It is the first new car I have driven since my last new one, a Chevy Biretta in 1986. It has lots of bells and whistles and is fun to drive. I like it. I enjoy it. But it is just a car.
On the other hand, last week I made a memorable trip to Omaha to celebrate my 80th Birthday. 160 friends gathered to celebrate! (See the pictures on this website.)
If you were to put the automobile on one side of the scale, it would weigh a lot. But if you put the friends on the other side of the scale, it would tip entirely in their direction.
Friends weigh more than automobiles and friends are more precious than gold.
The pictures on this website tell the story. There are smiles all around. There is laughter. There is the joy of reconnecting. To all who made this possible starting with + Charles Fritz and his bequest that paid for the party: HEARTFELT THANKS!
In today’s Gospel, a young man comes up to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus respond, “Sell what you have (maybe in his case his “car” or chariot!)” Give to the poor and come and be my friend.
That is what Jesus invites him to. To be his friend, to walk with Jesus, to break bread with Jesus, to listen to Jesus stories, to share the joys and the sorrows of Jesus of Nazareth.
He is invited to friendship, and he walks away sad. All down the centuries, his story will be told in the Gospel, and yet we will never know his name! He turned away from being called “a friend.”
His decision was neither wise nor prudent. In the First Reading today, Wisdom comes to us once again in feminine guise. The Scripture writer tells us that he:
“... preferred her to scepter or throne,
And deemed riches nothing as compared to her,
Nor did I liken any precious gem to her,
Because all gold in comparison to her is like a little sand!”
A new publication, This Day - which I recommend - has a nice meditation on the value of friendship:
“From the beginning of creation, human existence is all about friendship — friendship with God, friendship with one another, friendship with creation itself. St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that grace is amicitia Dei” friendship with God.”
Therein lays the treasure. Marriage ought to be friendship. Death can intervene in that friendship, but we can then turn to our friends. They form a circle around us.
The rich young man in the Gospel did not get it. He turned away from friendship with God.
And, yet for all of us, this gift is always present — no cost involved other than the turning of our hearts toward friendship.
Breakfast Question:
Many TV preachers proclaim a theology of “Prosperity.” How does that mesh with today’s gospel?
Personal Reflection: Where does your treasure lay?
October 7, 2012
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
My Birthday Celebration at St. Gerald, Omaha, NE
I thank my God whenever I think of you. Every time I pray for all of you, I pray for you with joy! ...1 Phlippians
Birthdays should be about more than honoring the birthday person.
They should be about the gift of life and all the ways we are enlivened as the years go on.
So I honor Kitty McCarthy my mother and Bill Fitzgerald my dad who brought me to life at a difficult time of depression....1932.
And I honor each of you who in one way or many have bestowed blessings upon my life, as I hope I have done for you.
Blessings!
The most important homily of Jesus was all about blessings...the beatitudes!
which were just proclaimed in the Gospel.
Blessed be! Blessed be! Proclaimed Jesus over and over,
In my book, Blessings For The Fast Paced I put this's dedication on the first page: "To my parents who set me upon a blessing path."
So that blessing path has brought me here to this special place where I had the blessed experience of being on the design committee of this lovely building and here where I co pastored with my boyhood friend Larry Dorsey.
So thank you Father Korte and St. Gerald parishioners for welcoming me back.
Today at 80 years of age I pray for the grace to age gracefully, to become mellow not to be filled with regrets, but rather to be filled with gratitude for so many blessings experienced on the blessing path.
There is a wonderful old song from the musical Fantasks That I love:
"Try to remember those days on September
When all the world was soft and mellow..
Another verse sings of when being "deep in December , .....try to remember when I was a young and callow fellow..."
I now in The December years of my life i can can be tempted to regret mistakes and foibles of the callow years which maybe went into my fifties!
This can be true for all of us whether priests or parent or spouses.
Far better for me and for all of us to be gentle with our failings..handing them over to a gentle Good Shepherd.
Far better for thank God for.
Amazing Grace that has lifted us up again and again
Amazing grace has sustained us on a blessing path.
September 30, 2012
26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Gehenna was the garbage dump outside the walls of Jerusalem. There was continual smoke rising from the smoldering fire that continually burned there. If Jesus were speaking today he might refer to a landfill.
He speaks of these fires as the abode of those who abuse "the little ones." We need look no farther than the sexual abuse scandals at Penn State or in our own Catholic Church to see the abuse of The little ones. There is a difference though AtPenn State The president resigned and others were fired. In the Church the enabler Cardinal Law was rewarded with a cushy sinecure in Rome!
The readings today are also about judging people. In the first reading one insider is upset because Edad and Medad who he considers outsiders have been given the gift of prophesy. The same narrow judging appears in the Gospel.
Why is there such a human tendency to always divide up into insiders and outsiders? We and them? The good guys (usually OUR guys) and the others who are the bad ones? This is dualism which allows no middle ground. A classic division is made between the rich and the poor.
I received an email last week with five sentences. One sentence said "one-half of the people expect the other half to take care of them!"
There again is the dualism! The dividing up.
And the division and judgment is simply not true.
The Scripture writer, James, turns this division upside down. Instead of the rich judging the poor as victims or deadbeats, he renders a different judgment against that particular segment of the rich who are unscrupulous: “... weep and wail over your impending miseries!"
Why? Because they defrauded their workers!
The fact is there is good as well as bad to be found among the poor as well as among the rich. The dualism that denies this can be pernicious. No single group has all the answers Believing that only results in gridlock whether in personal relationships or in government!
September 23, 2012
25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who cultivate pea ...
Where do wars and where do conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?”
Chapter 3, James: Today’s second reading.
Three trillion American dollars were spent on the war we waged in Iraq.
Although that war is over - our longest war in history - Afghanistan still simmers and there are after-effects of both wars: Every day, one American service person commits suicide!
War is costly in treasure and in blood. Whatever might be done to avoid rash wars is cost effective in lives and in treasure.
There is a Catholic group who attempts to “cultivate peace.” It is called Pax Christi and is worth Googling.
In the midst of all the political speeches and claims and counter claims there are events in the world that hover on the horizon and could cloud the future. Iran of course is one. This is a nation that has the 8th largest army in the world. Anyone who engages it would be opening the door to an immeasurable conflict.
Are we headed that way? Is Israel?
Here is a quote from the former Defense Minister of Israel, General Shaul Mofaz, directed at Netanyahu, Israiel's current leader:
“Over the past few months Israel has waged an extensive and relentless campaign with the sole objective of preparing the ground for a premature military adventure. This p.r. campaign has deeply penetrated the “zone of immunity” of our national security, threatens to weaken our deterrence, and our relations with our best friends. Mr. Prime Minister, you want a crude, rude, unprecedented, reckless, and risky intervention in the U.S. elections. Tell us whom you serve and what?” *
When the American Catholic Bishops wrote their pastoral letter years ago on war and peace, I was pastor at St. James Parish in Omaha, which is the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command. We did an adult Ed series on war and peace. Part of the presentation was given by officers from the Strategic Air Command.
When a Colonel was asked if there were dangers of a war starting accidentally, he responded, “I believe that history shows too many wars were started by miscalculation.”
Our world is complicated. There are no easy answers to complicated questions. However one question the followers of Christ must ask in every situation might be: Can we find a better solution than going to war or is there another way?
In the fascinating article in the New Yorker quoted above, Meir Dagan, former head of The Mossad, Israel’s famous intelligence organization, had this to say about Israel attacking Iran:
“An Israeli bombing would lead to a regional war and solve internal problems of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would galvanize Iranian society behind the leadership and create unity around the nuclear issue.
And it would justify Iran in rebuilding its nuclear project and saying, “Look, see, we were attacked by the Zionists enemy and we clearly need to have it. A bombing would be considered an act of war and there would be an unpredictable counterattack against us. And the Iranians can call upon their proxy Hezbollah which with its rockets can practically target any target in Israel.”*
For reflection: The USA, for half a century, has lived an uneasy truce with a nuclear power, Russia. Could it do the same with Iran? One of the coming debates will be on foreign policy and the topic of Iran will be discussed.
It might be well for thoughtful citizens to begin to ponder what the consequences of an attack on Iran might be, whether ordered by Obama or by Romney.
*The New Yorker, Sept. 3, 2012
For Breakfast Discussion: Is Jesus message of peace never possible?
Personal Reflection: Saint Francis prayer says: “Make me an instrument of your peace…” Am I an “instrument of peace?”
September 16, 2012
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Back in Scottsdale after blessed forays to Montana, Ireland, Alaska, and Seattle.
At our table on our Alaska cruise, we were blessed to be seated with A Baptist minister and wife, a Disciples of Christ minister and wife, and an Episcopalian husband and wife. And we all got along beautifully! How great that this could happen. Not sure it would have e worked before Vatican II.
On shipboard, I was only accosted once regarding religion and that from a Catholic man I had met at breakfast. He asked if I believed in social justice. I said yes and he said he did not. Told me to think about it.
A few days later, he came up to me on deck and asked, “Do you believe health care is a human right?”
“Yes I do.” I responded.
“No, he answered, it is not a basic human right.”
I responded, “Well in a democracy, I guess we can differ.”
“No!” he responded. “We live in a Republic, not a democracy, and therefore a right to health care is not a human right. Think about it!”
So I responded, “Do you believe in Right to Life?”
“Oh yes!”
“Well then, it seems to me that the government providing health care is - in effect –promoting the right to life. Health care preserves life.
Think about it!”
End of conversation.
Which brings us right to today’s Second Reading:
What good is it my brothers and sisters if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or a sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that we cannot be his disciple unless we take up our cross and follow him. One might think that sailing on a cruise ship is and escape from reality. And it is. For a couple of weeks we enter into a make believe world. If you just look at the surface of things it would seem that everyone aboard had not a care in the world.
Of course that is not true. One of the nicest persons we met who was savoring the ocean has recently been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at too early an age. Scratch the surface with almost anyone you might meet and there is some kind of suffering, some kind of loss, some kind of family concern.
The cross is a given.
Saint Andre Besette reminds us, “Instead of trying to avoid hardships, ask God for the grace to bear them well.’
Of course, this is precisely what Saint Peter would not accept in today’s Gospel. He wanted no thought of hardship nor of suffering. And Jesus rebuked him.
The cross would come to Peter and tradition tells us that when it came, Peter demanded he be hanged upside down, since he did not deserve to die in the same posture as his Savior.
Jesus rebuked Peter. But he also was very patient with him. May he be patient with you and me for we too are a “work in progress.”
Breakfast Sharing: Who do we know today who bears a heavy cross? How can we help?
Personal Reflection: Whose help do I need to bear my cross?
September 9, 2012
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(We have docked in Seattle. I will be there with family until returning the evening of Sept. 10)
If you were baptized as a baby or as an adult, a foreign word was addressed to you. In fact this was an Aramaic word like the words actually spoken by Jesus. That word was “Ephphatha!”
And this word was addressed to your ears and tongue. This is the same word that Jesus directed to the deaf and dumb man in today’s gospel.
So at each baptism today and ever since Jesus said it, this word is repeated. We know that when Jesus said it to the afflicted man he was addressing a real physical malady.
For us, the word is symbolic but no less meaningful. It implies that our ears need to be open to the truth and our mouths need to speak it.
Today in our mobile society our ears are constantly hearing: TV, mobile phones, radio, chatter, chatter, and chatter. And our mouths are open so much of the time … chatter, chatter, chatter.
But how much of what we hear is propaganda, or spinned “truths.”
For me, the only secure outlet that I find consistently tries more than others to give both sides of issues is CNN.
And then what about our ears and our hearing the gospel? Do we really hear it? We now have a candidate for Vice President who goes to Mass weekly. In doing so he is to be praised. He is ardently pro-life and this is praiseworthy. He hears the gospel weekly, or does he? Or does he hear all of it? Do you? Do I?
Despite regular church going he demands his staff read the works of Ayn Rand whom he idolized as a fundamental influence on his thinking. Who is Ayn Rand?
Rand is the atheist author of Atlas Shrugged. Some consider her a sociopath. She idolizes the rich and scorns the poor and presents greed and selfishness as virtues.
Breakfast Discussion: Do we really hear the full gospel?
For Reflection: Do I hear the full gospel?
September 2, 2012
22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
“You duped me O Lord and I let myself be duped” is the cry of Jeremiah the prophet in today’s first reading.
In his case God’s purpose for his life took an unexpected turn. As someone once said, “God can write straight with crooked lines.” We do know this, if we try to follow God’s will, even though sometimes it zigs and zags; if in the end, our path opens into love, peace, and justice, we shall know we have been on the right path.
There is such a thing as false prophets and Jesus warned against them. The so-called prophet of the fundamentalists, LDS Warren Jeffs, proclaimed himself a prophet and ruled (perhaps still rules) over hundreds of followers, while at the same time abusing young girls — all in the name of God.
“If you sexually please me, then you are pleasing God!” he told them.
But as Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets … by their fruits you shall know them.”
In the gospel today, Peter appears as he has often this summer. Last week Peter basked in the glow of being named “The Rock” by Jesus.
This week it is another story. When Jesus tells his disciples that suffering lies ahead, Peter actually takes Jesus aside and says, “God forbid that we should go down that path!”
And Jesus rebukes Peter “the rock” severely: “Get behind me Satan! ... You are thinking not as God does!”
Here again, God’s way does not seem right to us a lot of times.
So what is God’s will for us and how do we find it?
Today’s second reading is like a road sign pointing toward God’s will for us.
Paul writes: “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed bythe renewal of your mind that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”
You might translate that as having an open mind that you might discern:
… open to prayer
… open to taking wise counsel
… open to change if necessary or advisable.
Discerning is more important than ever now days since in so many things there are so many options.
At one point in my life, I had to make a decision as to whether I should take the path to writing or the path to continue as a pastor and administrator of parishes.
I did take counsel with a wise Jesuit since St. Ignatius has so much to say about discernment.
Did I make the best choice? I am not sure, but kind of think I did. After publishing 15 books, I know that I have perhaps reached 50,000 people around the country I never would have reached otherwise.
