Saint Mary Magdalene Community

 Homilies

The Face of God

St. Mary Magdalene Community

November 20, 2011

Joseph L. Butler, Sr. ©

 

Week after week we hear readings from Scripture that give us some understanding of Jesus of Nazareth.  On this last Sunday of ordinary time, the church honors Christ as king of the universe.  I suspect that this was the furthest thing from his mind.  Whether he was a carpenter or a rabbi or a mason, we don’t really know.  Based on the four gospels that we read over and over each week, we do know that Jesus was a teacher.

During the course of his life, Jesus of Nazareth devoted a great deal of time, if not most of his life, teaching his disciples where to see the face of God.  He taught not only the disciples, but also the people encountered in his day-to-day life.  The Pharisees he met at the synagogue, a Samaritan woman at the well, little children clamoring to sit on his lap and listen to his stories -- people from all walks of life came to hear him speak.  Jesus saw the face of God in all of them.  This is what today’s readings are about.   

 

Jesus made the people comfortable with the knowledge that God dwells in each of them. He confounded the arrogant with his beatitudes on love.  He comforted the poor and indigent with lessons of compassion and kindness.  Yes, he even saw the face of God in flowers and earth’s creatures.  “Look at the lilies of the field.  They neither toil nor sew, yet not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these… The birds of the air do not plant or harvest or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”  Maybe I am taking liberties with this interpretation of Matthew, but it is a way of seeing the face of God in a new light. 

 

              I want to share a story with you about a corner store -- not a super market, but a small grocery store.  Each of us grew up in a neighborhood that had one – the place your mother sent you for a quart of milk, a loaf of bread or whatever else she needed.   It is just such a corner grocery store that lends itself to helping us understand  where we can see the face of God in our lives.   A woman named Grace went to Jim Malory’s corner store, hoping to try a new recipe that night.  She was a pushover for creamed peas and new potatoes. Grace noticed a small boy, ragged but clean, hungrily looking at a basket of freshly picked green peas.  Drawn to them also, she couldn’t help overhearing a conversation between Jim Malory and the ragged boy next to him:

Hello Barry, how are you today? 

‘Lo Mr. Malory.  Fine, thank you.  Jes admirin’ them peas.  They sure look good. 

They are good, Barry.  How’s your Ma? 

Fine.  Gittin stronger alla time. 

Good.  Anything I can help you with? 

No sir.  Jes admirin’ them peas. 

Would you like to take some home? 

No sir.  Got nuthin’ to pay for ‘em with.

Well, what have you to trade me for some of those peas?

All I got’s my prize marble here.

Is that right?  Let me see it. 

Here it is.  She’s a dandy.

I can see that --hmmm.  Only thing is, this one is blue and I sort of go for red.  Do you have a red one like this at home?  

Not zackley, but almost.

Tell you what.  Take this sack of peas home with you, and next trip this way, let me have a look at that red marble. 

Sure will.  Thanks Mr. Malory! 

 

Mrs. Malory, who had been standing nearby, came over to help Grace.  With a smile, she said, “There are two other boys just like him in our community.  All three are in very poor circumstances.  Jim just loves to bargain with them for peas, apples, tomatoes or whatever else.  On their next trip, when they come back with their red marbles -- and they always do – Jim decides he doesn’t like red after all, and sends them home with another bag of produce to get a green marble or an orange one.”  Grace left the store smiling, impressed with this man.  A short time later, she moved from the neighborhood, but she never forgot the story of this good man and bartering for marbles with the boys. 

 

The years went by, each more rapidly than the previous one.  An opportunity came for Grace to visit her old friends in that community.  When she arrived, they told her Mr. Malory had died, and his visitation would be that evening.  Knowing what her friends wanted, Grace offered to accompany them.   At the funeral home they joined the line waiting to offer whatever words of comfort they could to Jim’s relatives.  Ahead of her were three fine young men, very professional looking.  One was dressed in an army uniform.  The other two wore dark suits and white shirts.  They approached Mrs. Malory who was standing composed and smiling by her husband’s casket.  Each hugged her, briefly spoke to her, then kissed her on the cheek.  They walked over to the casket, her misty light blue eyes following them.  One by one, each young man placed his warm hand over the cold pale hand in the casket.  Each left the parlor awkwardly wiping his eyes. 

 

When her turn came, Grace told Mrs. Malory how she cherished the story of Jim bartering for marbles.  With her eyes glistening, Mrs. Malory took Grace’s hand and led her to the casket.  “Those three young men who just left were the very boys I told you about.  They said how much they appreciated the things Jim traded them for.  Now, when Jim could not change his mind about color or size, they had come to pay their debt.  We’ve never had a great deal of the wealth of this world,”  Mrs. Malory confided, “but right now,  Jim would consider himself the richest man in this community.”  With loving gentleness, she lifted the lifeless fingers of her deceased husband.  Resting underneath were three exquisitely shined red marbles.

   

Is there a moral to this story?  I think there is.  Each of us is called to engage in conversation with a divine presence.  Where do we see the face of God?  These boys saw the face of God in Jim Malory.  His generosity, his compassion, and, yes, his wacky sense of humor, touched them deeply and was never forgotten.  Even more compelling, Jim Malory saw the face of God in the boys.  Devotion to their families called them to reach out in any way they could to a man whom they knew would help. Each of us carries an interior Christ that we converse with in moments of concern and in times of joy.  We learn from the wisdom of others.  We learn from the wisdom of Christ. 

 

          Today, we live in a world of chaos.  Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without end paid for at the expense of many innocent people.  Politicians of both parties unable to discuss ways or methods to improve the quality of life for all Americans.  Rich corporations filling their coffers and showing little regard for the common good.  Predators preying on the lives of children, and leaving them unimaginably scarred.  

 

Our world needs a divine presence and days of ordinary miracles.  We are called to look for the face of God in the ordinary moments of our lives.  Think of how many opportunities present themselves every day when we could see the face of God.  Remember those people from all walks of life who came to hear Jesus speak?  Jesus saw the face of God in each of them.  This is what got Jesus out of bed every morning.  This is what brought Jesus to the people.   Let us close with this prayer:

Spirit, open our senses to your divine presence today, that we may see you, know you, love you and care for you in all things.














30th Sunday, Cycle A
 
I don't know about all of you, but I grew up in a community where 99.99% of my neighbors were just like me- of European descent and Roman Catholic. We were not, however, homogeneous, technically speaking. We separated ourselves according to what we called our "nationalities." I think I was about 12 before I realized that I was American and not Irish.
 
There was a reason for this. We worshipped in parishes that were based upon these “nationalities.” Thus, we had five ethnic parishes within about a 1/2 mile square radius; the Irish, the Polish, the German, the Italian, and the Lithuanian. I belonged to the Irish parish. By the time I arrived in first grade back in 1958, we were a very mixed breed who regularly engaged in mathematical percentages to figure out the "purity" of our ethnicity. Being 100% American was never part of the conversations.
 
A generation before me, ethnic lines were set with crystal clarity. You stayed with "your own."  If you didn’t, you had some explaining to do.  Back in 1934, the pastor of Nativity, the Irish parish, gave my grandmother a hard time enrolling my mother and my aunt because they happened to have the Polish surname, Sechowicz. My grandmother was told to take her girls to "her own parish."
 
 Now, my grandmother was one really tough cookie. She and my grandfather, a chronic alcoholic, regularly "duked it out," according to my mother. Once she even stabbed him with a kitchen knife. My grandfather, the immigrant bootlegger son of an immigrant bootlegger who ran five bars throughout Prohibition, had his own private cell in the 24th police district. No one ever thought or spoke  about sending them back to the old country where they came from except for my grandmother who regularly called him a no-good “Pollien.” Needless to say, her girls graduated from the Irish parish.
 
 My lasting memory of my grandmother is sitting with her sisters on rocking chairs during hot summer evenings drinking 40's of beer. My dad called them "the cowgirls."  They were the granddaughters of Irish immigrants. I am the first person from that side of the family to graduate from college.
 