Finally, one of the fruits of prayerful discernment is a peaceful spirit.
And so we need to pray to the source of a peaceful spirit:
“Come Holy Spirit,
Fill the hearts of your faithful
Enkindle within us the fire of your love.
Send forth you’re Spirit and we shall be recreated,
and you shall renew the face of the earth.”
August 26, 2012
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Who are you? Who goes there?” These are the time honored questions of sentries down the ages. And a lot depends on the answer to that question.
My cousin, Bob Fitzgerald and his companions on a U.S. bomber in World War II were shot down over France; they got out of the wrecked plane uninjured and started walking down a French roadway.
Pretty soon two U.S. Military Police approached in a jeep. “Who are you?” they wanted to know, and just as in the movies, the M.P.’s wanted to know who won the World Series and other pertinent questions. They were suspicious since the Germans sometimes put U.S. or English uniforms on infiltrators behind the lines.
Who are you? This was a question posed to Jesus on many occasions. Was Jesus an imposter like the infiltrating Germans? OR was he the real thing?
These were the questions raised among the many who were puzzled by him.
So today, Jesus turns the tables on his disciples and asks them, “Who do others say I am?” Their responses are interesting because they show that many were confused about who he was.
“Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets…”
“But who do YOU say that I am?”
Surprisingly the answer that came back did not come from a chorus, but rather from just the leader of the pack—Peter:
“You are the Christ the Son
Of the living God!”
Peter gets it right while the others remain silent.
And then Jesus in return tells Peter he shall be “the rock.”
Well this time he is. A lot of other times he is the marshmallow. He rather easily forgets he is the rock and runs away from Jesus.
Peter forgets who Jesus is and he forgets who he himself is.
So what of you and me? Do we sometimes forget who we are? And who are we really?
So much of social interaction takes place today over the internet on Facebook or through dating services. People find our profiles there and begin to know who we are.
I say “begin” because each of us is too complex to ever have our full identity revealed there.
If this is true for you and me, how much more is it true for God!
We cannot fit God in a profile. We cannot put God in a box. God is always more than we can imagine.
And so the second reading proclaims the mystery of God’s profile:
Oh the depths of the riches
and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are his judgments
and how unsearchable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given the Lord anything
that he should be repaid?
So for us Christians the most we can know of God’s profile is to know Jesus.
And the most important identity we can know about you or me is not our status, not our titles, not our heritage. No, the deepest answer to our dignity and identity is to know:
Who am I?
“I am a beloved child of God.”
And who are the others we meet along the way in life?
“They too are the beloved children of God.”
But like Peter we sometimes forget, don’t we?
Who Am I?
O God like Peter I get confused.
Like Peter I doubt,
Even who I am!
Help me to know
That Your arms
Are big enough to
Hold me.
Your wisdom
Deep enough to lead me.
Your love
Grand enough
To accept
Who I am.
August 19, 2012
20th Sunday In Ordinary Time
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
Again today in the Gospel, Jesus continues his Eucharistic discourse.
Between last Sunday and this Sunday, we celebrated the Assumption of Mary into heaven. On her feast day, we read her beautiful Magnificat. Following are a few words about that.
In Mary’s proclamation (Magnificat), she announces:
“He has cast down the mighty from their thrones. And has lifted up the lowly.”
“He has filled the hungry with good things….
Mary was once a homemaker; she had to put bread on the table, which she probably personally baked on an outdoor oven. She knew what it was to be hungry and what it was to be fed.
As the mother of Jesus, she fed the body of Christ.
It would seem to me when we advocate for the hungry, we are doing Mary’s work of feeding the body of Christ as it is in the world today.
And as the old saying goes, “A woman’s work is never done!”
It is so for Mary. She still speaks for the poor and the hungry and would expect us to do so as well.
(That is why I personally called my congress man this week and urged against congress cutting funds for food stamps. In doing so, I think I am doing “Mary’s work!”)
Today’s Scriptures:
The whole theme of food and eating is carried out in today’s first reading. Wisdom, personified as feminine, calls us in to eat of her food and drink of her wine.
When we DO drink in wisdom, we realize that actual food is meant to be shared.
The second reading continues the theme of eating and drinking and warns us against excess:
“Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit…”
Finally in today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that his special bread given to us at every Eucharist is “Resurrection Bread!”
The one who eats his body and drinks his blood “has eternal life!”
We know that the breakfast we shared this morning will see us through the day, but then tomorrow we will be hungry again.
But the Eucharist feeds us for the total future:
“I am the living bread hat has come down from heaven, says the Lord.
Whoever eats of this bread will live forever!”
August 12, 2012
19th Sunday In Ordinary Time
For the last several weeks the scriptures have been about nourishment, about bread... Jesus feeding the 5000, about manna in the desert, and today about Elijah the prophet being fed on his journey and in today's gospel Jesus promising a new kind of food.
Bread… we all take it for granted do we not? Every time I go to the store it is always there, the shelves filled with it, but it was not always so for our ancestors.
Two weeks ago I was in Ireland and we visited a famine road. There, in 1849, a group of starving Irish peasants knocked on a landlord's door begging for food. The door was slammed in their faces. Soon after, they dropped like flies along this famine road. Today a stone marks their deaths there.
They were the roadkill of scorn and neglect from the British government which ruled them at that time. The Prevailing British belief at that time was a small government led by a powerful queen with a big army and a big empire. When pressed to help the starving Irish their response was: "It is not the role of government to help feed the people. Let them fend for themselves."
Does this have echoes in our own time?
I think so. Our congress has just cut $16.5 billions from food stamps over the next 10 years. Many to be affected by these cuts are hungry children.
The Catholic bishops this week sent off an urgent appeal to all us Catholics and I quote it: "Please urge congress to support policies that help poor and hungry people at home and abroad."
For me and for you I think the loaf of bread is always available. This is not true for everyone.
What is clear from the gospel is that Jesus cared about feeding hungry people and wants us to care too. But then Jesus cared even more. He wants us to care about spiritual food to eat as well.
"I am the living bread that has come down from heaven."
And that bread is here for us always. Every day if we wish! So you and I are always well fed.
And so we pray "Give us this day our daily bread..."
But also the Gospel demands we share our abundant bread with the hungry poor who are always with us as well.
For a poem I wrote about the famine road see the reflection below:
Out of Ireland.
August 5, 2012
OUT OF IRELAND...
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
These last Sundays the Scriptures have been about feeding the hungry. In Ireland, our spirits have been fed by green beauty, music, story telling and companionship. The following reflections share a bit of that. At the conclusion of that, I have written a poem which I hope links the Scriptures, the Irish famine experience, and our own time.
"We are all pilgrims...And wayfarers
With too little time
To gladden the hearts of those who travel
The way with us."
What do you get when you mix up an Irish folklorist, a lovely 16 year old Appalachian folk singer, a 80 year old Catholic priest, a Jewish surgeon, a woman pilot, and 16 other folks just as diverse? Confusion? No! Harmony! And the universal language of music.
That has been our marvelous experience as we toured the west coast of Ireland led by the Multi talented Mick Moloney who brought in every night great local Irish musicians to entertain us. Not only that but we had in our own crew 5 Appalachian musicians who were frosting on the cake. Hospitality often refers to home but it can be offered in transit too. It means making room for the stranger and on our journey the hospitality we experienced from one another was extraordinary!
We began as strangers. We departed as comrades.
Holy Erin is a holy land with its holy wells and holy mountains like Brighid's Well and Mount Brandon which bring to mind all the ancient Celtic holy ones who drank from them and trod upon them. One day Mick, in a jocular way, said to me, "and how's the holy man?"
"Who me?"...No, not me. But it got me thinking about the words holy, whole, hole, whole hearted, and full hearted, all related in one way or another. A hole is an empty spot and we all have our empty spots, don't we? We are kind of like prized Swiss cheese or maybe like good but rutted roads that need filling in. Maybe becoming holy means becoming more whole...a task of a lifetime. As I thought of Mick who greeted me jocularly as "the holy man" how I have seen him about once every 5 years and can observe him in each 5 year snapshot to be a little more whole each time. What about our friends? Perhaps we may miss this growth when we see them every day? And then there is a paradox about wholeness and becoming holy.
As we grow, we fill up our hollow spaces. And in doing so, we become fulfilled. BUT here is the paradox...we are never really fulfilled until we empty our fullness.
Music filled artists pouring out music, poetry, and story are not only making our lives more full, but they in turn become more fulfilled themselves. What a blessing it was to be their companions on our journey!
On our last day, we met and were entertained by Dawn Doherty an All Ireland Champion flutist. Not only did she play brilliantly for us, she invited all us 21 to her home for tea!
"But we are 21? Do you have 21 cups?"
"Ah sure, I have 23!" So off we went to her kitchen for tea where not only tea was poured out but also Appalachian hill country music to accompany her flute...a Tea and Jam Session! And then this vibrant young colleen told of her day work..music therapy for the disabled or disadvantaged.
We are never completely fulfilled until we share our fullness!
We also were entertained by the brilliant Mulcahey sisters who spend some of their time with orphans in Vietnam.
Approaching Westport, our departure port, we stopped at Crough Patrick where every year on the last Sunday of July pilgrims come to climb the holy mountain, a trek that may go back 4000 years to when Druids climbed at the solstice to honor the Sun God! In Christian times it morphed into honor for St. Patrick.
This was a special moment for me because it was exactly 39 years ago to the day that my college friend Larry Dorsey and I made the climb at midnight. A watershed event in my life. Years later we would be co-pastors at St. Gerald. And a year after I retired on the eve of St. Patrick Day, while planning his annual Paddy's Day party, the angels came and took him away.
I dedicated the Celtic Prayer book to Larry with these words...
"He has climbed Crough Patrick,
And now he can see farther than any of us can dream!"
I remembered my friend Larry in prayer once again at the holy mountain he had once encouraged me to climb.
Our journey...took us through beauty and history.
Vacation..a time to be light hearted..to experience another culture BUT we can also be enriched by glimpsing the dark moments of history and of our own times.
One of our stops on Black Water inlet found us next to roiling waters alongside a desolate abandoned 19th century path. The only sound there, a moaning wind.
In 1865, bedraggled starving humans, having been refused food at a prosperous manor house, dropped to die along the way.
They were victims of the famine and a colonizing empire in London who replied to their cries for aid with, "It is not the government's role!"
This attitude seems to have an echo in our own day as government subsidies for food stamps are reduced while the need for them increases in the USA. This will amount to 16.5 billion dollars over the decade!
The Irish have not forgotten the hungry of the world today, nor their own famine. As I write this, a high Irish government official is in Somalia overseeing Irish food aid being distributed there.
The scriptures recently told us of Jesus feeding the 5000. As his followers, we can do no less. In the light of these scriptures on the "Famine Road" in Ireland, I composed this poem:
The Famine and our Deficit Road
Their trail parallels our road
Every road
1865 their famine trek
A trail of sighs
A path of moans.
They knock at manor door
Shuttered windows
Muffled laughter
From tables laden
With mutton and mead.
Ravaged faces,
Haunted eyes
They turn away
The road kill
Of neglect and scorn.
Today, parallel roads
Not famine, but hunger
On back roads and bayous
The American Dream
Deferred,detoured.
Sixteen and one half
Billion cut food stamps
Let the hungry feed themselves.
1865-2012
Old story, parallel roads.
No deficit in bullets, bombs
The milk of human kindness
Runs thin in favored land
The deepest deficit
Shrunken hearts, empty spirits.
...Thanks to my friend Donna Hepperman who
began my birthday celebration in Ireland!
...To friends who wish to buy my books, email me at fatherfitz@hotmail.com
For signed copies and friends' discount,
go to Books and CD tab.
July 29, 2012
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
Today, we are in Dublin, the capitol of Ireland, and an original Viking settlement. It is the site of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, which eventually set Ireland free after 800 years of English domination. Also, in the 19th century, Ireland suffered a great famine. It caused an exodus of vast numbers of its people to other lands, including America. The Irish have never forgotten the famine, and wherever famine breaks out across the world, the Irish are often quick to respond with donations and help. Hunger casts a long memory.
Today Jesus feeds the multitude with a few loaves and fishes. And when the feeding is over, he directs the disciples to pick up the fragments left over. To do so and “fill 12 wicker baskets.”
For many years in treating with this gospel and preaching about it, I would stress the miracle but there is much more to it than that.
Far better I think to consider Jesus’ concern for the hungry. If we are to be the followers of Jesus, then we must not only hear what he says, we must also do what he did: feed the multitude. Here in the USA we have the greatest agriculture system in the world, and yet we have hungry people—many of them children.
Those who go about today preaching “smaller government” seem to mean cut back government efforts and outreach in all directions, starting with the poor, except increase expenditures on more weapons of destruction. There is something anti-gospel about this whole way of thinking.
Is this an exaggeration? Hardly. In the Farm Bill just passed by congress there was a $4.5 Billion cut in expenditures for food stamps. This will have dramatic effects on half a million of the poorest of the poor.
Jesus fed the hungry and the people he fed were mostly the poor. The “Government” is not some vague entity in Washington siphoning away all of our hard earned money. The Government is US in a democracy. And what the government does, or does not do, is what you and I do or do not do.
SO, you and I have just said to the poor, through our government: “Well you poor people even though we have the greatest harvests in the world, we will cut down on your food supply. Go fend for yourselves.”
I talked to a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society last week and he told me, “Well we are approaching the hottest time of the year and a time where the disabled, the unemployed, those living on the margins, must decide which of their monthly bills they can pay. One of the bills many cannot pay is their meager food bills, so they will be flooding us with requests for emergency food.”
(More will be over flooding St. Vincent de Paul in future months because WE—the U.S. government has cut 4.5 billion dollars from food stamp aid.)
In the Second Reading today, St. Paul reminds the Ephesians and you and I “to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received…” He tells us to “bear with one another through love.” That means as Christians we are to bear one another’s burdens.
A terrible burden is hunger.
As Jesus feeds the multitudes today, it is an opportune time to be reminded of the needs of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.
It is an opportune time to become interested in its Voice of the Poor Committee, which tries to raise a voice for the poor. You can read more about Voice of the Poor on their website.
Finally there is a National Organization very deserving of support: Bread for the World. It is an ecumenical and non-partisan hunger lobby that works for systemic change in addressing the problem of hunger. Visit their website and learn about their efforts.
“I Paul, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received…”
Eph. 4:1 from today’s second reading.
July 22, 2012
16th Sunday in Ordinary Time
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
This morning I am in Limerick Ireland, an old Viking city. Lunch in Limerick and then on to Ennis in County Clare, which most Irish consider the most notable county in the country for traditional Irish music. We will stay in Old Ground Hotel and then visit the pubs.
In the Gospel today, Jesus invites his disciples to “come apart to a quiet place and rest awhile. It is sad but true that today in the USA Americans have significantly less time for vacations than they did 25 years ago!
During this time away, my Sunday reflections will be short. I do recommend a summer movie for you to see. It is Bernie, the story of a small town funeral director who gets involved with the certified crank of the town: Shirley McLaine. Go to the movie section for my review. The following is a reflection on Ordinary Time, the Liturgical Season we are now in:
Ordinary Time
The Greening and Growing Season
Bless our land from sea to sea.
Bless the fields giving life to me.
Bless the earth beneath my feet.
Bless the food we have to eat.
And yet, Creator God,
This is not ‘ordinary time.’
This is extraordinary time.
Where fertile earth lies supine.
Forests are despoiled.
Deserts are cursed by drought.
Icebergs are melted by global warming,
bringing chaos out of paradise.
What I do for the earth,
I do for all the children.
Let the Earth be for them
no desert, but precious gem.
Bless these children,
Bless their future life.
Bless the earth,
the womb of life.
From A Contemporary North American Prayer Book…WJF
July 15, 2012
15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
Jesus summoned the twelve and began to send them out two by two…
The twelve drove out many demons and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.
MK 6: 7&13
I am in the process of writing a book about spiritual balance and it seems to me this is at the heart of the mission of the twelve sent out, to bring balance where there was imbalance. Illness is an imbalance, a disquiet, a disconnect. Jesus, through his healing ministry now entrusted to his disciples, went about making connections, uniting the sick with their families, reuniting lepers with their communities and restoring integral balanced health to the lives of the suffering sick.
This last week, we celebrated the Feast of Saint Benedict. For 1500 years, the sons of Benedict and the daughters of Saint Scholastica, his sister, have carried on a balanced ministry.
The Benedictines, in contrast to earlier ascetics, followed a balanced rule and lived a balanced life.
Today, I leave for Ireland and our first few days there will be spent at Glenstal Abbey, a Benedictine house. I owe much to the influence of the Benedictines in my college life at Conception Abbey, but also to the example and prayers of my uncle, Brother Bernard Fitzgerald, a monk of New Melleray in Iowa and in his later years, a monk at Our Lady of the Assumption in Ava, Missouri.
In 1915, Brother Bernard left his home in Omaha and traveled eastward. When he finally reached Dubuque Iowa, he walked the 13 miles to the abbey and began a measured life that would take him into his eighties. Even though the Trappists are the most austere of the Benedictines, there is still a rhythm and a balance in their life between work and prayer, and with Brother Bernard certainly a balance with humor and nature.
Father Raphael Stafford who lived with Brother Bernard from 1929 until his death would write of him:
“He was a good friend of mine. He made a fine appearance in his younger days with a slim figure and red beard, and pleasing ways. He was guest master or helper all his days, was always communicative and quoting poems. He did much for the community such as guest master, dishwasher, gardener, and community cook besides all the classes and prayers of the community down through the years. He did not sleep well at night, but made up for it whenever sleep overtook him, especially during classes. He admired Brother Ambrose Corbett’s sanctity and feared for himself whether all his sidelines like growing berries and roses were always done with proper blessings. Shortly before his death, I was appointed to help him make whiskey jelly so I could write up his recipe for it. In the midst of the solemnities, he said,
‘Just think, in a few days I’ll be up in my eighties.’ After a short pause, he said, ‘Up in his eighties, he went to Hades!’ Brother Bernard then giggled so much, he could not stop, until finally sweeping his arm twice in front of him, he said, ‘God forbid! God forbid!’ After talking to anyone, he would dismiss himself, saying, ‘Well I’ll leave you in peace now.’ ”
Another monk would write of him:
“Ever since I knew him, he had a love for flowers, plants, and trees. He was often seen planting them and caring for them and knew how to collect the seeds, and how to graft. He could carry on quite a conversation with some like-minded guests. He had a pleasant way about him. I never felt forced to be other than myself in his presence. He had an attractive smile. His laugh was always a subdued chuckle, but his eyes would sparkle. Basically he was a happy person with a pleasant sense of humor. He had a fabulous memory. There were certain poems and nonsense rhymes, which he memorized, and he could go on and on. He lived in reality. He was sensitive to what went on. As far as I could tell, he walked along with everyone. He fit in and tried to live at peace with everyone.”
Thus a few simple yet somewhat profound memories of one Benedictine out of the thousands unsung through the centuries who lived the balanced life that came from the Rule of Saint Benedict. It is the story of someone close to the rhythms of the earth, living a simple, prayerful, and happy life that seemed to balance.
Jesus of Nazareth was all about balance. He sent his disciples out in today’s Gospel in balanced pairs and wherever they went they too sought to bring balance.
(I dedicated my Contemporary North American Prayer Book to Brother Bernard.)
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July 8, 2012
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
… a thorn in the flesh was given to me … First Reading … 2 Cor. 12:7
This “thorn in the flesh” is one of the most mysterious and elusive phrases found in the Letters of Paul. Scripture scholars have woven many theories, but no one is sure. Was it celibacy? Those of us who strive to be could sympathize with that. Or was it some physical affliction? Epilepsy? An eye disorder? Stuttering? Homosexual tendencies? All of those have been put forth. But one thing is sure, whatever it was, it was a bother to him
Reminds me of a woman who had a bothersome husband named Oswald. One Christmas, Oswald gave his mother-in-law a cemetery plot.
The next year, he did not bother to buy her a Christmas gift.
When she asked him “Why not?” he replied,
“Well you still haven’t used the gift I gave you last Christmas!”
Oswald on the Boulevard
Another day, Oswald saw his mother-in-law run over by a hit-and-run driver.
Oswald called 911.
The operator asked, “Where are you?”
Oswald replied, “At Eucalyptus Boulevard.”
The operator asked, “Can you spell that for me please?”
“Um … Never mind! I’ll just drag her over to Oak Street.”
Oswald At Home
After dragging his mother-in-law over to the rescue squad, Oswald was ready for a quiet evening at home with his long suffering wife for whom Oswald was her “thorn in the flesh.”
While reading the newspaper, Oswald came across an article about a beautiful actress and model who married a boxer not noted for his high IQ.
“Ill never understand, “he said to his wife, “why the biggest jerks get the most attractive wives!”
His wife replied, “Thank you dear!”
If Oswald’s wife had to put up with this jerk at home, imagine how much patience Jesus had to have to put up with his kinfolk and neighbors close to home.
Today’s Gospel illustrates that. He was there with his disciples and no doubt, being human as he was, he looked forward to a great greeting from the townsfolk. Surely he would have wanted his disciples to meet his friends from home. It did not happen.
Instead their reaction was the narrow one of small-minded people: “Just who does he think he is?” “What makes him so uppity?” “Why he is just one of us!” ... could well summarize their reaction.
“Where did this man get all this?” they asked. “What kind of wisdom has been given him?”
“Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?”
And so the ancient saying was fulfilled, “The prophet is not known in his own land.”
This reminds me of a column in today’s Scottsdale paper editorial section. A lady rants about some people not thinking that we Americans are not exceptional. Just who do these critics think THEY are?”
Perhaps that is just what irritated his critics in the hometown synagogue—how dare he think he can preach to US? We already know more than he does. After all, he is just the carpenter’s son!”
Well he was that. But he was also much more.
This same attitude of “What do THEY know? We already HAVE all the answers. We watch FOX!” Or “We watch MSNBC!” It is precisely this attitude that polarizes the right and the left in our country. We have nothing to learn from each other, so we dig in and say, “Compromise? Never!”
And the result is we become “thorns in the flesh” — bothers to one another.
It is an old, old story, and it was repeated in the synagogue at Nazareth with Jesus.
July 1 - 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 4 - Independence Day
So much going on! The Mandate is upheld for Universal Health Care — an historical moment on the eve of the 4th of July.
In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus goes about healing. No matter how you spin it from the right or from the left, Jesus cared deeply about healing sick and suffering people. He not only said “I have come to bring good news to the poor …” he did. And illness, when it strikes and wherever it strikes, is an impoverishment, a lessening, and a diminishment. So all the sick are in some sense “poor.” However, up to now some in our society have had more entrée to good care than others. After today, this may change.
The first reading also seems very appropriate at this particular time. We are admonished: "… not that others shall have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality, your abundance at the present time shall supply their needs …”
These scriptural words are appropriate both in relationship to universal health care as well as the 4th of July.
The Benedictine Sisters of Tucson publish a very worthwhile journal called Spirit & Life and one of their most gifted writers is an 80 years plus nun, Sister Lenora Black OSB. She wrote in their current issues in anticipation of the 4th of July:
“When was the last time you took part in, read or heard a serious discussion of the common good?
Our communication media seems content to focus on ‘I’ declarations and promises. We need to counter too much “I-ness” with attention to WE THE PEOPLE to whom our constitution’s preamble refers and what we mean by WE now. These three words remind us that the United States is first and foremost a community of human relationships. Unlike many nations, that bond comes not from a common ethnicity, or religion, but from our common humanity and our shared belief in the freedom and dignity of all people."
The founders of our Constitution wanted to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty,”
… When common good is replaced by individual good obtained by the individual having the most power, then when the economy improves, poverty increases.
Common good is hard to describe precisely but here is a working definition by Father William Byron S.J.
“The ‘Common Good’ …describes an environment that is supportive of the development of human potential while safeguarding the community against individual excesses. It looks to the general good of the many over against the interests of the one or the very few.”
Thus the words of Sister Lenora and Father Byron AND our Preamble to the Constitution. As I read over those words, it came to me that the scriptural words of our first reading today would seem to validate them from a Christian perspective: “... not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality, your abundance at present time shall support their needs.”
Have a blessed Fourth of July Holiday!
Breakfast Question: What do you understand by the “common good?”
For Reflection: Is there too much “me-ism” in our current culture?
June 24, 2012
Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
A man was sent from God whose name was John…
John 6:7
“Today is the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets. At the time of John’s birth, his parents broke tradition and gave him the name “John” indicating something different that amounts to a “new discovery” and challenge.” Robert Durweke, Living With Christ
“A new discovery!” Yes! 50 years ago in our epoch another man “was sent from God whose name was John.”
Like his namesake, John the Baptist, this John was Angelo Roncalli who took the name Pope John the Twenty-Third. This man was indeed a new discovery as well. For he confounded the Vatican Bureaucracy by calling a universal council of all the bishops of the world for the purpose of reforming the church.*
Here again, although not resembling each other in any physical way, the Baptist being lean, and tanned and sinewed in the desert sun, and abstained from wine, while Roncalli was roly poly, drank good wine, and smoked fat cigars, nonetheless in their mission they bore a close resemblance.
Both Johns were prophets, movers and shakers. Their clarion calls afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted.
If you were raised in the Pre-Vatican Catholic Church, as I was, mass was in Latin, Protestants and Catholics seldom entered opposite churches; prejudice ran rampant on both sides. Jews? We only bought groceries from them. And “religious freedom” was a quaint American notion, not entertained in Rome.
John XXIII had not lived in a Vatican bubble; he had been an ambassador to France and Bulgaria and rubbed elbows with all kinds of different folks and got along quite well with all of them. He had also been a pastoral bishop in Venice.
Just as John the Baptist appeared in the desert and pronounced news to shake up the establishment, so did John XXIII appear, not in the literal desert, but in the ossified, dry as bones halls of the Vatican, where it was all expected to be “business as usual.”
Calling a council was not business as usual. And all around him Vatican careerists bemoaned what dire results might ensue. John even referred to them as prophets of doom.
The great American contribution to the Council was the decree on Religious Liberty. Cardinal Ruffini, leading the opposition, would not even agree that the Catholic Church should admit to tolerating other Non-Catholics. Ultimately religious liberty won out over intolerance.
As we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, we can well compare the two Johns. They were both heroic and far seeing. They both were prophets. And prophets can always expect opposition. Change is uncomfortable for those who are established in comfortable positions. It is always easier to sit tight and not rock the boat. Both Johns rocked the boat. The Baptist rocked it so much that those he challenged chopped off his head. In the case of John XXIII, some obdurate Catholics scorned him and cut them off from the papacy. They were led by a French cardinal La Febreve, and still remain cut off although the present pope is trying to reconcile them.
Today’s First reading from Isaiah could well be applied to both Johns:
“The Lord called me from birth and from my mother’s womb he gave me my name.
He made of me a sharp edged sword,
And concealed me in the shadow of his arm.
He made me a polished arrow,
In his quiver, he hid me…”
Isaiah Chapter 49
Breakfast Question: How could John the Baptist and John XXIII be compared to a sharp edged sword, or a polished arrow?
For Personal Reflection: How has Vatican II affected my own spiritual journey?
*The Second Vatican Council was the 21st ecumenical council in the history of the church. Some 2500 bishops attended its four sessions between October 1962 and Dec. 8, 1962 more than twice the attendance at the previous council, Vatican 1 in the previous century. For the first time ever, Non Catholics and Catholic lay people were invited to attend as auditors. By the council’s end, Orthodox and Protestant churches had sent 80 observers. 52 Catholic lay people attended, 29 men and 23 women also took part as auditors; a few even addressed the bishops on some topics.
June 17, 2012
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time….Father’s Day
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Happy Father’s Day to all Fathers, Grandfathers, God-Fathers!