Two of my uncles were Protestant. One converted before he married my maternal aunt. The other was forced to marry my paternal aunt in the vestibule of the rectory back in 1928 or so. This infuriated my aunt who remained Catholic, but the protesting variety her entire life. Aunt Nellie lived to be 100. At her funeral in 2005, a young Catholic priest made the announcement that only Catholics in good standing could receive communion.  Aunt Nellie would not have been pleased.
 
 When I was growing up in the 60's, even the hint of a black family moving into our church going, Catholic neighborhood, was enough to send people into paroxysms of fear and loathing.  I can still see my neighbor, a small woman named Marie, standing on the front porch and telling people, particularly a kid we called “Fat Genie,” because there was a skinny Genie, to put the tire iron down, go home and calm down. I could actually feel the anger and terror in the air. It seemed to have a life of its won.
 
When my husband and I moved to Mt. Airy in December of 1976, our families were aghast to believe that we could venture into an integrated neighborhood. Some wouldn't visit because of "the neighborhood." We were regularly asked why we moved to a community that was “going down.” My mother and my aunt would say rosaries and pray that we would come to our senses and move to Levittown with my sister.
 
Once we moved to Mt. Airy, we saw the same type of prejudice, a more educated kind, perhaps, if prejudice can ever be educated, but one that used exclusion and ostracism rather than tire irons and bad language. One of our Mt. Airy neighbors, a Japanese-Chinese family, were denied the chance to move into Chestnut Hill. Irene, a survivor of the wartime internment camps told me that such an attitude was really ok with her. "We really don't want to be where we are not wanted." Another person told me about her aunt and uncle being treated less than charitably in Chestnut HiIl because they were Irish Catholics with eight children. 
 
One of the many blessings of living in Mt. Airy, is the fact that those who worked hard to help people live together in harmony tried to explore the causes of prejudice by holding community meetings where people could meet one another as human beings rather than as objects of fear.  My first set of Mt. Airy neighbors who helped me through the early days of motherhood, were Jews around my parents’ age. Marty told me of the early meetings where people were asked what might upset them if they lived next to people of color.  One white person ventured that she was afraid of the smell of chittlins! If only it could be that simple!
 
So, here we are in 2011 with a new set of prejudices and a new set of outsiders, gay people and immigrants that some of the people, including Christians love to hate. The rationale, the stories, the fears, are all the same as they were in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s - there goes our neighborhood, our church, our family, traditional values, and the unchanging American way. We’re doomed! Here comes the end time! If it’s no longer politically correct to take out the tire irons, let’s go instead for hate speech and self-righteousness and serve it all up as God’s will.
 
Our first reading states unequivocally, “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. “  In the gospel, Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  My friends, there is no wiggle room in these statements.
 
I try to read something from what is supposed to be a non-partisan website called “Truth Out” every day. Some of this truth gets a bit too painful for me as I realize that I am not an innocent bystander in all this. I wonder how I can raise my voice in the midst of a cacophony of hateful voices like my neighbor and tell people to calm down and go home and perhaps pray for a while. Then I need a break tor rustle up my hope and realize that things really do change and change for the better.
 
 My mother and my aunt, who grew up in a racist, xenophobic, homophobic era, totally changed over the course of the years.  Each of them told me a story independently back in 2004, before my aunt died. Apparently, that young priest who directed people not to be fed at the Lord’s table at my aunt’s funeral, also gave an anti-gay homily which made them very uncomfortable. Aunt Peg told me how the homily made her cringe when she saw her friend Sally, who had a gay son sitting in church. Then Aunt Peg went on to list the other people who had gay relatives and worried how Father Kevin’s homily might have upset them.
 
My mother said almost the same thing. Then she added, “Poor Father Kevin, he’s young. Life will teach him some things.”
 
I don’t know how much Father Kevin will ever choose to learn, but I know that two elderly women with high school educations and limited life experiences came to value the God they saw in their sisters and brothers. They came to accept people of other races living on their block. They learned to judge people by the content of their characters and not by accidents of nature.
 
They didn’t have the ability to stand up to Father Kevin and tell him he was wrong about Sally’s son.  Hopefully, someone else did that. But in their transformation, they became role models for believers.  Their faith celebrated the God within them and within the people they refused to criticize and ostracize.
 
When people move beyond their comfort zone and preach the gospel by example, it is not necessary, as Paul wrote, to say anything more.
 
Eileen McCafferty DiFranco, RCWP
© October 23, 2011



Homily 9/18/11 by Caryl Conroy Johnson

As I read this gospel, I could hear money and fairness racing through our minds.  So I’d like to ask Anne, the Human Resources Vice Pres. for CDI Corporation, what her thoughts are.
me:                        Anne, what do you think of this gospel?  Is this a teaching on just wages or fiscal responsibility?
Anne:                        No—it’s definitely not a business lesson.  We couldn’t run our business this way.  It must be teaching us something else.
me:                        So what do you think it’s really about?
Anne:                        Well, to me it’s about generosity.
me:                        Thanks, Anne.
 Let’s stay with that word generosity.
            It would be easy to get caught up in the details of this parable.  Yet the word “generous” in the next to the last verse holds the key to Jesus’ message. 
Generosity is a powerful word with a powerful meaning.  Money is one aspect of generosity, but generosity doesn’t have to be about material things.  We can have generosity of heart and be generous with our time, patience, talents, compassion, and love.  I think it’s important to ask ourselves:  how do we respond to the word generosity? 
            In this gospel is an invitation to touch into and live the mind and heart of God who is generous beyond our wildest dreams.  To help us accept this invitation, let’s turn to Thomas Merton, Trappist monk and 20th century prophet par excellence, and consider 3 areas.

            1st is community.  We see and experience God through other people.  True generosity among us gives us a glimpse of God’s heart of love.  Certainly there have been numerous public figures who demonstrated this.  In Germany during WWII Oskar Schindler used his unique position and wealth to save many Jewish people.  Because Schindler moved from ignorance to generosity of heart, he saved lives.  Right here in Philadelphia Sister Mary Scullion in her tireless work with the homeless reflects the generous heart and mind of God.  In Rwanda, as depicted in the powerful movie Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina is an example of one who, at great risk to himself and his family, saved many people’s lives as he gave away his money and housed as many Tutsi people as possible during the genocide.  There are also people in our everyday lives who have shown us God’s generosity.  I think of my friend Ceci who ministered for many years as a hospice nurse—the face of God’s endless compassion.  My mom in her unending patience and faithfulness to our family and community mirrored God’s generous love.  I think of my father-in-law’s generous heart as he anonymously paid his neighbor’s electric bills.  In the case of our friends whose daughter Kelly suffered an aneurysm and stroke—God’s great generosity has been reflected in so many people who have given them meals, money, a listening ear, and visits to Kelly.  Last night we attended a fundraiser for Kelly, and her brother mentioned how important people’s generosity has been to her healing.  All these instances give us insight into the generosity God calls us to live and also to accept from God.  Merton in his book Thoughts In Solitude says:  “Find God first in the community, then God will lead you to solitude.” (p. 114) 

            This brings us to our 2nd point—solitude.  To touch into God’s heart we need times of solitude and quiet.  Merton speaks of meditation as orienting the whole body, mind, and spirit to God in silence.  Silence, solitude, and stillness help us to feel God’s heartbeat and recognize God’s presence in the community, in the everyday moments of our lives.  Jesus withdrew to deserted places to pray; God invites us, too, into the stillness of our hearts to explore Her invitation to generosity.

            The 3rd area is gratitude.  Merton says that “our knowledge of God is perfected by gratitude” and that recognizing every breath and every moment of existence is a gift awakens us to God.  When we experience God’s goodness and share heartfelt gratitude for that goodness, we can more clearly integrate God’s generosity into our being.

            Community—solitude—and gratitude are springboards that help us shift the way we think and love into God’s way of thinking and loving.  God invites us to let go of narrowness and to make room for a broader understanding of love and generosity.  God wants us to then bring this new understanding to action.   I see this as quite a challenge, and I believe we need God’s help to make this shift.

            A recent example of this occurred during the homily response a couple weeks ago.  Joanne spoke of how her experience of love has shifted to a deeper understanding of love through the genuine love shared by her daughter and her partner.  As I listened, I felt God in that moment—in Joanne’s honesty and courage, in our community’s deep listening, and in the message itself.  As I reflected later in solitude on our community experience, God showed me that we can only make this shift into deeper and broader understandings with God’s help.  I am grateful for Joanne’s sharing, for our community’s loving response, and for God’s ever-present generous love.

            I hope this week you will enjoy some solitude and reflect on how God is inviting you to live more deeply God’s generous ways in your family, your work, and your community.  Remember to ask God to help you make this shift.

            Touch into God’s generous heart as God generously touches into yours.   

August 14, 2011 Homily by Fritz Haas

Gospel:  Mathew 15: 21- 28

“It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs,” he said.

I must admit, when I first read over the scriptures for today, I was disappointed.  These texts did not speak to me in any way that I could easily hear…I thought, “boy, Caryl was lucky.  Last week she got Peter being called out of the boat by Jesus…that is one of my favorites!  I can do that!!”

But it was not meant to be.  Caryl got Peter and did an outstanding job, and I in turn have today’s readings.

As a result, though, I had to dig a little deeper… and that is a good thing. 

So I thought about this Canaanite woman that appears in Mathew’s gospel today and how she needed to plead with Jesus to even get his attention.  At first, Jesus didn’t even dignify her comments with a reply.  His followers tried to shoo her away.  Only after she had persisted did He address her and eventually heal her sick daughter.   Did Jesus change his mind?  Did this woman make him realize He had been wrong at first?  I was confused.  Why is this story about this woman in today‘s Gospel? 

I mentioned my confusion to a friend of mine, and he said, “Listen carefully…Jesus never makes a mistake.  Whatever is being said here is important.”  So I puzzled further…and that’s a good thing. 

Perhaps like many of you, I have heard sermons about how Jesus and Paul had to convince both the Jews and the Gentiles of their time that Jesus was not just for the Jews, but for all people, so that did occur to me as a possible topic for my homily today. 

So, some 2000 odd years ago people needed to understand that Jesus was not just for the Jews but for all people.  But I think we have come to understand that and accept that pretty well today.  In fact, I don’t know of anyone today that needs to be convinced of that anymore.  So what is this Gospel saying to us today?  Hmmmmm, I was still puzzling.

And then it occurred to me…as I continued to think and to meditate and pray about this reading, something did occur to me and it had to do with two things:  this woman’s disposition towards God and  her view of God’s love for her. 

This Canaanite woman would simply not take no for an answer.  To the first point, I think she was well aware of her need for God’s help.  Whatever was going on with her daughter it was something that she was unable to handle by herself.  She needed help…she needed God’s help.

In this, I am reminded of the vine and the branches from John’s Gospel.  Jesus describes himself as the vine and us as the branches and says that with Him we can produce fruit, but that apart from Him we can do nothing.  I think this is a very powerful metaphor for our relationship to God.  Apart from him, we have no hope.  It is one of the most difficult and scariest lessons of life for us, but it is an important one.  We are completely dependent on God.  It seems this woman was clear about her need for God.

Secondly, I believe that this woman had faith that God loved her and that she would find favor with Him.  I believe Jesus saw this in her and He was eager to make sure that the others that were there with Him saw it too…so he made her persist in her pleading to demonstrate her deep faith in God’s love for her.

How many of us truly believe as she did?  How many of us have the confidence that God loves us absolutely and unconditionally?  How many of us are able to believe, deeply in our hearts, that God genuinely desires to be in a loving relationship with us and desires to give us all good things?   This Canaanite woman did and it was her faith in this that Jesus saw and said was great.  She wouldn’t take no for an answer because she believed deeply in God’s love for her.

So, what would it mean for us to believe that God loves us unconditionally?  It seems to be a pretty scary notion for many.  We are so accustomed to focusing on our shortcomings that we are often unable to experience fully God’s love for us.  For the Jewish leaders of Jesus time, it was such a scary notion that they ultimately silenced Him with death.   The Jews of Jesus time made great efforts to make themselves worthy of God’s love…much as we still do today.  They had rituals for cleansing and eating and praying…all in an effort to win God’s favor.

Now, our inclination to do good, to improve ourselves, and to clear sin from our lives is a good one and it is clearly a part of the message of the Gospels.  Beginning with John the Baptists and continuing through Jesus, Paul, and Peter.  “Repent” was the message of John the Baptist , “Go forward and sin no more” were the words that Jesus told the woman caught in adultery,  and it was Paul who warned us about being “dominated by a sinful nature”.

But at times I think we can confuse our brokenness and our sinfulness, with our somehow being unworthy of God’s love for us.   We are all acutely aware of how and where we fall short.  In the quiet of our hearts, we know we are imperfect and have places that need healing and forgiveness.  But that does not keep God from loving us deeply and passionately.

Do you remember the story of the two men praying in the temple in Luke’s Gospel?  The first was a Pharisee, who felt that he had earned God’s favor by his good deeds.  He was haughty and condescending, looking down on the lowly tax collector across the way.  And yet it was that tax collector that Jesus points to as having the proper disposition and the one who found favor with God…he beat his breast and called out to God for mercy recognizing that he was a broken and sinful man.  He knew he was in need of God’s love and mercy and had put his faith in God alone.

Listen carefully…Jesus was clearly telling us with His words, with his deeds, and in fact with his whole life that this is true.  So often during his ministry, He reached out to the broken, the sinners, the outcasts, those who were disenfranchised, to remind them that they were all loved and loved deeply by God.  He gave His very life as an act of loving sacrifice for all of us – not because we earned it, but because God loves us.

Jesus was a Jewish man, raised in a Jewish household, steeped in the Jewish scripture and traditions, and yet he found a kinship and connection with those who were outside of his faith and outside of his tradition…despite the fact that his religion forbade this.  Here with the Canaanite woman, with his story of the good Samaritan, with his meeting of the woman at the well.  In his ragtag band of followers who were tax collectors, fishermen, prostitutes.  The unclean and the sinners.

Over and over again, Jesus reaches out to tell us that we are all worthy…that we are all loved by God.  The word Gospel roughly translates as the Good Message or Good News.  Jesus came to tell us the Good News that God loves us no matter who we are or what we have done.

Just a few chapters earlier in the same letter to the Romans that we read from today, Paul says, that he is convinced that “nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.  Death can’t and life can’t.  The angels can’t and demons can’t.  Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away”.

Friends, I believe that the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel knew this and it was her strength and her salvation. 

As Jesus did over 2000 years ago, I urge you to know it too, and to know it in the depths of your heart…you need God and you are loved by God passionately and unconditionally, always and in all ways and for all time!!

 

 


June 19, 2011 Homily by Fritz Haas

Gospel Reading:  John 3:16-18

 “For God so loved the world….God did not send his son to condemn the world, but save the world through Him.”

This is such a powerful statement.  First that God so loves the world and second that his love is not about condemning, but about saving.  This is the Good News that Jesus preached, that God loves us all…no questions asked. 

It reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers, and I think it is a response to the God Bless America, or God Bless My Family, or God Bless such and such church or God Bless whatever.  The bumper sticker simply says “God Bless Everyone…No Exceptions!!”  This is what this gospel passage says to me, that God loves everyone one of us, at all times without exception.

I think Jesus worked very hard to help us to understand this Good News.  In fact, I think He literally gave his life to convince us that God loves us. 