The Gospel today is about seeding. For us as human beings we have been “seeded” by our fathers, and the genetic material of our ancestors has been passed down to us. But for many of us much more has been passed down to us from fathers. One of my earliest memories is of my father kneeling at his bedside saying his night prayers. I had to be three or four. A seed of faith was planted by that image.
So, today, a blessing for fathers:
Beyond conception may you plant other seeds of faith, of hope, of love. “You with your wife “are the first and best teachers of your children in the ways of the faith!” May you be a splendid teacher. And may your children be like seedlings around your table. May they “put forth branches, and bear fruit and become like majestic cedars” (First Reading) When they grow into tall cedars and you age and decline, may you rest joyful in their shade!”
18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
I have just returned from the beautiful mountains of Montana where I conducted a Creation Spirituality Retreat for 16 adults from Connecticut, Nebraska, and Arizona. To be with, to share with, and to pray with such lay persons of such deep spirituality was a humbling experience. It reminded me once more that our church, at its grass roots level, is alive, well, and flourishing.
The news is too seldom filled with their lives. Instead the leaders of the Church, bishops and Popes occupy headlines sometimes for good and sometimes for ill. But think for a moment: The vast number of Catholic Christians are neither priests, nuns, bishops, nor Popes. The laity is the Church’s presence in our world. And so many of “the faithful” “walk by faith, not by sight.”
To cast seed, corn, or faith demands faith and hope. When the farmer goes out in the spring, he knows not whether tornado, or thunderstorm or drought will affect his crop. He walks by faith.
Jesus was a great observer. He spoke out of earth bound human experience. He saw the farmer carrying a sack of seeds and dropping them into the upturned land by hand. He did not speak from some high place on the temple like the Pope who speaks from the balcony in Rome, or even like the priest who mounts a pulpit. He spoke like the farmer at ground level.
The farmer is close to the seed. He has it in hand. He looks at it close up, and when he does it does not seem like much. So tiny, so dry, so bare lacking any fruit as yet. And yet the farmer walks by faith, not by sight.
And so Jesus looks at the tiny mustard seed—so insignificant and yet so filled with surprising, in fact, amazing potential.
“To whom shall we compare the Kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed, when it is sowed in the ground is the tiniest of the seeds of the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants.”
I went to Montana filled with the news from Rome about a butler jailed and intrigue at the Vatican. There were neither TV nor radios on the mountain in Emigrant Montana. But there was evidence all around me of seed that had been planted in the hearts of the 16 retreatants and it was wondrous to see how it has matured and blossomed. It reminded me again, that at its grass roots the church as well as the Kingdom of God is thriving!
The sixteen were so diverse. Their religious experience so diverse, their ages from two young mothers to an 80 and an 83 year old. And in their midst I experienced the fulfillment of today’s responsorial psalm:
“They shall bear fruits, even in old age,
Vigorous and sturdy shall they be..” Psalm 92
Breakfast Talk: What would I say to my dad, if he were here?
Reflection Question: Do we pay too much attention to news accounts about the “top” of the church, and not enough to the seeds of faith planted and sprouting all around us?
June 10, 2012
Feast of Corpus Christi
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He fed them with the finest wheat and satisfied them with honey from the rock. Introit, Psalm 81
The latest chapter in the Vatican Butler - Document Leak Affair is that OTHER documents have surfaced after the Pope’s butler has been jailed. So is the butler a scapegoat? Are there other leakers? Time will tell, but in the meantime the plot thickens. This week an Italian newspaper has printed some of the purloined documents. One is a letter from Cardinal Burke, the extremely conservative Bishop of Saint Louis who is now on the Vatican Curia. In this letter, Cardinal Burke complains to the Pope about the liturgical innovations of the Neo-Catechumenate. And those are the folks I celebrate Mass with several times every month!
So, what is amiss? Cardinal Burke tells the Pope what these folks are doing at Mass violates the Pope’s own desires for the Liturgy.
This is all pertinent in relationship to today’s feast: The Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Way back in the 5th century, Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, when greeting the newly initiated Catechumens of his day at their first reception of the Eucharist, told them: When the bishop says: “Corpus Christi” - you may respond, “Yes we are!”
This was a beautiful way to express that not only at Eucharist is bread and wine consecrated into the Body and Blood of Christ, but at the Eucharist, through Holy Communion, we human recipients are consecrated into the Mystical Body of Christ!
So it would seem to me that whatever we do in Liturgy that reinforces this sublime truth would be a very good thing. This brings us back to the condemnation of the Neo-Catechumenate Liturgy by Cardinal Burke. (This is a liturgy approved both by Pope John Paul II and by Pope Benedict.)
So what is special about the Neo-Catechumenate liturgy? Well there are several interesting nuances.
For one, after the scripture readings, a microphone is present and is passed around and people in the pews are allowed to relate their own life experiences to the scripture they have just heard. And if St. Augustine is right and they are the Body of Christ, why should they not speak?
Also, a joyful environment is aided by ringed flowers around the altar.
The bread to be consecrated at Mass is baked by the participants.
There are two large silver goblets of wine to be consecrated.
Holy Communion is distributed always under both species of consecrated bread and wine.
The sign of peace is given after the priest’s homily.
After the concluding prayers and last blessing, the participants form a circle around the altar and dance in rhythm while chanting a hymn.
The whole celebration is joyful and participative. Visitors who have attended have come away very enthused and impressed by the devotion and piety of the participants.
Is this somewhat different from your regular Sunday Eucharist. Somewhat, but not a lot. However what is different about it seems very appealing to the participants and those who observe.
I celebrate this Mass in Spanish, in which I am not well versed. I do understand: “A cold cervesa please!” However the Spanish is close enough to the Latin that I know what I am saying. The group I celebrate numbers about 50—all young. But here is the rub. This kind of liturgy could only be celebrated with such a small group to allow time for participants to make comments. And so the problem comes down to how to have enough priests to celebrate such liturgies. Only the future holds the answer to that question. I also think this type of liturgy IS the future.
As we celebrate Corpus Christi, it is well to recall the history of the Eucharist. The first Eucharist was celebrated in a small room on Holy Thursday. The Apostles reclined on the floor with the aid of pillows. There were no pews and no sanctuary. It was in the context of the Seder meal. In the first centuries, other Eucharists were all home liturgies as well.
The first Christian communities all met in homes. It was not until Constantine, the Roman
Emperor in the fourth century was baptized, that the Church community really functioned publicly. After that - “basilicas” - government buildings were given over to the Church were Masses could be celebrated. Only at that time did the Church take on some of the trappings of the imperial court: using incense and the priests garbed in vestments like the officers of the empire!And despite what some conservative Catholics believe, Latin was not spoken at the first Mass, and no doubt Greek was often spoken in homes. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire and ultimately became the Liturgical Language of the ROMAN RITE. There have been and still are other rites that have always and still do use other languages: Chaldean, Syrian, Greek, Russian, etc.
What all the rites, with their great varieties of liturgies, all share is the Eucharist. We all celebrate the Paschal Mystery and participate in the Body of Christ.
So the next time you receive the Holy Eucharist, you too may mentally respond:
Corpus Christi - “Yes we are!”
June 3, 2012
Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
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Editorial Note: In France, the French celebrate a feast of St. Joan of Arc, a great patroness of the French nation. Sadly, she was burned at the stake by a group containing English bishops. It is a reminder from church history that sometimes women are looked down upon and seem a threat to some men.
The scripture yesterday was about two of the disciples begging Jesus to make them sit on thrones next to him when his kingdom would come. The other apostles were indignant!
Yes, Jesus does call knuckleheads into his service. I am one, as you probably already know. We recently celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, which assures us that the Holy Spirit will guide the church in the right direction—in the long run. In the short run, knuckleheads at every level, including the highest do messy things. Case in point: Now we have a Vatican bank scandal—a new one—there was another one some years ago. The Pope’s butler is accused of stealing some of the pope’s papers and leaking them to whom? Maybe to other cardinals who are upset with the perceived incompetence of the Cardinal who is the Vatican’s Secretary of State. Hmm! In the long span of church history there is nothing new under the sun. Whatever the other facts are, this is a fact: the Vatican has egg all over its face. Perhaps it should relent in disciplining the American nuns and take care of what is amiss in the papal household—and the Vatican itself—all run by, we had previously assumed, (perhaps mistakenly)—very wise men.
When Saint Patrick came to Ireland, he was met at a deep well by two young Celtic maidens. And he did not disdain their presence or ask to speak to their fathers. No, he respected them and he listened to their queries. These two wondered about the God St. Patrick was preaching, and so they asked him:
“Who is God,
And where is God,
Of whom is God,
and where is his dwelling?
Has he sons and daughters,
gold and silver,
this God of yours?
Is he ever living?
Is he beautiful?
Was his Son fostered by many?
Are his daughters dear and beautiful
to the men of the world?
Is he in heaven
Or on the earth?
In the sea,
In the rivers,
In the mountains,
In the valleys?
Speak to us
Tidings of him;
How will he be seen,
How is he loved,
How is he found?
Is It In youth
Or is it in old age
He is found?
Well, they had great questions did they not? And if we read the Breastplate prayer of Saint Patrick, he would have told them, “Yes! Our God IS in the rivers, and the mountains, and the valleys—and much more!”
And we know he used a shamrock, a green three leaved plant to explain that the Christian God is one God in three persons.
And he would have told them that God’s Son is indeed beautiful. These pagan girls were very much attracted to the God Patrick described. And to his heroic Son, and his lovely Mother. They were converted, and not a drop of blood was shed in the conversion of the Irish from Druidry to Christianity.
And so today, we too ask: “And who is our God?” And we respond: “One God, three persons, the Holy Spirit the Love flowing between Father and Son. We are baptized in the Sign of the Trinity and confirmed in it, and anointed in it.
And our God is a community of love!
The Irish girls at the Well of Clibach would have rejoiced in this truth, because for them clan and community were paramount in their lives.
Community meant kinfolk; often children were “fostered” by aunts and cousins. Community meant dance and song around campfires. Community meant taking care of your kin, both the old, the sick, and the young. Community meant people working for the “common good.”
Community meant living within a circle of love.
What the doctrine of the Trinity reveals to us today is that our God is a community of love! Our God is not solitary like Zeus! Our Trinity God is a community!
And to the degree that our lives are like a community, we are like God!
And so we pray:
“Glory be to the Father!
And to the Son!
And to the Holy Spirit!”
(The Holy Community)
May 27, 2012
Pentecost Sunday, Memorial Day
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Surely Memorial Day ought to be more than just an opportunity for a big sales event. And so pause a moment and remember so many who sleep so far away from home, too many cut down in the prime of their lives. God grant them rest and may we be delivered from rash wars in our day.
Pentecost
Dinah Simons in Living With Christ describes Pentecost as “the Church’s birthday party with gifts given to the church for the common good.”
We only have to recall the Ascension when the disciples “were in doubt” and wondered whether Jesus was going to restore the Kingdom of Israel!”
They didn’t get it at all. So they needed help in understanding; that help of the Spirit came at Pentecost.
We are not so much different than them, are we? We all have our doubts, our worries, our anxieties. When the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples, they were comforted, affirmed, and encouraged. But these gifts came not just for their comfort, but so that the disciples could now act boldly.
That gift given to the apostles is meant for all of us. They did go out into the whole world and proclaimed the Good News. In the meantime, we receive the good news in earthen vessels. Each of us needs the same Spirit. We are poor in many ways; in many ways we all need comfort. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost to gift not just the apostles, but all who would hear their words, our ancestors and ourselves. The Sequence proclaims it well:
Come Holy Spirit Come
Come Father of the poor
And from your celestial home.
Shed a ray of light divine.
Come Father of the Poor!
Come source of all our store!
Come within our bosoms shine.
You of comforters the best.
You the soul’s most welcome guest.
Sweet refreshment here below.
In our labor, rest most sweet.
Grateful coolness in the heat.
Solace in the midst of woe.
O most blessed light divine,
Shine within these hearts of yours,
And our inmost being fill.
Where you are naught, we have naught.
Nothing good in deed or thought.
Nothing free from taint of ill,
Heal our wounds; our strength renew.
On our dryness, pour your dew.
Wash the stains of guilt away.
Bend the stubborn heart and will.
Melt the frozen, warm the chill;
Guide the steps that go astray.
On the faithful, who adore
And confess you evermore.
In your sevenfold gift descend.
Give them virtue’s sure reward;
Give them your salvation Lord.
Give them joys that never end.
Amen
Breakfast Question: We always pray the Our Father. Do we pray enough to the Holy Spirit?
Personal Reflection: Which of the above gifts mentioned in the Sequence Prayer am I most in need of at this time?
May 20, 2012
Feast of the Ascension
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Men of Galilee, why do you gaze in wonder at the heavens? This Jesus who you saw ascending into heaven will return as you saw him go. Alleluia!
- Acts 1:11
Departures are often bittersweet. When the first child leaves the door for kindergarten, or later with bag in hand, they wave goodbye on the way to college.
How many sweethearts have watched with tears in their eyes as their beloved go off to war; some will return. Some they will never see again. And at that moment, they do not know if it is the last “goodbye”.
Last summer, I hugged Dr. Bill Heusel and his good wife Mona “Goodbye!” and this month Mona lost her life in a sudden traffic accident. Goodbye was fully goodbye. In our life journeys we should bring special blessings to both greetings and to all our goodbyes.
So how did we ever come to say “goodbye”? And what is it supposed to mean. We know that Shakespeare used it in the 16th century when it was “God be with thee”. As we humans tend to do, we shortened it to “goodbye.” However, it is still a blest word.
So at the mount of the Ascension, how did Jesus offer his goodbye? He made it clear that God would be with the apostles and with us. He would not leave us orphans. He would send the Holy Spirit, the Consoler. And he also assured them and us that he would “come again”.
So the “goodbye” of Jesus was not bittersweet like so many of our goodbyes. It was not bitter. It was sweet.
When he said his goodbye it was evident that his apostles still had a lot of work to do. Right up to the last moment they mistakenly were asking was he NOW going to restore the Kingdom to Israel!
They were slow learners, as are we.
Some of our bishops seem to be launching an inquiry into the Girl Scouts now!