Being as this is father’s day, I want to take a moment to talk about one of the most powerful examples of the God’s love for us that I have found in scripture, and it is one that uses the image of a loving father; the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s gospel.  It was a story that Jesus told, I am convinced, to let us know how much God loves us. 

I know we have all heard it before, but there are some very powerful images that I would like to revisit, so that we can all be convinced about what St John is telling us today…that God so loves the world!!!

If you recall the father in the story had two sons.  The youngest one, presumably the one who was still gaining his wisdom, asked his father for his inheritance.   Wow, asked for his inheritance…while his father was still alive…that takes some guts!!  Normally, inheritance comes when one passes away, but not this son…he wanted what was “coming to him” now. 

So, what does the father do?  Does he lecture the son on his greediness and his inconsideration?  Does he tell him he isn’t responsible enough to handle the inheritance or that he hasn’t earned this, yet?  Does he tell him he will think about it, or that he has some “proving to do” before he can make such a big decision?  No, he divides up the property and gives his younger son his part…no more questions asked!

Well, it doesn’t take long for this son to spend all of his inheritance and find himself in the lowest position he could be in…living alongside the pigs.  While I am no country boy, I do know a little about the way pigs live and it’s not a pretty site.  I think we can say that the son had hit his “rock bottom”.  So, he comes to his senses and decides to beg for his father’s forgiveness and ask to be taken on as a lowly servant in his father’s house.

While he is on his way home, but still a long way off, his father sees him and is filled with compassion for him.  He runs out to him, throws his arms around him, hugs and kisses him and puts a robe around him and rings on his fingers.  If he saw him a long way off, he must have been on the lookout for him.  He must have been hoping, perhaps at times in agony, that his son might return.  And so he continued to look out for him, and when he saw him in the distance he runs out to greet him…wow, that is powerful love!

Meanwhile, the son is uttering his apologies…talking about being a servant in his father’s house and how he had sinned against him, etc., etc., etc., but the father is busy making arrangements for the party.  “Kill the fatted calf, lets us have a feast and celebrate, for my son who was dead is alive again!!!”

This is how Jesus depicts God’s love for us!  As a father who drops everything and rushes to embrace us.  Forgives our sins as soon as we have begun to utter our apologies.  Welcomes us back with open arms and a warm embrace.  Parties in the heavens because we have returned to His love!!!

“For God so loved the world!”  Is there any condemnation?  Is there any I told you so?  Is there any where have you been and what have you been doing?  NO, there is nothing but pure unadulterated love!  That I could truly love my children that way…this is what is meant by God is Love.  Not when we are good, not when we are obedient, or kind, or even loving…always, forever, and without exception.

This must be what Jesus was feeling when he looked out at Jerusalem and wept.  It says in Luke’s 19th chapter that as Jesus “approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes””.  He was on his way to his death, at the hands of these very people, and yet he was weeping for them.  Weeping because they were unable to grasp the simple message that He was asked by his Father to bring to them…the God loves them!

I believe Jesus wept over Jerusalem that day because He knew that God had given His all, His everything, His total love to His people, and that they were not able to accept that love.  They were unable to receive the gift that God so longs for us to have…His love for us in the person of Jesus his son!!

And so, this day, let us do what God has asked us to do…be still, know that He is God and know the simple message that our God want us to know that we are deeply loved by Him…all of us, no exceptions.  Is there anything better????


Homily, 15th Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle A

 

Jesus, as an ancient Galilean, would have been well woven into the matrix of an agricultural life, unlike we moderns who might have a vegetable garden every spring but purchase just about everything in Styrofoam and saran wrap at the supermarket.  His life, along with the life of his family, would have revolved around planting and harvesting.  In fact, agriculture was most probably a daily topic in the ancient world as it might be in many parts of the world today. If crops failed, if the weather changed, if a cloud of locusts descended upon the fields, then famine stalked the country and people died.

 

I always thought of Israel as being a hot, dry land. According to the historian Josephus, Galilee was literally a plantation of fruit trees. With a slightly higher elevation than Judea to the south, Galilee enjoyed a more than adequate rainfall, even in summer. Josephus described fields of grain, olive and fig trees, and a booming fishing industry along the shores of the nearby Sea of Galilee.

 

People should have been well fed amidst such abundance.  But fate rather than poor farming technique intervened, producing scarcity. Agents of the Roman Empire were busy taxing people to the point that ancestral farms were sold to large conglomerates for non-payment of taxes. Sound familiar?

 

So, when Jesus told the parable about the sower to his fellow Palestinians who lived in an occupied, impoverished country, he knew that a farmer with a limited amount of seeds that was already taxed would never waste his/her seeds on a packed down walking trail, or amidst rocks, or in the hot sun. Jesus knew what would happen. Of course the seed could not ever take root. It would die. The people knew this as well.

 

So, who is at fault when the seed doesn’t take and the harvest doesn’t meet expectations, the sower or the poorly prepared ground or the just plain old poor soil?  How could poor soil be held responsible for failure? Was the sower lazy, careless, or plain old stupid? Or does the fault lie with the empire that forced the farmers from their ancestral homes onto unfertile soil who tried to sow seeds in unfertile places out of desperation? Should there be any blame at all even as Jesus says that those with ears ought to hear. What should the people be hearing? What should they be seeing? What should they be doing?

 

Of course, our gospel is practically hitting us over the head with the idea that God is the sower, the seed is the Word, and we are the soil. And, of course there is always more. Parables just seem easy to understand with what appears to be their simple message and homespun humor. The ancients would probably laugh themselves silly at those of us modern people who think Jesus is speaking literally.

 

 I don’t think Jesus was talking about one moment of time or just one seed or one environment or one planting season since he knew how these things could change in a twinkling of an eye. Jesus knew that even the best farmer could suffer a bad crop failure.  God, unlike empire, is much more generous with divine opportunities. With our God, we don’t get just once chance and then the hammer.

We do, however, need to ask ourselves how can we fertilize our own soil in order to open ourselves to God’s myriad opportunities which is what I think Jesus was trying to point out.  Don’t we first need to do a local soil test?  One of our former community members once mentioned that many of us often tend to see ourselves as the “good guy” in Jesus’ parables.  We are the ones who don’t complain when the master of the house pays those who have worked only one hour to our eight the same wages. We are the ones with faith to move mountains. We have the ability to recognize and hold onto the pearl of great price.  We are the ones with the fertile soil, the ones who hear the word of God and do it. 

As a reality check, what does our soil really look like? If any of you has ever used mushroom soil for planting vegetables, you know it smokes and it stinks really badly. As the students in my school club were unloading a truckload of fresh mushroom soil for our vegetable garden, the aroma of cow manure floated through the entire first floor of the school, a smell only gardeners and farmers appreciate. The kids were grossed out and held their noses and said, ‘Nurse, that smells like.” Well you know what they said.  But from that odiferous soil, we grew monster-sized romaine lettuce and collard greens.  Fertilizing our soul soil very probably will include an encounter with personal stinkiness and a great deal of shoveling.

I planted the same romaine plants we used in school in my own garden at home.  Each of my plants was barely big enough to feed Larry and me a salad for one night compared to the monsters my students harvested which could literally feed ten.  I’ve been growing vegetables in my yard for the last 18 years and it wasn’t until last year, after three years of a poor tomato harvest, that I realized that my soil was exhausted. Last year, I began to feed it after my daughter suggested that I might increase my output if I took better care of the soil.  That poor soil, worn out soil just sneaks up on us. We get used to less and less in so many areas of our life and we might not even know it until we’ve lost an awful lot of important things.

Then there’s the quality of the seed. For centuries, farmers have adapted seeds that can tolerate and flourish in local, seemingly adverse farming conditions. In El Salvador, the farmers had a special type of seed corn that requires very little water. People on the arid Greek island of Mykonos have developed a special grape vine that doesn’t look at all like a vine and requires no water at all. Yet, those vines produce wine.

 

But sometimes climate changes and wipes out even the best adaptations. The Anasazi people of the American southwest had perfectly adapted to their desert- like climate. They lived in cliffs carved out of hills and grew squash, pumpkins, beans and corn. Eventually, prolonged drought – probably that nasty El Nino phenomenon- forced them to pack up their lives and move elsewhere to if they were to survive and flourish.

 

  Then, there are the seeds. Our good God, no less than skilled farmer, gift-wraps the seeds of divine love in just the kind of package that we need in order to bloom.  We can only hope that we have the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it and the drive to act on God’s message. Thus, God’s seeds are gifts and blessings and occasions for transformation, which God sends every day, every hour, every minute. Because on any given day our hearts might awaken in sorrow, fear, anger, pride, jealousy, despair, boredom or mistrust.

 

But God doesn’t care. Instead, God continues to whisper in our hearts, “This is the day that I have made just for you, my beloved. Rejoice and be glad. Do not fear for I will be with you even when your heart dries up and your ears close.” God knows, even if we might not, that the divine planting season is eternity. We get other chances.

 

As I was preparing for this homily and thinking of the divine sower, a picture from my past popped into my life.  Those of you who are old enough might remember a subject called “Picture Study,” where we as little children were given little books with lovely pictures. The art experience then got pretty much ruined when we had to study why others thought the picture was so wonderful when we at age eight had a much different interpretation. The picture I thought of was “The Song of the Lark.”

 

While it’s probably not a good idea to anthropomorphize God, I couldn’t help myself. God’s summertime was right outside my window. The warm sun shone through the curtains and the green trees waved to me. I could hear a woodpecker and insects that were probably not crickets since it’s a bit early for crickets. And I thought of the woman in the picture as God.

 

 She stands in a field ready for planting, a sharp looking instrument in Her hand, her apron full of seeds. The sun rises in the background, a new day shines for everyone, and best of all, the unseen lark sings its promises to all who have the ears to hear. God lifts Her head and says, “Behold, I made all things new.”

 My sisters and brothers, what seeds have been sown around you?   What seeds have you sown?  What practices may God be calling you to do that will fill you up with good soil?  Are there seeds that God has been sowing that in this moment you are ready to allow to be planted? What people or places or activities in your life is God inviting you to move away from — people or places or activities that are acting like birds, eating up the seeds God is sowing? Are there rocks or thorns that God is inviting you to trim, uproot, or let go of this morning?  Be still, my friends, and listen to God.  And see what blessings await you.

 

 

 

Homily by Fritz Haas January 2, 2011

First Reading:  Isaiah 60:1-6

Responsorial Psalm:  Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13

Second Reading:  Ephesians 3:2, 5-6

Gospel Reading:  Mathew 2:1-12

The gospel reading today is one that we have all heard many times.  The one that tells the story of the Magi that came to visit Jesus following his birth.  How they followed a star that illuminated the night sky and found the infant Jesus.  And while there is much about the story that is good and important for our faith, I wanted to focus instead on the first reading from Isaiah and on the idea of light and dark.

In the early church, the time of Christmas was made to coincide with the darkest time of the year, the Winter Solstice, when the days are shortest and the nights longest.   Into this dark time, the birth of Jesus is seen as bringing light to the world.

In the first reading today, we are told by Isaiah of the coming of light into the world.  While there is darkness over the whole earth, a light has come and the glory of the Lord shines bright. Isaiah says that the light of the nations is coming and that people from all over the world will come to this light. 

During His ministry, Jesus often referred to passages like this from Isaiah, developing further his themes of salvation for God’s people, forgiveness for sins through faith and repentance and the coming of the Kingdom of God in which all nations will lay down their arms and live together in peace and love.  Jesus meant to illuminate the fact that He was the light for which the nations had waited in darkness for so long, and that He would illuminate the darkness in their lives.

 In the beginning of St John’s Gospel there is no account of the birth of Jesus; no shepherds, no manger, not angelic choirs singing from the heavens.  Rather John speaks of Christ as the light of the world.  Specifically, John says of Jesus “Life itself was in Him, and this life gives light to everyone.  The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it”

But why do we need this light in our world?  I guess that is kind of a silly question, isn’t it.  We need light to see. Without light we are blind! So what do Isaiah and John mean by Jesus as the light of the world?  Don’t we already have the sun to light our days?   Or in our modern times, light bulbs and flashlights and streetlamps, car lights and porch lights for the night time?  Of course we do, but I believe that the light that these authors are talking about is the light of illumination…showing us things that are there, right in front of us, but that we simply can’t see without the light of Christ.  A light that shows us the path we are to live and illuminates the things that are hidden without the light.

How often have you had the experience of seeing something with new eyes after you had a moment or a period of prayer or reflection?  Perhaps the same people or the same situation existed just as it had before, but somehow it looked differently all of a sudden?  For me, these moments are ones of divine illumination and grace for which I am eternally grateful.

This is experience not an uncommon one.  In the sixth chapter of Isaiah, the author tells us, “You shall indeed hear but never understand, and you shall indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.”

This idea is also captured by Jesus in the fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel.  Here, Jesus is using the parable of the seeds scattered around the farmer’s field to illuminate the message of Kingdom and his disciples are unsure of the meaning of his story.  He first says “Let he who has eyes to see, let him see, and he who has ears to hear, let him hear” and when his disciples are unable to understand the message in his story and ask why he has to use such stories, he again quotes Isaiah when he says “They will hear my words but will not understand.  They will see what I do, but will not perceive its meaning”.  The people of this time were in need of the illumination that Christ was brining into the world.

But why would we ever consciously choose to remain in the dark and to not embrace the light?  Why would we ever seek places to hide when we are invited to walk in the light?  Well, for one, there are many of our actions that are not things of which we are proud.  We would often prefer to hide them rather than to let them in the light.  In John’s Gospel, we are told that, referring to Jesus, “The light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light because their actions were evil” 

But this is not what Jesus is about.  He is about illuminating the things that lie in darkness in our lives and in our hearts and in the world around us.  His message is an invitation to bring our whole selves into the light that He brings to the world.  And to accept His teaching that nothing that is hidden will not be revealed, that there is no truth that will not become known and that this truth will indeed set us free. 

It is this same Jesus, who, as He was being put to death, asked that the Father forgive his tormentors, for they did not know what they were doing.  He was able to see the things that those around Him could not.  The deeper meanings and truths were not hidden from Him as He lived in the light and the truth at all times.

This idea is beautifully and repeatedly stated in a book by David Robert Orb entitled, Your Forgotten Self, Mirrored in Jesus Christ.  Throughout the work, the author continuously reminds the reader of the promises of Christ, of the Peace that Surpasses All Understanding and the Unspeakable Joy that Jesus spoke of, and he invites the readers to experience this themselves by developing new eyes to see.

I think another reason that we turn away from the light is that we struggle to admit our dependence on God.  In our lives, in our country, in all of our experience, we are taught to find our internal strength and to depend on it.  While I don’t think that is bad, it will never lead us to be all that we are, as our strength is limited to what we can do without a connection with the divine.

Is this the way of the world?  Hardly!  Only the strong survive is the world’s motto.  Blessed are the Meek?  Nonsense! The poor in spirit, Poppycock!! The Peace Makers, bah humbug!!!

St. Paul, on the other hand, is clear about his afflictions, his weakness and even goes so far as to brag about them.  We are all familiar with the thorn in his side that he prayed repeatedly be removed, but was told by God that it would not.  Paul finally comes to the point where he says that it is in this very weakness that he was able to find his true strength in God.  This bringing of his afflictions into the light of Christ is what gave him the strength to persevere in spite of all of his sufferings.

A final reason that we may turn from the light is the cost that it takes to walk in the light.  Who do we know that confesses their shortcomings openly?  Shouts them from the rooftops, makes them known to all, or spends an entire cocktail party discussing their faults and failings?  On the contrary, most people do all that they can to hide their faults.  I know for me it is very hard to talk about where I have failed or have come up short, as I risk the dismissal, ridicule, even the condemnation of friends, family and even strangers when I am completely honest about my weaknesses and faults.  But which of us is without faults and weaknesses?  None of us, I dare venture. 