Should we be surprised? After all, the apostles were often dolts and especially so at the Ascension!
Their future learning would not be just in their minds, but also in their hearts, and so should ours. It is one thing to memorize the catechism and have a lot of dogmas in our brain, although few of us do. The Creed is usually quite adequate.
But it is another thing altogether to educate and form our hearts. One of the more beautiful and insightful passages in scripture occurs in today’s second reading:
Brothers and sisters,
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The Father of glory
Give you a spirit of wisdom,
And revelation resulting in knowledge of him.
May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened?
That you may know the hope that belongs to his call,
What are the riches of glory in his inheritance among?
The holy ones and what is the surpassing
Greatness of his power for us who believe.
The eyes of our hearts…!
In The Little Prince, St. Exupery gives us a similar memorable phrase:
“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly.”
Breakfast Question: What do you think about St. Exupery’s quote?
Personal Reflection: Am I warm and attentive enough both in my greetings and in my goodbyes?
May 13, 2012
6th Sunday of Easter
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A Blessing Today on our Mothers, living and deceased. Thank you for not only giving us love, but often teaching us how to love…
This is my commandment, ‘love one another as I have loved you…”
Springtime is track and field time. Saint Paul himself must have spent some time enjoying this spring sport, for more than once he uses the images from track in his epistles: “I have run the race…”
For me, one of the more interesting track and field events is the high jump. Once a certain height has been attained and surpassed, the bar is raised and a new jump challenges the leaper to go even higher.
This seems like a good image for the goal that Jesus Christ sets in today’s gospel. His goal for our high jumping is that we would attain his height as we leap forward.
Jesus raises the bar on love. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” That is a high challenge! And he indicates it is such when he goes on to say, “No one has greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” That is what HE has done for us. He challenges us in our own lives to practice similar self-sacrificing lives.
For many of us this does not provide daily opportunities, only occasional ones. However today, in the USA, we honor mothers, and they, more than the rest of us, often have the opportunities to practice such love. I could not know it at the time, but my aunts would tell me later, that when I was born and there were complications, my mother told the doctor, “If it comes to a choice between saving the life of the baby or my own, save the baby.”
So, especially on this day, I am grateful that my own mother, Kathryn, “Kitty McCarthy Fitzgerald” was willing to make that choice. And I am grateful for the many moms who sometimes love their children more than their own welfare.
There are other kinds of sacrificial love, of course, sometimes on the battlefield. And then there is all kinds of little mundane opportunities to practice self-sacrificing love, like letting a waiting car ahead of you as you are in heavy traffic, or giving up a seat on a crowded bus to an elderly person.
Whether it is in such small ways, or in larger momentous decisions, we raise the bar on what is normally expected. We soar higher. We exceed what the passing crowd expects. And we fulfill the challenge of today’s second reading:
“Beloved, let us love one another because love is of God, and everyone who loves is begotten by God
And knows God.”
A historical note. This week the President of the USA gave his personal approval to Gay Marriage. The states will decide whether they agree. The Catholic bishops as well as many other religious leaders will oppose this. It certainly does contradict a long Judeo-Christian belief that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. The question comes down to: Can the government decree something that the Church does not accept. In a secular society, it can and does. Exhibit A is divorce. The State grants divorces while the Church does not accept them, or grants annulments. Contrary to what many people believe we do NOT live in a Christian nation. Rather we live in a secular nation with a division between church and state. The Church will be free to continue to teach that marriage is only between a man and a woman. The State is free to decree otherwise. So long as the State does not impose gay marriage on the Church, it would seem the two views can coexist side by side, just as the State granting divorces and the Church denying them has coexisted.
For Breakfast Discussion: I thank God that my Mother: ……………………
For Personal Reflection: If Gay Marriage becomes a reality, will it destroy marriage as we know it?
To print this homily and appeal, click here for a PDF version
May 6, 2012
An Appeal:
May is the month of Our Lady. Mary is the feminine exemplar for Catholic spirituality. Over so many years, religious sisters have worked tirelessly to serve Mary and Jesus in the many ministries they performed. So many of us are indebted to them. Instead of a reproach, they should be receiving our thanks and appreciation. Many of them are now in their final years. The median age for the Mercy Sisters in Omaha is now 78 years.
Instead of appreciation, the Vatican Office—Congregation for the Defense of the Faith, (previously known as “The Inquisition”) has issued a severe critique of the U.S. nuns. The Vatican feels they are “too concerned with social justice” and not enough with abortion! They also want the nuns to be more opposed to homosexuals. So they have appointed some men, bishops, to “reform” the attitudes of the women leaders of most religious women in the USA.
It is time for those of us who know the American nuns, appreciate all they have done, to stand with them against this unjust and mean spirited affront. If you would like to sign a petition supporting American sisters, Google Call To Action Petition For Nuns and sign their petition and share it with like minded friends.
May 6, 2012
5th Sunday of Easter
The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.
-
Today’s Second Reading
The Catholic Church in the USA has been built up and major contributors to that build up have been the Catholic sisters. Since the first immigrants arrived, pioneer nuns built hospitals, staffed schools, and provided social services. The Catholic Church would not be where it is today if it were not for the tireless and often unpaid services of these Catholic women. Yet, then and today, men in authority had the final say as to what they could or could not do. Prior to Vatican II they had little recourse, although many courageous women superiors had to work their way around hardnosed and authoritarian bishops who always felt that “Father knows best.”
One such was recently canonized: Saint Mother Theodore Guerin who had the backbone to stand up against a reactionary bishop in Indiana. Other sainted women religious leaders in the USA include: Saint Frances Cabrini, Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, Saint Katherine Drexel, Saint Elizabeth Seton, and the martyred Maryknoll sisters. Their good works fill books! And by the way, the canonized American nuns outnumber canonized American bishops as well as canonized men, (if there are any, for the Congregation For Defense of the Faith). As the Gospel says, “By their fruits you shall know them!”
Today, in the Gospel, Jesus speaks of pruning the vine. No doubt the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith believes that pruning the nuns is what they need to do. But do they really know what they are doing? Those of us on the ground where the vine grows know that American nuns from the beginning until this very day have planted vines of compassion, mercy, caring, and education. There has been no sexual abuse scandal arising from their work with the young as there has from the priests and bishops, so who exactly is in need of pruning?
Jesus says “I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit...”
So what fruit bearing comes forth from the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith, the Vatican? The fruit seems bitter: recrimination, condemnation, and reproach for women who have borne the heat of the day in the vineyard and whose harvest is bountiful!
The religious women of the USA studied the documents of Vatican II and took them seriously. Since 1958, I have worked side by side with them as partners in ministry. I have personally found their devotion to the Church exemplary, their growth in spirituality, noteworthy, and their desire to call forth the gifts of the laity, far sighted.
The time has come for the laity to stand with them. Enough!
The time has come for gratitude and praise, not for anti-feminine reproach.
Google the website Call To Action—Petition For Nuns. Sign the petition and share it with your friends.
April 29, 2012
Fourth Sunday of Easter
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
I just met with Jim Hubbard, the rancher at whose Yellowstone Ranch I will give a Creation Centered Retreat on June 10.
He mentioned that this morning they had spotted eighth grizzlies out in the wilderness near the ranch.
Jim runs cattle up there. There are also wolves, now, that help restore the original ecosystem in that wild land. So Jim’s cattle need some protection.
This is an age old story and Jesus knew all about sheep needing the guidance and protection from their shepherds.
In our Church, our bishops carry “crosiers” which are really shepherd’s staffs. How sad it is that too many of these same bishops neglected the lambs of the flock and tolerated the sexual abuse of minors, mistakenly thinking that pedophile priests could be called to “reform.”
Today, Jesus describes himself as “the Good Shepherd,” and he goes on beyond that. He tells us that he will lay down his life for his flock and indeed he did so on the cross.
He also tells us, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
It was not so long ago that Catholics believed only Catholics would or could be saved. And it is current belief among many fundamentalist Protestants that only born again Protestants WILL be saved. They believe that all non Christians, as well as Catholics, will be “left behind” when Jesus comes again.
Once and for all for Catholics, the Second Vatican Council proclaimed that the Holy Spirit’s work extends beyond the boundaries of Catholicism, and thus, in God’s providence, Hindus, Moslems, and Jews can also be saved.
Writing recently of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Pope Benedict wrote:
“Jesus himself is the shepherd of Israel, the shepherd of humanity. And he takes injustice upon himself; he shoulders the destructive burden of guilt. He allows himself to be struck down in the course of history. ‘The Good Shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” JN 10:11 … As the Risen Lord, he is now in the fullest sense the shepherd who leads, through death, to the path of life.”
Finally, in today’s second reading, we are called to our exalted dignity: Who are we? 1 John gives us an answer: “Beloved, see what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we may be called the children of God. Yet, so we are.”
Rejoice today, that Jesus is our shepherd and we are all God’s children.
Breakfast Question:
Do you know people who believe that only people like themselves will be saved?
Personal Reflection:
What do I need to be saved FROM?
April 22, 2012
Third Sunday of Easter
The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way and how Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. LK 24:35
“Jesus then opened their minds to understand the scriptures…” Perhaps you and I and all of us, no not perhaps, but definitely need to “open our minds to understand the scriptures.”
I recently received an invitation to accept a reception for a local politician who has vowed to “follow our principles” in regard to illegal immigration. His principles would deny any sort of educational help to the children of illegal immigrants, in effect creating an uneducated underclass of young people who themselves had nothing to say about being in the United States.
This politician goes on to proclaim in his ads that air daily that he will oppose any kind of amnesty according to “his principles.” What are these principles? They are not the principles of the Risen Jesus whose resurrection we celebrate in this Easter Season.
Jesus of Nazareth on the cross granted the hated word AMNESTY to the thief hanging next to him.
This same Jesus, according to HIS principles sought no revenge against those who distorted the Lay and condemned him.
Are we to follow his example or say, “Yes but…?”
Instead, his message is one of peace and reconciliation.
The local person who invited me to a reception for the local politician who proclaims “NO amnesty” is a devout Catholic who professes a Pro-Life position. This is admirable. But is it not time for Pro-Life Professing Catholics to accept the REST of the Gospel of Jesus?
On another note, the State of Arizona prepares on your and my behalf to kill another condemned prisoner.
When the State kills, you kill,
When the State kills, I kill.
WE are the State!!!
And yet, the message of the Risen Lord is as clear as can be: “THOU SHALT NOT KILL!”
Does YOUR mind need to be opened to understand the scriptures just as the disciples on the Road to Emmaus needed their minds opened? I think so.
Does my mind need to be opened? I think so. I sometimes consider that my understanding of the scriptures is at a kindergarten level.
For Breakfast Discussion: Do we hear only part of the Gospel, the part that makes us comfortable?
For Personal Reflection: Am I comfortable killing people, even if their actions may deserve it?
April 15, 2012
Second Sunday of Easter—Divine Mercy
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
“Peace be with you!...” is the Easter greeting of Jesus, in fact his first words after rising from the tomb.
Several movies have come out recently going back to the trench warfare of World War One. One was War Horse, the saga of a horse who survived the war.
In one of the scenes, the English cavalry is shown gallantly charging across a field, routing the Germans who are surprised in their tents. All is well and glorious until the cavalry charge approaches a wooded area along a fence line.
Hidden in the shrubs are long lines of German machine gunners. The horses charge pell-mell and then there is the rat-tat-tat of a dozen machine guns mowing the horses and their riders down like fallen grain.
The next scene shows the field littered with dead horses and their slaughtered riders.
I saw this movie after reading the book, To End All Wars by Adam Hoschild which chronicles the utter stupidity of most of the English officer corps who thought that the war would be finally ended by some glorious cavalry charge, not taking into account that a horse makes a very good target for a machine gun.
Another World War I movie is about a Christmas truce, where the allies and Germans took time out at Christmas to celebrate together before going back into their rat hole trenches to began shelling each other again.
The Easter message of Jesus is “Peace be with you!” meant not just for Easter, nor for Christmas but for every day of our lives. It is a message yet to be heard.
Don’t most of us consider war as a given? Can it be possible to even imagine a world without war? In my one lifetime there has been World War II, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War, with hardly a breathing time for peace in between.
And when the guns go silent, the effects of war with post-traumatic stress linger on for years. In my Contemporary Way of the Cross book, I focused on war veterans in Station XIII. Here is what that station contains:
“Today, we see the sagging body of Jesus on the streets. Stooped men lean over grocery carts containing all their earthly belongings. Many of these homeless are Viet Nam vets. Other wounded vets have been taken down from their crosses in Iraq and Afghanistan. They suffer post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or traumatic brain injury. Suicides too often kill what battle could not.
Let us pray: Some of the first who turned toward you Jesus were soldiers and you healed them. Reach out to our suffering vets. Like the Pieta, bereaved families grieve for so many veterans. May their beloved departed ones rest in peace. And for us who remain, deliver us from rash wars. Give us the energy, the persistence, the patience to be peacemakers.
Make us instruments of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let us sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is despair, hope.
“Peace is with you. As the Father has sent me, so I have sent you!”
John Chapter 20.
April 8, 2012
Easter
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
A lady from Ireland told me a beautiful story from her childhood. In some sense it could be seen as an Easter Story.
Here is how she told it:
When I was a little girl in Ireland—perhaps four or five years old, I used to love to climb over the rock walls and roam through the fields which were every different shade of green.
One day, late in the afternoon, I looked across the field at our neighbor’s white thatch roofed cottage.
When I looked at the house all of the windows were golden!
I was amazed, so I ran across the field over to our neighbor’s house.
When I got there, our neighbor was standing in the doorway, so I ran up to her and said:
“Ma’am, Ma’am, do you know you live in a house with golden windows?”
She smiled at me. And just as the sun was about to set in the west, she pointed across to my house and she said,
“Yes child, I live in a house with golden windows, but look across the field, your house has golden windows too!”
And sure enough it did! So I ran back home as fast as I could and ran into the kitchen.
I tugged on my Momma’s dress and said:
“Momma! Momma! We live in a house with golden windows too!”
******
Did not Jesus say, “Unless you become as a little child….”?
Sometimes children see what adults miss.
Easter is all about opening our eyes and seeing something new and amazing. It is about seeing the light.
Easter might be called the Feast of the Golden Sunrise.
On Good Friday, there were no golden windows. The earth shook. And as Jesus expired on the cross, Jerusalem was covered with darkness.
Shutters were closed for fear of the storm—and Peter, the first among the apostles, closed the shutters of his heart and denied Christ was the light.
However, on Easter, the rising sun fell upon the tomb of Jesus.
But when the sun rose, the rock that covered the tomb in darkness had been cast aside.
The first rays of the sun crept across the grass and then entered the tomb.
It entered what had been dark and closed and illuminated the burial cloths lying neatly folded.
Imagine the surprise of Mary and the astonishment of Peter
at the empty tomb now filled with light!
For us adults there are times when we close the shutters of our hearts.
Today is a day when they need to be opened up to the Easter light.
For us adults there are times when we fail to see the beauty all around us.
Today is a day when we need to see the beautiful Easter Candle as the symbol of the risen Christ whose light dispels our darkness.
And for us adults, sometime we find it difficult to believe and to hope.
Today is the day when hope needs to be enlivened by Easter faith.
In my book, Living in the Shadow of Terror, I included a meditation on hope. It goes this way:
The student asked the Master, “What does hope do?”
The Master replied, “Hope pushes. Hope pulls. Hope lifts up. Hope looks ahead. Hope vaults. Hope bounces. Hope skips. Hope dances.
Hope gets up. Hope consoles. Hope endures. Hope springs eternal.”
Then the student asked the Master, “Is Hope always on the move?”
“No,” replied the Master, “Sometimes hope rests like an anchor in the depths of our souls.”
May the great Easter hope rest like an anchor in all our souls this Easter Day.
And we might also pray that just as our nation was successful in war, we might be even more successful in making peace.
For after all—that is the first message that came from the lips of the Risen Christ—his first priority---“Shalom! Peace!”
And when you go home today, may you all live in a house with golden windows!
April 1, 2102
Passion/Palm Sunday
Gospel: Mark Chapter 14
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
In some sense, we are about to “Wake” Jesus, Son of Mary and Joseph and Son of God.
Today we recall his passion and his death.
I have just returned from a wake in Omaha—an eventful journey. I returned to honor Father Mel Merwald, who was my assistant pastor at St. James Parish in Omaha and a wonderful, warm, and caring human being and a very fruitful priest, as witnessed by the overflowing church at his funeral.
Wake time is story telling time, and one of the stories told of Father Mel was when his cousin needed a new kidney. Father Mel, on his own initiative had himself tested and discovered that his own kidney would be an even better match than that of his cousin’s sister. He informed his cousin he would give his kidney. His cousin said “No way!” But Mel insisted. This little story tells a lot about his life.
While in Omaha, I had an incident, passing out at his funeral and spending 24 hours in the hospital being observed. They even scanned my brain and found nothing! I was cleared: no heart attack, no stroke, Thank God.
So wake time is story telling time. For the Celtic Prayer Book, I wrote this poem prayer about the waking of Jesus:
Wake time, sorrow sharing time
Wake time, story telling time
Wake time, vigil keeping time
Wake time, embracing time.
Lady of the Wake, our life,
Lady of the Wake, our sweetness
Lady of the Wake, our hope in loss,
Lady of the Wake, our refuge in tears.
Wake time, a thin time,
Wake time, in a thin place,
Wake time, tears and laughter, very close
Wake time, here and hereafter closer still.
Lady of the Wake, you waked Mamma Anne
Lady of the Wake, you waked Papa Joachim
Lady of the Wake, you waked beloved Joseph
Lady of the Wake, you waked your own dear Son.
Lady of Sorrows, hear the keening
Lady of Sorrows, bless our stories
Lady of Sorrows, smile at our laugher
Lady of Sorrows, keeps watch with us.
Queen of Heaven, reach through thin time
Queen of Heaven, reach beyond death’s time
Queen of Heaven, you were there at death’s parting
Queen of Heaven, now give glory’s greeting.
This is the week we call Holy. We watch with Mary and with John at the cross and at the tomb.
We gather the folks,
We break the bread.
We tell the stories.
Let us go up to Jerusalem to watch with Jesus,
to wake with Mary, John, and Magdalene.
Good Friday’s dark is closest to Easter Light!
March 25, 2012
5th Sunday of Lent
To print this homily, click here for a PDF version
“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…” Today’s Gospel
One of the most favorite words that Saint John uses in his Gospel is the word “glory.”
John uses it often in his gospel and the word “glory” also often appears in the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass.
The best translation of this word “glory” in English is “to be beautiful.”
Glory means beauty.
And each one of us at the very beginning of our lives began in glory.
When we were tiny babies, when we were just born from our mothers’ wombs,
the doctor lifted us up for all to see and everyone there said,
“Beautiful!”
And beautiful meant “Glory.”
We were glorious!
However, just before that moment, our mothers experienced some birth pains.
And each of us also cried.
So first came our pain, and then came glory when we were lifted up.
Today, in the Gospel, Jesus tells us that for himself, he must be lifted up on the cross and this will be painful---but after he has been lifted up on the cross, he will be filled with glory and he will draw all who love and follow him to himself.
That glory we will celebrate at Easter: his glorious resurrection.
But now during Lent, we think and pray about his sufferings on the cross.
So today, Jesus is telling his friends that the hour is coming for the Son of Man—that’s Jesus—to be made beautiful—to be glorified.
And so we realize that in our own lives too, we have and do and will experience suffering, but our suffering will someday turn into glory.
And so we pray:
“We adore you O Christ and we bless you because by your holy cross you have saved the world.”
And we pray the Glory Prayer: “Glory is to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world without end. Amen.”
March 17-18, 2012
March 17: Saint Patrick’s Feast Day
March 18: 4th Sunday of Lent
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Saint Patrick’s Feast Day
St. Patrick lived: 389-461
Saint Patrick was the first Catholic bishop in the world to condemn slavery! Why? Because in his youth he was one! Kidnapped at age 16 he was transported to Ireland. There in its green hills and glens, he tended sheep and developed a strong love for the fertile earth. After 6 years he escaped and went back to his native land—(England? Or perhaps Normandy?)
On my bookshelf I have a rock that he would have seen when he later returned to Ireland as a bishop and climbed the holy mountain of the Druids that looms over Clew Bay in County Mayo. There he spent a whole season of Lent, preparing to convert the Irish to the Christian faith. Before him the Druids for 4000 years celebrated rites on the mountain now called Croagh Patrick. They too might have seen or tripped over my rock. Why do I have the rock from the Patrick’s Holy Mountain? Because on the last Sunday of July, in 1973, with my good friend Larry Dorsey and 50,000 other climbers I climbed to the summit reluctantly. However when dawn peeked over Clew Bay, I was so taken by the sight that I came home and published my first writing: “The Reluctant Pilgrim.” If I had wimped out on the climb, I probably never would have started to write and the dozen books I have since written would never exist.
Great things happen on mountain tops. Last week, the mountain of Transfiguration, this week, Croagh Patrick and Moses is on Mount Sinai. When Saint Patrick came down from the mountain he successfully traveled throughout Ireland and the Druids were very open to his message. For they already possessed a strong belief in an afterlife. There is a beautiful tale of Saint Patrick meeting two young Irish girls at the Well of Clibach and them quizzing him about this new faith and its hero: Jesus Christ. It is on page 77 of my Seven Secrets of the Celtic Spirit book.
The two colleens sat with Patrick at the Holy Well and asked of him:
Who is God?
And where is God?
Of whom is God?
And where is his dwelling?
Has he sons and daughters,
gold and silver,
this God of yours?
Is he ever living,
is he beautiful?
Was his Son
fostered by many?
Are his daughters
fair and beautiful,
to the men of this world?
Is he in heaven,
or on the earth?
In the sea,
in the rivers,
in the mountains,
in the valleys?
Speak to us
Tidings of him:
How will he be seen?
How is he to be loved?
How is he found?
Is it in youth,
or in old age
he is found?
And Patrick answered them, “Yes he is in the rivers and the glens, and yes he is beautiful,” and they were amazed and receptive at all Patrick had to tell them of their new hero: Christ. And in his great prayer, Patrick proclaimed:
I arise today
Through strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire
Speed of lightening
Swiftness of wind
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock!
Oh yes, perhaps the very rock that sits on my mantle!
My Celtic Prayer Book is dedicated to my friend Larry Dorsey who goaded me into climbing Croagh Patrick in 1973. It reads:
In memory of Father Larry Dorsey,
My Celtic Anam Cara,
September 18, 1933—March 16, St. Patrick’s Eve, 1998
“He has climbed Croagh Patrick
And now sees farther than any of us can dream.”
Short Reflection on 4th Sunday of Lent
Surely the epic story of the Irish in some ways echoes the travails of the Hebrews. In today’s reading, we have the enemies of the Hebrews wreaking havoc on their land and the Hebrew people being exiled into the land of Babylon.
It was so for the Irish who spent 800 years under the yoke of England. And the worst of persecutions took place when Oliver Cromwell raped and pillaged the land. In Northern Ireland the native Irish were driven from their homes and supplanted by Protestant colonists from England. The Irish too went into exile to far away places like Australia and America.
And in today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the image of Moses and the serpent on the pole, which would become an icon of healing. It presages his own nailing to the cross which would be for our healing. In Ireland, the Celtic cross is always surrounded by a circle. The circle is like the earth, the stars, and the sun. For the Celts, God was deep down and all around. This is what Patrick would tell the girls at the well of Clibach and what he would tell us today as well.
Breakfast Discussion: Why is St. Patrick’s Day so popular?
Personal Reflection: What is most appealing to you about the Patrick Story?
March 11, 2012
3rd Sunday of Lent
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Brothers and sisters, Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. – 1 Cor. 13-25
The Gospel tells us, “Jesus went up to Jerusalem…” To go up to Jerusalem is to go where the cross awaits.
And the powerful second reading, quoted above, tells us that God’s ways are not our ways.
The way of the world is to acquire trophies. Super Bowl trophies, golf trophies, trophies, trophies wives!
But next year there is a new champ. This year, Tiger looses his claws, and every year despite Botox, trophy wives wrinkle eventually.
And the trophy of Christians—the cross!
During Lent, we go through the desert on our own way to Jerusalem, and in many parishes the powerful Lenten hymn: Jerusalem My Destiny.
Before the cross is carried, today, in the Gospel, Jesus cleanses the temple. It will always need cleansing. If we equate the “temple” with our Catholic Church, we know that it needs it too. But Jesus does not destroy the temple. The Romans will do that.
Nor should we expect our church to fall into complete ruins although there are historical periods when it seems this is precisely what may happen. We will always have a messy Church filled with messy people.
For none of us individually is a perfect temple, even when the Holy Spirit puts up with us and continues to dwell within us.
So to reform the Church, the reform must start with you and me. Let Lent be a time to sweep out the debris of sinfulness, addiction, and grandiosity.
Like Simon of Cyrene, we will all be asked not only to be with Jesus as he cleanses the temple, but to walk with him as he carries his cross.
And the cross never makes any sense in a purely human fashion. It is a sign of contradiction, unless we see it as God sees it: as an instrument of love that schools us in compassion.
Bill Moyers carried on some famous interviews with Joseph Campbell the famous anthropologist who wrote so powerfully of the power of myths.
In his youth, Campbell was raised Catholic, and have you ever noticed that even among many who “have left the church of their youth,” a Catholic “flavor” remains. Campbell seems to have retained the Catholic insight that the cross is close to resurrection. He once wrote:
“The dark night of the soul
Comes just before revelation.When everything is lost,
And all seems darkness,
Then comes the new life
And all that is needed…”
He elaborated on that with these words: “Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, ‘This is what I need.’ It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to the moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement to your character, your stature, and your life…then looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped your life now.”
We might dare translate his words in Christian terms: “Your crosses will ultimately be your trophies.”
To accept that demands faith, hope, and love. Having cleansed our Lenten temple, we can adorn it with those and make a temple for the glory of the cross.
March 4, 2012
Second Sunday of Lent
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God put Abraham to the test…Gen. 22:1
I must confess that this reading is one of my least favorite. The very thought of human sacrifice seems to be so repugnant. However, you and I must put this demand of God for Abraham to sacrifice his son in its proper context. It turns out, after all, that this was a test of fidelity. At this very time human sacrifice was being practiced by other pagan religions. We only have to look to our own Western Hemisphere at a much later time to discover human sacrifice being practiced by the Aztecs.
When I made a memorable visit to Chichen Itza in the Yucatan peninsula, I visited a pool where virgins were drowned to please the Aztec gods.
The fact is that the one God of Abraham desisted in his demand. So the God of Abraham stopped Abraham’s sacrifice by desisting from the original demand. Nonetheless, Abraham from this experience showed himself completely loyal and obedient to the One God.
The Gospel: Every morning when I awaken, I can look out the window and see Camelback Mountain. Every mountain is in some sense an icon of the power and majesty of God. So have you noticed that almost all the most significant events of the life of Jesus took place on mountains?
The Sermon on the Mount
Today’s Transfiguration
Mount Calvary
It was so for Moses and for the prophets. So it is no surprise that Jesus would commune with Moses on a mountain top.
The apostles knew Jesus day by day as another first century Jewish man. He sweated in the heat; he got dirty in the desert; he went to the bathroom just as they did. He was both ordinary and extraordinary.
In the carpenter shop, he got slivers, and in the desert his skin was baked by the sun and sometimes scratched and bleeding from the cactus.
But on the mountain, they see something entirely different. They get a glimpse of glory. They will need to remember this glimpse of glory for another day will come on another mountain when they will see Jesus bloodied, suffering, and dying.
In our common parlance and culture, we call some celebrities “stars.” They glow and glimmer in their spotlights. A modern folk opera has named: Jesus Christ Super-Star. Yes! On the Mountain of Transfiguration, Jesus did glow as Jesus-Super-Star!