But we do need to be in the light, even in our brokenness and in our pain.  Even in our struggles and in our weakness.  In the places we are ashamed, in the ways that we are outside of the mainstream, as we are following the still small voice inside of us, rather than submitting to the will of the larger communities or societies in which we find ourselves.

So that is what I believe the call is to be in the light.  The call to realize the truth about our limitations, our weaknesses, our brokenness and to bring them all into the light of Christ.  To accept our dependence on God and to see that it is in Him that we are made whole.  To come to know the truth more deeply and to embrace it!

Christ was born on Christmas, and went on to live a life of complete obedience, faith, trust and love.  This is what we too are called to do, even in the midst of all the suffering and despair in the world around us, we are called to be a people of truth, of hope, to persevere and to love as He did.

How can this be done? I believe that only through God can this be done.  So, in this season of Christmas, we are all invited into the light.  Invited to be open and accepting of our faults, our weaknesses, our afflictions, and our pain.  To share these with our God and with one another and to love each other with all of our human frailties.  By accepting this truth and this invitation, we allow ourselves to be bathed in the light of Christ and to find our way into a deeper relationship with Him and with each other.

So, having quoted Isaiah, St John, St Paul and even a little Dickens, let me end with a quote from Bruce Springsteen…The invitation of Christmas is to come into the light of Christ… ”the door is open, but the ride ain’t free!”  Peace!!

 

Fritz Haas

 

 

 





Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2010

As I was preparing for this homily I was thinking a lot about signs. If we see a sign that says, “Diner,” we know that we can go inside and order a meal.  If something else happens, then we are in the Twilight Zone.

But there are other signs that do make us feel like we’re in another world. This happens in our first reading where Isaiah tells King Ahaz, a less than savory character according to biblical reports, but then anyone who didn‘t follow YHWH was unsavory. – to ask God for a sign. The sky’s the limit Isaiah seems to say.  Ask and it shall be given unto you.

Ahaz, justifiably wary, responded that he didn’t want to tempt God.  All the stuff I read accuses Ahaz of not having faith. I thought he was being both circumspect and prudent.  As he asked, why tempt God.  Be careful what you ask for b/c you might actually get it. And then what do you do? Plus, Isaiah was just another human being and Ahaz was a king. There was this power differential.

Lots of people think that God sends signs and portents and omens and words to certain select people.  All signs really tend to be surprising. For instance, I just happened to be reading part of the book of Judges (one can only read a part at a time b/c it is so grim.) where an angel of the Lord appears to the future judge Gideon and says, “The Lord is with you.” Gideon doesn’t miss a beat and replies, “How can the Lord be with me since the land of Midian is about to attack?  I’ve heard how you helped the Israelites in Egypt. Why don’t you help us? Send me a sign.” And God obliges Gideon by sending some sort of supernatural sign.

Prophets and occasional angels are commonly believed to predict or announce the future through signs. That is not particularly true, even of prophets in the Old Testament. Rather, the prophets more interpret the present and deliver some sort of reckoning somewhat like our economic forecasters. “If you tax the poor beyond their capabilities, you’re going to make them mad and they are going to riot. And, most importantly, God is not happy when you take advantage of those who are vulnerable. “ In spite of the sign, most people see and interpret whatever part of the sign they want to see and disregard the rest. This is why prophets tend to rant and rave and search for even more outrageous signs to express their concerns with the people’s alleged sin.

 I recall when I was in grade school the nuns were famous for deciphering what they called, “bad signs.” Some of those “signs” made their way onto our permanent record which they sort of indicated went right to the Most High and figured into our particular judgment.  Many times they were correct, to their credit. Chronic cheating and lying really are really bad signs.

 My parents were also adept at finding signs. They rarely told me not to play with someone, but when they did, they were usually correct.  “Things are not quite right in that house. Please don’t go there. Please don’t make that person your best friend.  I see some bad signs.”

Then there are other signs that seem to have a life of their own. One of the longest-lived, “baddest” omni-present signs, one that trumps war, murder, theft, power-mongering, gluttony and every other evil you can think of is the shame-filled sign of the unwed mother and her bastard child.  Desperate women sometimes jumped off cliffs, took poison, or jumped into rivers to avoid a fate that could be worse than death. It Italy, the children of these women were given the last name, “Esposito,” and lived their entire lives named as bastards. Scripture, unfortunately, actually justified such actions by its reliance upon referring to a sinful, unfaithful Israel as an impure, adulterous woman.

Who ever decided that a child born out of wedlock should be called a bastard and regarded as a sign of shame? Who decided that an unmarried pregnant woman is sign that she has loose morals?  Why did unmarried pregnant women need to be put away quietly as our gospel says, according to the law in Deuteronomy which really said:

“If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married and a man meets her and has relations with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate and stone them to death; the young woman for not calling for help and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge this evil from your midst.” Given the pandemic nature of rape in all societies at all times, it is no wonder than men needed to transfer their sins on to others.

No one – not his parents, his neighbors, his rabbi- would ever blame Joseph for putting away his pregnant fiancee and moving on with his life in hopes of finding a purer, cleaner woman. After all, it was the law. And Joseph was a man of the law.

Matthew is the only evangelist to record this particular part of the infancy narratives as Luke is the only one to record the birth in the stable with the story of the angels and shepherds which we will read on Christmas Eve.  And as you know, there are no infancy narratives in either Mark or John.

So, this inclusion of Mary as the unwed mother of the savior in our scripture is a very portentous sign, one of the many that have been ignored over the last 2,000 years. God is telling us point blank that there is no such thing as a bastard or a woman of ill-repute. There might be unexpected children, but never shameful children. 

It is clear on so many levels that humanity needed Jesus to rescue us from sins that stemmed from a warped, indeed, a very sick worldview from which we, as a people, have never recovered.  We needed someone to save us from those who think they speak for God and then create and enforce culturally specific signs that stigmatize, isolate, and harm the most vulnerable people in society – women and children. We needed someone to rescue us from self-righteousness and pride. We needed someone to tell us that no child should ever be used to expose their mother’s alleged sins because all children do, indeed, come from God as our gospel states so unabashedly. If Jesus was born without sin, so is every other child who was ever born. Children are not planted by sinful relations but by God. Virginity has nothing to do with grace and love and hope and the presence of God. Emmanuel is one with us, like us in every area of our lives.

Rules and prophets and priests and signs didn’t save Mary and Jesus from shame and ostracism. Joseph did as he listened to a conscience formed by God. “Don’t do this to this girl. You really love her. You can get beyond whatever happened to her. Just love her as I have loved you. Be merciful as I am merciful.”

Love – which is God- does just this sort of thing. Greater love has no man than he will set aside his prejudices, his self-righteousness, his own anger and shame and even the law he has written on his heart to save the life of another. Joseph is the hero of this story. Is it no wonder that Jesus grew to be the man he was with parents as strong and loving as his?

Today’s gospel is a description of the MO of our hidden God, the God who readily gives us signs and wonders if we only have eyes to see, ears to hear and feelings to empathize.  This is the kind of sign that Isaiah offered and Achaz feared to accept. For acceptance of the sign means change, sometimes overwhelming change, along with pain and possibly great loss. 

Because when we accept the sign of the baby in the manger we also accept the reality of the cross.

 

12/19/10 Eileen M. DiFranco 

 

12/5/10 Homily by Caryl Conroy Johnson

We have a visitor with us today.  In fact, he looks like John the Baptist. 

Me:                         John, is that you?

Shaen:                         That’s me.

Me:                        Come on up here for a minute.

                        So John, how are you?

Shaen:                        I’m good.  I just blew in from the wilderness.

Me:                        How was it out in the wild?

Shaen:                        It was great—lots of desert and a lot of people came to be baptized.