Today, all around us we know human beings on beds of pain, slumped over on their wheel chairs in care centers, mumbling quite often, “Take me home!” We view human degradation in many forms. Despite all this, today’s Gospel Good News assures us that there is glory beyond degradation.
Jesus Christ has died;
But Jesus Christ IS Raised;
And Jesus Christ will come again!
Transfiguration is our destiny. Transfiguration is a hint of resurrection. Botox only takes us so far. The day does come when ugliness falls upon us. Lent reminds us: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.
Like the apostles we long for something better.
Saint Paul in today’s second reading assures us of a better future:
“Brothers and Sisters, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not give us everything else along with him?”
The special preface for this Sunday sums it up very well:
“For after he had told the apostles of his coming death
On the holy mountain he manifested to them his glory,
To show even by the testimony of the law and the prophets
That the Passion leads to the glory of Resurrection.”
Breakfast Conversation: Do we need transfiguration moments in our own life experience?
Personal Reflection: What has been a transfiguring experience for me?
February 26, 2012
First Sunday of Lent
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The Spirit took Jesus out into the desert…MK 1:12
I live in the desert. Most recently I live here with my new roommate Buddy. He is yellow with a black splash on his back, big ears, brown eyes, and is rarin to go in his desert home. Morning walks are fine except when we pass the “rabbit patch.” The bunnies are wise to the environment and they know that all these dogs on leashes can’t lay a paw on them. So much to the consternation of the many dogs on leashes, the rabbits just stay in place and stare down the dogs. It is dog-goned frustrating.
So in the mornings, the rabbit patch calls forth whining, leash pulling, and frustration from the passing dogs, but the rest of the walk goes pretty smoothly.
But last night was another story. From the moment Buddy and I approached the outer drive, his ears were up and he entered into a tugging match. There were other eyes out there in the dark and he sensed them. Whose eyes? Rabbits for sure. But there were many other possibilities: javalinas or even rattlers. And even in the daytime coyotes and foxes are sighted in the neighborhood. But the night hides them from human eyes, but not from a dog’s detecting nose.
So out in the desert there can be serene and peaceful days. The human eyes survey mostly the beauty of saguaro cacti, and desert brush. But at night, the desert becomes a hustling and bustling place and sometimes a dangerous one.
So Mark tells us today quite simply and concisely: Jesus “remained in the desert for forty days tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts and angels ministered to him.”
And for us the followers of Jesus, each Lent we too must go out into the spiritual desert. And there too, we will encounter Satan, beasts, and angels! And most likely we will encounter them in our own personal darkness.
We all possess a shadow side, the hidden tendencies, some of them evil, which we find hard to acknowledge, but others notice and react to.
Lent provides an opportunity for us to gently explore this hidden side, and to “get real” with insight, sorrow, and repentance.
And sometimes we act like angels. Good for us!
And sometimes we act like beasts—our jaws snapping and our sharp teeth biting into others around us.
Jesus went out into the desert forty days and forty nights. Scripturally, 40 means a long time. Our Lent will be forty days and nights. Like Jesus, we are to make friends with our desert and with our darkness.
Light will only fully return at Easter.
Making friends with our desert dark means gently weaving our way. It means acknowledging that we are not angels, nor will we ever be perfect. But we can heal. We can mend. We can change.
This always means letting go. We are in spring training now and if we can give up a few little things for Lent, then the big denials when needed will not seem so overpowering.
One of the letting go paths of Lent is alms giving. We must open our hearts and our hands and not hold on when we generously give alms. The opportunities for this spiritual exercise are all around us. The most obvious is the poor boxes in our churches and the outreach of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.
NOW is the time for all of this.
NOW is the time to go into the desert.
NOW is our forty days for:
“The Kingdom of God is at hand!
Repent and believe in the Gospel!”
Breakfast Discussion: What is the best personal good that might result from Lent?
Personal Reflection: How can I make friends with my personal darkness, and acknowledge it without at the same time condemning my own weakness?
Lenten Resources:
Check the “Books” tab of this website and read the explanation of A Contemporary Way of the Cross. It can be ordered from Tau Publishers most quickly by calling: 602-625-6183 or from the Internet: Tau-Publishing.com
…Another of my books that would be a good Lenten read: Spirituality In The Midst of Messiness, also available from Tau-Publishing.
February 22, 2012
Ash Wednesday
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Today is a special day in the life of the faithful.
So special that Saint Paul in the second reading proclaims:
“Behold, NOW is an acceptable time!
NOW is the day of salvation!”
And the first reading proclaims:
“Call the assembly!
Proclaim a fast!
Notify the congregation!”
And so we have….and so you are here.
Shortly we will mark your foreheads with holy dirt.
Let this blessing remind you of how earthy you are, for every fiber of your bodies
originates from the holy dirt of Mother Earth.
Indeed before it was earth, every fiber of your body spun out from the stars.
You are made from star dust!
Your bodies came forth from the Creator’s hand!
How wonderfully made you all are!
Today when the dirt is placed on your forehead, realize it is a blessing, not a curse. Earth can be fertile and life giving.
Think of today’s smudging as holy dirt being given to you so that you can plant something new in it in this holy season of Lent.
This is indeed planting time, and what we plant in Lent can bloom and bear fruit at Easter.
And so this is a special time and a special season; you all know this, this truth is implanted deep in the hearts of believing Catholics.
I commend you all for being here. You are an example of devotion to each other.
I pray for you and me a Lent that is a planting time, a growing time, a loving time, a justice and peace seeking time. Plant these seeds and Easter will bloom!
February 19, 2012
Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
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Thus says the Lord,
‘Remember not the things of the past,
The things of long ago consider not;
See I am doing something new!
Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’
Isaiah 43:18
What a terrific reading to serve us as a doorway to Lent, 2012. Lent is not a time to dredge up the past. It is a new time, a spring time, a time to do something new.
Creation Spirituality now reminds us that the whole epic of creation is ongoing. Creation did not just happen; it is continuing to happen.
And if this is true of the universe, surely it is true for you and me. Brain studies now show us that our brains can achieve newness and growth even in our elder years. To achieve this, being creative is very helpful. Learning new things actually grows brain neurons!
“Remember not the things of the past…”
If we could achieve that in our coming Lent, it would be a quantum leap forward. How often and how many people dwell on past slights, past grudges, past mistakes, past sins. It reminds one of a beautiful automobile, spinning its tires and going nowhere. Instead it stays in place, mired in the mud — stalemated.
“The things of long ago consider not…”
There are people not speaking to each other today because of some slight maybe 20 or 30 or more years ago! How many families have been rent by this foolishness?
Jesus came to us with Good NEWS. The people in the Gospel today were so intent on the Good News of healing reaching the paralytic that they became very creative!
They did not stand around moaning and griping because they could not get in the door. They said, let’s be creative! Or maybe: “There is more than one way to skin a cat!” Probably not, but that was their attitude.
I think today’s gospel is one of the most colorful and creative of the gospel stories. Just consider: they crawled up on the roof, dragging the sick man with them. Can you imagine the inhabitants of the house when they heard the shuffling and scraping above them? And then dust began to fall into the room, and soon an opening appeared, and eyes peered down from above!
Did Jesus admonish them? Not at all. He must have smiled at their ingenuity. And then he looked at the paralytic and responded: “Child! Your sins are forgiven.”
A Lenten question: How can we be creative in our lives in responding to Jesus and to each other?
In the Second Reading today, Paul reminds us that “God has put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts.”
The Spirit is creative. Thus we can be led by the Spirit to be creative. It is the very direction of the Holy Spirit. To be mired in place, to be mesmerized by the past, is to neglect the creative promptings of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let that blessed Spirit guide you through Lent to something new!
Come Holy Spirit…help us to RENEW the face of the Spirit!
Breakfast Question: What does Lent mean to you?
Personal Reflection: How can I do something new in Lent 2012?
February 12, 2012
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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The Hebrew people endured many trials on their long trek through the desert on their way to the Promised Land. Consequently, they had to take safeguards for their survival. Among these were many dietary and health precautions.
One of the most feared diseases was leprosy. They considered it very catchable and of course had none of the healing or preventive measures that we have available today.
So what recourse did they have to protect the community from this scourge? The only one available was to label the lepers and expel them from the tents of the community.
This is what happens in today’s first reading.
“As long as the sore is upon him, he shall declare himself unclean,
Since he is in fact unclean, he shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.”
This exile was the physical punishment inflicted on the leper. But surely there was a psychological effect as well. To be considered “sick” is one thing; to be labeled as “unclean and outside the camp” was something else.
Through the centuries, this negation has been imposed on many more than lepers. Hitler declared this of the Jews; made them wear a patch identifying them as “different” and eventually exiled them to concentration camps for extermination.
The sad history of slavery was all about the insiders abusing the outsiders. Anyone who has been scorned in any way can understand the plight of the leper. Hitler’s actions were the worst-case scenario. However, labeling and placing humans “outside the camp” can occur in so many ways. In Junior High, bullies do this. I have heard of it in senior citizen gated communities; a particular couple is labeled “persona non grata.” It is the instinct of gangs who consider themselves insiders and others outsiders.
Also in our current society, the way undocumented Mexicans are described in modern American culture is a form of labeling. They are often referred to as “The Illegals.” This type of description is dehumanizing. They are not “the illegals;” most are simple peasants simply striving to support their families at home. Yes, they break a law to do so. But how many of the rest of us have NEVER broken any law? I recently paid a deserved fine for neglecting to put up my handicapped sign when I parked in a handicapped zone. No one calls me “Fitz-The Illegal!”
When apprehended, undocumented workers are rounded up and expelled “Outside our camp.” They usually arrive over the border, penniless and in need of food and for women and children, shelter. They’re the modern lepers of our day, “outside the camp.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus shows us by his word and deed how “unclean people“ are to be treated when the leper comes to seek his healing:
Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him,
“I do will it. Be made clean!”
As the followers of Jesus, we are to do the same moved with pity for the modern “lepers”—outsiders of our day.
We too are to be “moved with pity” as Jesus was.
That is why I serve on the Dinner Committee for the 2nd Annual Kino Border Initiative Dinner which provides emergency aid to expelled undocumented migrants just over the border at Nogales. This little way station is named for the Southwest Jesuit missionary and explorer Father Kino.
Headed by Father Sean Carroll SJ, this way station provides temporary shelter for expelled women and children, and often serves 200 meals a day to expelled migrants.
Our March 10 Dinner will raise funds to support this effort at reaching out to those “beyond the camp.” If you would like to receive an invitation, contact me and I will see that you receive one.
In the Second Reading Today, St Paul encourages us: “Brothers and Sisters, whether you eat or drink, do everything for the glory of God.” On Saturday, March 10, we will gather at St. Paul’s Parish in Phoenix to eat and drink for the glory of God and for the benefit of our expelled and often demeaned brothers and sisters served by the Kino Border Initiative.
A Reminder:
Tuesday, February 14 is Valentine’s Day. Actually it is Saint Valentine’s Day. It is one sign of the obtuseness of our Liturgical Experts that our liturgy ignores this saint on his feast day. All the more reason St. Valentine should remind us to be lovers. It is the way of the saints!
February 5, 2012
Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time
…In USA: Super Sunday
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Remember that my life is like the wind…Job 7:7
So laments Job and are we not all Job at one time or another? The anxious times, the bereavement times, the failure times, the betrayal times all can put us in Job’s shoes. And yet, despite all his travails, Job in the end remains faithful.
Today’s Gospel
In the Gospel today, Jesus is surrounded by many Jobs:
“The whole town was gathered at his door. He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak…”
Would that Jared Loughner who shot Gabby Giffords could have been close to Jesus’ healing touch. It may well be that in many instances in the Gospel, where the Gospel writers thought Jesus was expelling demons, he may have been healing schizophrenics like Loughner. People with this terrible affliction hear many voices and may emit many voices.
Super Sunday
If you are like me and many others, you will probably curl up somewhere with a bottle of Bud, (or something better—I like their horses, not their beer.)
It will be a fun place to be. But curling up can also be a reminder that maybe too often at other times we lounge into couch potatoes. I have a new dog, Buddy, and he is good for me because every morning he rousts me up and we walk our mile together. He will not have it otherwise!
ACTA Publications recently featured my Wolf Prayer as its “Prayer of the Week” and since the wolf is cousin to the dog, I thought I would end with that prayer reflection on Super Sunday/Couch Potato Weekend:
Creator God,
Are not my deepest powers dammed up? Frozen over?
There are times when I feel listless,
Made inert by repetitious days and long winter nights.
I wonder if there is life beyond Monday night football,
Or milling at the mall?
It can become easy to become simply a spectator of life,
Dazed and dulled.
The consumer society can swallow my soul.
I am programmed to be passionate about:
Bud Lite, little leagues, small advances in the stock market,
And little else.
Life can too easily become a monitor-
Hard drives, soft drives, cathode tubes,
It is to be viewed, reviewed, instantly replayed,
Recorded, canned, put on the shelf.
It is not just cold outside.
I can be frozen within.
Never so much sex, never so much action
Up there on the screen
And so little passion within.
Let me befriend the wolf within.
The wild energy of my own life force,
My zest for life, my alertness of spirit
Let me make the move,
Shake the springs,
Reawaken my wild dynamism from slumber.
Let me own my own imagination.
Dream a better dream,
Howl at the moon
And seek my bliss.
Help me be alert to the direction
Where a prize lays waiting for my prowl.
Let me be compassionate about compassion,
For I share my trek
With the human pack.
Like the wolf,
We are both the hunters
And the hunted.
Let me lope with the wolf,
For life is an adventure
And we must make our tracks
Across the snow.
- From 100 Cranes, Praying With the Chorus of Creation: ACTA
January 29, 2012
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority…Mark 1
Authority is a word we often hear invoked. Authority and authentic are words that are closely related. And they are meant to intertwine. But, the history of mankind shows so often that “authorities” are not necessarily authentic.
Adolph Hitler possessed authority. However Hans Jagenstatter who refused to serve Hitler and died a martyr’s death was authentic.