Me:                        So what was your message to them?

Shaen:                        Repent—for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!

Me:                        And what is your message for us?

Shaen:                        Repent!

Me:                        Repent—anything else?

Shaen:                        That’s it in a nutshell—repent and live like you have repented!!

Me:                        O.K.  it’s the R word—Repent.  John, thanks so much for talking with us.  We hope you’ll stay with us for a while before you go back to the desert.  Thanks again.

            Well, I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word repent, I feel a little uncomfortable.  To repent means to change one’s mind.  So if take that word to heart, I’ll have to change—a change that will require effort and looking at things differently from the way I had.  That’s not always easy to do.

            Is this the preparation God is asking of us in Advent?  A change of attitude, mind, or heart?  Is this change something that can nest within us and grow during the Advent season and beyond? 

            It’s not always the case, but often a desert experience is what brings us to change.  It’s been that way for millennia.  In the scriptures deserts are important places.  The Israelites wandered 40 years in the desert.  God’s self-revelation to Moses was there in the Sinai desert.  John the Baptist spoke to us from the desert.  Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, and in other places we read that Jesus would go off to deserted places to pray.  Something significant occurs in the desert.  John Chryssavgis in his book In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers says:  “The desert is an invitation to transfiguration.  a place of spiritual revolution.  a place of deep encounter.  a necessary stage on the spiritual journey” (pp. 34-36).  We don’t have to be in the desert of the Grand Canyon, the wilderness of northern Maine, or the Outback of Australia to have a desert experience.  God is waiting right here in the desert of our own heart—in the desert experiences of our lives—crying out to us, calling us to change, and wanting us to see God in that experience.

            One of the deserts we may find ourselves in is the desert of waiting.

            It could be the joyful waiting for a child to be born or for out-of town friends or family to arrive, or the difficult waiting for medical results or the results of a job interview.

            Another is the desert of uncertainty.

                        the uncertainty of our career path

                        the uncertainty of how involved to be in a family situation

                        the uncertainty of being birthed into something new

                        the uncertainty of the safety of a loved one serving in the military or diplomatic corps.

            Yet another is the desert of grief.

                        the loss of a relationship

                        the loss of reputation

                        the grief of injustice

                        the death of a loved one.

God is there, calling us to change, to find an oasis, in these deserts and the many others that are part of life.  So how can we find an oasis in our desert?

            In the desert of waiting, we may feel impatient or anxious.  A slight change in focus may bring us to use this waiting time actively—to nurture ourselves or gain knowledge.

            In the desert of uncertainty when we may feel unsettled, a change could bring us to deeper trust or to actively pursue a new path. 

            In the desert of grief, we may feel anger.  A change would use that anger to work for justice or to bring new and deeper meaning to life. 

            These inner shifts or changes in how we handle desert situations are good ones.  But the scripture tells us “to produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance,” calling us to bring these inner changes to action outside ourselves.  It calls us to step into the wild and be adventurous!

Alex’s lemonade stands, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Tune-Up Philly—which is a music education program for less fortunate youth in the city, and our community’s serving at the Life Center and the Bernardine Center are just a few ways we have seen inner change come to life in action. 

            Almost 20 years ago we had a desert experience in our family when our 15-year old nephew died by suicide.  As I look at how that experience has continued to unfold in our family and in my own life, I have no doubt that God has used that wilderness experience to bring something good out of tragedy.  It was an experience we touched into in helping 2 friends avoid a similar tragedy and one I touched into many times working with grieving families.  That life-changing desert experience became an oasis for life.

            So the effects of a desert experience continue even after we’re out of the sand.  There’s something in the voice of that desert that continues to change us and bring us home to our true self.

            In this time of Advent, I invite you to listen to the voice of Love in whatever desert experience you’re in, to contemplate the inner and outer actions God may be asking, and allow those actions to come to birth.

            The R word maybe isn’t so bad.  Repent.  Change.  and May you find an oasis and build a sandcastle with God in your Advent desert.

 

Scripture readings

Isaiah 11: 1-10

Romans 15: 4-9

Matthew 3: 1-12

 

 

Christ the King, 2010

Who is your Jesus? What can he do for you and yours? What does he look like? What does he wear? Where does he live? What is his job? Did he really mean what he said? Did he ever say he was a king? Does the image of king work for you? Did it ever? Did it work for Jesus?

What is a king? What kinds of kings are there? Petty kings, puppet kings, emperors, absolute, divine right rulers? Would be kings?

I heard on the news the other day that prince William is engaged.  Now that’s a family of would be kings.

How did Jesus come to be regarded as a king? The identification on his cross read, “King of the Jews.” But we know that the Romans and the temple authorities were making fun of him rather than honoring him.  Everyone knew there was only one king, Caesar.  The people had come to believe that Jesus was the messiah, the anointed one, the son of David. The problem was that as Jesus said, his kingdom, or whatever he called it, was not of this world.  Most of the people just didn’t get that. They weren’t interested in spiritual freedom. They wanted political freedom. You can’t really blame them, can you?

In many ways though, kings and freedom are mutually exclusive. If you read the books of Samuel, from which our first reading was taken, you’ll see that Samuel had very, very mixed feelings about that type of government. The tribes were sort of a loose federation that came together during times of trouble. Leaders – men, but some women – stepped up to lead.  Samuel felt that not only had God provided adequate leadership, but that only God should be regarded as one’s king, that is the ultimate ruler of one’s life. In other words, if one needs to pledge allegiance, one might want God alone to be the object of one’s unwavering dedication. Otherwise, we engage in idolatry.

So, I guess in that way, God is our supreme ruler, our king or queen, if you will. But as I said, is that image useful in our worldview where kings are the stuff of fairy tales.  Where  did humans ever get the idea is that one human being was so special that only he/she had power of life and death over other human beings?  Even the language of royalty where people are divided into commoners and those with royal blood is nothing but an anachronism, its accoutrements a source of humor rather than esteem. Who needs yards and yards of silk and satin and velvet, heavy crowns that are a source of unease, and a whole court of sycophants who never would or could tell you the truth?

In spite of Samuel’s warnings and the inherent ambiguity of using a human and less than useful metaphor to describe God, artists and poets and ecclesiastics began dressing up Jesus like a human king, complete with crown, robe, and scepter – in the very clothes used to mock and persecute him. Sadly, those who believe that they image Him dress in the same manner.

Colossians attempts to describe the power and meaning of the One we regard as divine.  It’s a picture one can’t really imagine, let alone draw – the image of the invisible God, the One who holds all things together, the fullness of all things, the reconciler and forgiver of every sin, light from light, a light that the power of darkness can never overcome.  How silly to reduce that picture to a petty human king and a kingdom to a human institution!

The writers of the synoptic gospels and other epistle writers experienced the same sort of imagination containment.  How to explain what happened to them? For Luke, the divine began as a poor human baby born in a barn.  For Matthew, he was dispossessed child running for his life.  Even John, he of the highest Christology, portrayed Jesus on his hands and knees washing dirty feet. For Paul, the divine was a bolt of light that knocked him from his horse.  For John of Patmos, the Lamb functioned as the alpha and the omega of all creation. For all of the writers, the divine was expressed as an executed man  who gave his life for his friends.

For the divine in whom we live and move and have our being is all of that and more.  And perhaps the image of the king was the best certain people of a certain age could do to describe God.

But doesn’t have to describe our 21st century experience of God.  There really is no limit to the understanding or the depiction of God.  Our world is so much bigger than the world in which the gospel writers lived. We have been to the place once regarded as heaven and seen things that people who lived a mere fifty years ago never could even dream about: novas, black holes, expanding and parallel universes, the milky way, spiral galaxies, comets and asteroids. The heavens literally dance with the vastness and glory of God, the creator of the heavens and all the earths.
 