This week many of us mourned the passing of Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach. He can and will be remembered for the many positive things he did to help young men grow into manhood. But, like all of us do, he had a shadow side. At a moment of great need, the molestation of a child, he was not sure what HIS OWN authority should do, so he did the minimum, he passed the buck and passed on the matter to “higher authorities.”
Joe Paterno was not a bad man, but it is tragic that at a moment of opportunity he could not trust his own authority and prudence. He could have done so much more which would have been authentic consideration and action.
And in our own church, too many bishops were not so much bad, as they were oblivious, church status concerned, and as a result covered up. Their actions and the authority they claimed for themselves were not authentic.
So, today in the Gospel, Jesus boldly stands up and reads from the scroll. He is strong of voice, and reads what he believes and believes what he reads. And the people are convinced he is authentic, the real deal.
Then there is a verbal confrontation. A spirit of some kind confronts Jesus. Jesus does not rant or rave against this voice. Instead, he knows he need not. Quietly, he orders the unclean spirit to depart. He knew he need not confront a wicked spirit with a baseball bat. A quiet word was enough.
In a wonderful book, Make Friends With Your Shadow, the Lutheran pastor writes about each of us dealing with our shadow sides—those hidden corners—where evil tendencies or hidden lusts—we really don’t want to admit are a part of us, when they are a hidden part of everyone.
“Don’t hit them with a baseball bat, or say, Oh I could never follow those tendencies!” You could! Instead gently chide them: “Be quiet now.” That authentic response will quiet them, only for them to come back some further day.
Breakfast Discussion: Who do you know that really seems to be authentic?
Could Joe Paterno have done more than he did? Should he? Would you?
Personal Reflection: How do I deal with my secret desires, my shadow side?
Never recognize it? Deny it? Make friends with it?
January 22, 2012
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
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We have all seen dramatic pictures of the sinking of the Costa cruise liner.
What a disaster! Its passengers and crew’s suffering was increased by having no one at the helm. The ship’s captain abandoned ship. There was no one on the bridge to issue commands that would point in any particular direction.
I am a veteran of cruise lines and I am fortunate to usually travel on Crystal. Crystal is not one of the lines controlled by the super conglomerate Carnival Industries. On Crystal, a lifeboat drill is mandatory before every sailing. And on the days when the ship is in port, the crew often practice different fire and lifeboat drills.
And at the helm is a captain who is responsible to the passengers and twice a day gives a report to all the passengers from the bridge.
This image of a captain pointing the way ahead is appropriate on this Sunday when Jesus chooses seamen (they did move about in boats,) and points them in a clear direction. Jesus is never wishy-washy, never indecisive:
“This is the time of fulfillment!
The Kingdom of God is at hand!
Repent and believe in the Gospel (Good News!)”
And to the seafarers around him, he announces:
“Come after me and I will make you fishers of men!”
The Kingdom of God is at the core of the message of Jesus.
The Kingdom of God is enigmatic.
It is now, but not yet; it is a seed, but it will be a tree later on.
For his disciples in every age it is to be implemented as best we can until its final fulfillment.
We are not seamen adrift on a life raft.
Our Church has a nickname; “the barque of Peter”.
It pitches, and bobs, and sometimes seems about to sink, but somehow it resumes the direction given by Jesus … the direction being the kingdom of God, which really means God’s way of doing things.
So for us THIS is our day of fulfillment — not yesterday — not tomorrow — but today. This is the urgent message of Jesus.
Eckhart Tolle has written an insightful book about the NOW being the only existing reality in our lives.
I think in some way, Jesus was trying to express the core of this truth. Don’t fret over yesterday. Don’t procrastinate and say, "I will do this tomorrow". NOW is the time of fulfillment.
People in AA know this. They ask for the grace just to get through the current day without drinking.
How important is THE NOW! Saturday I talked to my friend Theresa. I wish I could have said more. Twelve hours later, she suffered a fall and is now on life support. God spare her! But how true is the old French quotation:
“We are all wayfarers and sojourners and we have too little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us!”
So what might we take out of today’s gospel?
A sense of urgency.
A belief that Jesus points us in the right direction.
A sense of joy that his message is indeed Good News!
And a firm belief that he is our captain who will never abandon us!
Breakfast Talk:
How important is it that a captain remain on the bridge of his afflicted ship?
Personal Reflection: Which of these is most needed by me?
A sense of urgency?
A belief that Jesus points us in the right direction?
A sense of joy that his message is indeed Good News?
A firm belief that he is my captain who will never abandon me?
January 15, 2012
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
If we could boil down today’s first reading and Gospel to a few words they might be:
“Here I am Lord!" uttered by Samuel. And: “Come and see!” spoken by Jesus.
Perhaps we might make these words our signposts as we embark upon the journey of a New Year.
For at this time, each of us finds ourselves at the door lintel of a new time, if not a new place.
And at this time and in this place, Jesus invites us to “come and see.” This presumes that there is much more to see and much more to learn. And so we journey forth with Jesus on a pilgrimage.
What this suggests is that Jesus walks with us in the ordinariness of our daily lives. It is there we save our souls. Today, as I write this, is an ordinary day. January from here on out is a very ordinary time. No Super Bowl until February. Yet, in the ordinary, we can often discover the extraordinary.
As I sit at my computer I think about a newcomer who moved into our complex in December. He remains a stranger to me. At Christmas, I wrote a Christmas card with a welcome note and put it on his doorstep. I have never received a reply of any kind. In fact in this New Year, I have never seen him come or go. I only know the person is there because of lights at night. You might say this stranger lives on the "shady side of the street". My tendency is to move on. If this person does not want to be seen, so be it.
But last night I had a cocktail with two “Sunny Side of the Street” neighbors and one remarked that the newcomer was moved in by a daughter, but I have never seen anyone else around. So what is his situation? Maybe this is a person who just wants to be left alone? Maybe I should just “mind my own business.” And maybe not?
Jesus may be saying to me: “Come and see!” That might mean: find out about who he really is.
The New Year offers all of us opportunities to “come and see!” and find Jesus in surprising and out of the way places.
One of my major spring goals is working with Lucy Howell in promoting a dinner on March 7 to benefit the Kino Border Initiative, which provides temporary shelter and meals to expelled illegal immigrants. We are inviting people of good will to “come and see” and discover that these bedraggled and scorned Mexicans are human people, not just dehumanized as “the illegals.”
(If you would like “to see” more, about them visit: www.kinoborderinitiative
There is so much in our world we gloss over or fail to see. We all need to “come and see.” There are discoveries along the ordinary Jesus path awaiting us in this New Year.
Prayer
(From A Contemporary North American Prayer Book, WJF)
Ordinary Time: The Greening and Growing Season
Bless our land from sea to sea.
Bless the fields giving life to me.
Bless the earth beneath my feet.
Bless the food we have to eat.
And yet, Creator God,
This is not “ordinary time.”
This is Extraordinary Time,
When fertile earth lies supine.
Forests are despoiled,
Deserts are caused by drought,
Icebergs melted by global warming,
Bringing chaos out of paradise.
What I do for the earth
I do for all the children.
Let the earth be for them
No desert but precious gem.
Bless these children.
Bless their future life.
Bless the earth,
The womb of life.
January 8, 2012
Feast of the Epiphany
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“Rise up in splendor Jerusalem! Your light has come!”
-First Reading
In December I visited the Mexican port town (15,000 residents) of Loreto in Lower California. It is there that the first of the California missions was established. This mission church is lovely, not elaborately adorned as some of its offspring churches in California, but charming in its simplicity. It was pre-Christmas there so the Three Kings were not to be found at the crib. However, they were on the way…each of them interspersed out in the main body of the church in sidewall niches. They were on the way to discover the radiant Christ just as we all are.
Today, on the Epiphany, they arrive at the crib. And there the inner beauty of Jesus is manifested to them. That is what epiphany means: a manifestation of inner beauty. Every epiphany, whether it is at the crib or elsewhere, has elements of inner beauty being manifested in a surprising manner.
For the book, Finding God at the Old Ball Park, I wrote a true story about my dad taking me to a big league ballpark for my first major league ball game. I titled it Epiphany in Saint Louis. And I described the emergence of my dad and me from a dark tunnel into the brightly lit green-carpeted arena of Sportsman’s Park:
“…there before me was a big league diamond flooded with bright lights for the night game. The infield was framed by red dirt, and sure enough, the infield was a vibrant green carpet that looked like it had never been stepped upon. Most of the stadium was painted a dark blue that contrasted beautifully with the closely cropped green grass.”
For a 13 year-old this was a luminous sight. And then the players trotted out in spotless uniforms, and there beside them was the baseball legend, Connie Mack! For a boy who knew only the sandlots, this was the real thing! This was the big league!
“As a teenager, I did not know what “epiphany” meant, but I do now. This experience was for me a hint of divine glory!”
Well, getting back to today’s feast, the squalid crib was turned into “big league” status when the Magi arrived. They were indeed big leaguers. They came resplendent in royal robes. Their presence is meant to remind us that the crib reveals both the human and the divine.
They had been drawn across the miles in their search for a beautiful savior. The Epiphany is all about beauty revealed in a very surprising locale. Who would expect to find it in a smelly stable?
It is not true that we are all allured by beauty. People magazine is all about the “beautiful people”. And they all are glamorous, pretty, and attractive—at least on the surface. And we expect that.
But there is another kind of beauty that can emerge from ugly stable-like surroundings. Whether it is a stable or the garbage-strewn streets of Calcutta. Exhibit A: Mother Teresa. She would never make the cover of People Magazine for her physical beauty.
Bill Maher, the cynic, denigrated her by labeling her “an Albanian dwarf”. But others with eyes to see saw the real beauty that was there. Princess Diana, one of the world’s glamorous ones, honored her and was buried with a rosary gift from Mother Teresa.
And so the first reading today reminds us:
“…darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; (we can be blind to genuine beauty) but upon you the Lord shines and over you appears his glory.”
Glory always means genuine beauty. Today is the feast of beauty. And each of us is a work of art that can reveal God’s beauty shining within us.
The Epiphany is about finding beauty in surprising and hidden places and persons. Even within ourselves. For our hearts are made for beauty! So were the hearts of the wise men. They were right in worldly goods – gold, frankincense, and myrrh – but longed for, searched for, and eventually found beauty manifested in the crib.
So, one last time, before Christmas is forgotten ‘til next year’s sales:
“Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.
Come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold him,
Born the King of Angels.”
Come with the Magi and behold his glory, his beauty, shining down through the ages.
Breakfast Discussion: “We can be blind to genuine beauty.” Where do we look for and where do we find genuine beauty?
Personal Reflection: How can I attain a more genuine beauty in this New Year?
Sunday, January 1
Feast of Mary Mother of God
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A New Year! And an old blessing from today’s First Reading:
The Lord bless you,
and keep you!
The Lord let his face
shine upon you, and be
gracious to you!
The Lord look upon you
kindly and give you peace!
— Numbers Ch. 6 —
Happy New Year!
The old year has come and gone. It has no more potency. It lives on for the most part in memory.
Quite to the contrary, the New Year is all potential. May we enter it with hope filled hearts.
Once upon a time there was a maiden; she lived in an old and somewhat primitive time and place:
…In a hut, 10 feet by 10 feet with a dirt floor.
…She went each morning to draw water from the well.
…She ate only two meals a day often consisting of barley wheat, soups, cheese, pomegranates, olives, Sometimes there was milk, and sometimes wine,
…There also could be figs, nuts and on special occasions, dried fish or meat.
…She was unaware of her potential. *
And yet from the figs, nuts, barley bread that she ate, God fashioned a Son!
Yes, the body of Jesus came from the earth just as yours and mine did.
His Spirit came from above. But the womb of Mary bore him and he came into this world poor.
And so we call her, “Mary, Mother of God.”
And today, we celebrate the Feast of Mary, Mother of God.
She said “Yes!” to God’s plan for her.
We have a theological name for such a plan: “Providence.”
So too, we ourselves have potential. Indeed all of our potency is a divine gift.
And the Spirit of God nudges, not shoves us towards giving birth to beauty.
“Providence” has put us where we are—at this gateway to a New Year.
It is an apt time to ask:
What am I grateful for? And for what do I hope?
A little story: On December 21, I came back from a marvelous cruise. I had been with family: my cousin Rosemary, a rare opportunity for me. I had the rewarding opportunity to minister to six passengers in various stages of battling cancer; I was immersed in interesting people.
Then on Christmas Eve morning, I found myself totally alone and in a funk. I was given no opportunity to be celebrant at any parish mass. I would not preach on Christmas, and my only opportunity to preside at mass would be that evening, at a mass I would say in Spanish. (The only word in Spanish that I really know is “cervesa.”)
I felt both cut of, lonely, and angry. Not a great preparation for Christmas. So I went out to the nearby lake. (As some of you know, as we age, Christmas can be difficult.)
At the lake, I sat and took in the beauty. “Look at the birds of the air. “
said Jesus.
And then I thought of David Letterman’s list! So I started to make a list of what I had to be grateful for. It got longer and longer and began to bring light into the shadows. Among my list would have to be some of my talents. They are a narrow vein of gold, but I have been able to mine them and I can still dig into that mine in the New Year. I am grateful.
Christmas Eve I said my Christmas mass in Spanish. At the end I told my acolyte, I would love to dance around the altar like you do, but my knees won’t allow it.
“That’s Ok Padre, so we dance slowly for you!” And so we did.
On Christmas Day I celebrated with my Arizona family, the Burbachs and I was out of my funk on a beautiful day.
As we all make our providential journey through each year it is through lights and shadows. May the New Year lead all of us out of shadows, ever onward towards the Light.
And we each have the potential to cast light into dark places.
And so we thank God for the potential each of us possesses and we thank God for the potential of something new in a brand new year.
- The description of Mary’s life style is taken from The Catholic Companion to Jesus,
By Mary Kathleen Glavich, published by ACTA. I recommend it to get a
Picture of the lifestyle of Jesus.
Breakfast Sharing: What do you think Mary was really like?
Personal Reflection: What do I hope for in the New Year? What is the golden potential which I possess that might well be mined in 2012?