So, there is a lot of room in our imagination for understanding God.  Thus God can be simultaneously, the creator of the universe and the image of the executed criminal. God can create the spiral galaxies and the bumblebee. God is really that big.  The originators of what became our creed understood this great mystery.

But there remains one crystal clear image that shines through all these images and inspires our lives. And that is the gospel.  It was for the gospel and belief in the One who preached it that martyrs give their lives. It was why Sister Dorothy Strang began reading the beatitudes instead of fighting when her murderers tracked her down. It was why Oscar Romero prayed for his persecutors rather than excommunicating them.

 The gospel has always been there. When Christianity became the recognized religion of the empire and moved out of hiding into grand basilicas, the gospel was there with the words, “ For God so loved the world...”  When Christians lobbed insults and anathemas at one another b/c of what are, in reality, small theological differences, there were the gospel words, “”Love one another as I have loved you.” When Christians marched off to the Crusades to kill their fellow Orthodox Christians and Muslims, there were the words, “Whatsoever you do to my sisters and brothers…” When Christians enslaved their sisters and brothers, colonized them, forcibly converted them, discriminated against them, called them names, and excommunicated them, there was the gospel with the message upon which all the laws and prophets rest, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This message was proclaimed by One who has been regarded as our king. So why don’t people listen to Him?  Why do they tame Him and His message? Twist and turn it to fit their own philosophy of division? Why do we pray for Him to come again when all He would do is turn lives upside down again, lifting up the wretched of the earth and taking the powerful down several pegs? What kind of example would He give eating with the scum of the earth and ignoring the clean and the orthodox?

In his great story of the Grand Inquisitor, Russian author Dostoevsky imagines what might happen to Jesus our king when he comes again. Chances are he wouldn’t come on the clouds of heaven. That would be too easy. Anyway, God tends to be a bit more subtle.  In the parable, Jesus returned the second time as he did the first, as a poor man who lived on the outside of everything. Again, the high priests felt obliged to kill him to preserve peace or orthodoxy or some high- minded, but uncharitable principle.  They all felt kind of bad about it, but not bad enough not to kill him.  So they killed him because he followed the gospel.

So, if we as Christians acknowledge Jesus as our king, ruler, ground of our being, the glue that holds us together, let’s follow His orders! Let’s call no man father because we have only one father in heaven. Let’s not lord it over one another.  Let’s not store up treasures on earth. Let’s turn the other cheek and forgive 70 x 7. Let us be kind, merciful, gentle, slow to anger, quick to forgive. Let’s really see Jesus in the faces of others and desist from ostracizing people and calling them names.  Let us sit down at the table with sinners.


Some may regard these words as a utopian idea. Let’s regard them as the directives of our “king” and follow them.

Eileen DiFranco, RCWP

 

 

 

 

1st Sunday of Advent

           

As an example of what goes around comes around, 3-D movies are becoming popular again.  My children tell me there are several movies shown in 3-D and that 3-D glasses are readily available.  Has anyone here ever been to a 3-D movie? 

Okay, you know then that when we put on those glasses, we see things in a way we couldn’t before.  There is a whole new dimension that opens up and grabs our attention.

            In Luke’s Gospel when Jesus says:  “Be vigilant at all times” I think he’s really asking us to put on our 3-D glasses.  God wants us to notice things we might just overlook if we don’t have them on.  Somehow we need to see with the eyes of our heart.  This vigilance or inner attentiveness has been in our Christian tradition a long time.  St. Basil, from the 4th Century, said to “watch over our hearts with all vigilance… so the Christian directs every action small and great according to the will of God.”  In contemporary times Joan Chittister in her book In the Heart of the Temple talks of Thomas Merton’s river of enlightenment; for Merton an enlightened heart takes us beyond our narrowness to see the presence of God everywhere and in everyone.  In the Hebrew scriptures, too, we are called to see as God’s heart sees; that’s why Moses couldn’t see God’s face—only God’s back—so that he could see from God’s view.  The Islamic tradition also emphasizes the heart—an inner attentiveness to our heart’s feelings and being a compassionate presence.

            Advent is a season of the heart, one where we prepare for Christmas—the celebration of Christ’s birth, family gatherings, gift exchanges, and good meals.  But there’s something more God is inviting us to in this season.

            What is God asking us to be vigilant about and how do we heighten our vigilance or awareness?

            I think God is asking us to look for Christ’s presence in the ordinary moments of our lives and respond to that presence with love.

             When we see young children running down the street or climbing a tree, do we only see  that or can we see deeper to a freedom and playfulness that reveals the heart of God? When confronted with illness or death, can we own the pain and grief yet look beneath it to find it teaching us about life?

             As our children grow into adulthood, do we only see them getting older and leaving home or can we see a new life of possibilities opening up to them?

            As the trees surrender their leaves, do we see barrenness and the approaching winter blahs or can we look deeper and see God teaching us to let go of some worries or activities and rest in God with a naked heart?

            With the quick pace of life it’s easy to miss these God-moments.  So maybe there’s a 2-fold invitation here:

1.      Slow down.  Take 5—or better yet take 10—to sit and reflect on the experiences of the day. 

      How was God revealed to me in this conversation or email?

                               through the concert or sporting event?

                              in a moment of quiet or

                              in some other experience?

Being intentional can help heighten our awareness, our vigilance.

2.      Open our heart to what God is revealing, both in the good and the bad. It’s a lot easier to find God in the good moments, but in the difficult ones, can we sift through the muck and find a gem?  When we see what God is revealing, can we also respond to the invitation to act on this—to live it in our daily life?

           

 

A few weeks ago I was at a conference given by Joyce Rupp.  She told a story of a blind man who was asking for money, but no one was giving him anything until a marketing man came by and changed the sign next to the money holder.  Then the passersby stopped and gave the blind man something.  The businessman had changed the sign to read:  “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it.”  A slight shift in the wording allowed people to put on their 3-D glasses, to see with the eyes of their heart—to see the invitation to help and then to respond.

            I would like to share 2 experiences in my life that 3-D glasses brought me to see differently.

            The first was the discussion we had as a community last week after Mass.  What began as a discussion about money was really about something deeper than that.  As I listened to what each person shared, what surfaced for me was the need to understand, define, and journey with our vision of community.  But even deeper than that, what God revealed to me was

            *the respect each one here had for the diverse viewpoints expressed

            *a comfort level among us so each person could say honestly what they thought

            *and real listening to what the other shared.

I experienced among us an attitude of vigilance about our vision of community and a sense of justice.  For me through this open dialogue the gift of our community came into sharper focus, and I thank you for that.

            The 2nd experience is from my family.  When our daughter Tahra was in high school, she suffered a serious eye injury.  When she was playing badminton at a band lock-in, the badminton birdie flew right into her eye and she lost her vision.  Immediately she went to the teachers, who called us.  We took her to Delaware Co. ER and then to Wills Eye.  So down Chestnut St. we went at 3 in the morning.  By the time they evaluated her, her vision was returning.  But over the next few days each doctor she saw revealed in their own way just how serious this injury was.  Fortunately she completely recovered her eyesight.  All this is what happened on the surface.  As I reflected more, I came to see that something deeper had occurred.  I saw that each person was vigilant in doing what they needed to do without overstepping their role or professional expertise.  I saw how connected we are and came to more deeply appreciate how interdependent we are.  I came to believe God worked through the vigilance of each one to restore her eyesight. 

            The experiences of our community and my family taught me the importance of vigilance—of noticing and going deeper to gain insight.

            During Advent, I invite you to try on your 3-D glasses, to sit with God and ask:

            *What is it, God, that you’re inviting me to see here, be vigilant about and what response of love are you asking?

Put on those 3-Ds of the heart—ride that river of enlightenment—and have a wonderful Advent.

1st Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33: 14-16

1 Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2

Luke 21: 25-28a, 34-36

Caryl Johnson RCWP

 

 

 
April, 2009
He was cast into the darkness outside where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Many are invited but few are chosen.

Hum. Didn’t we read a couple of weeks ago that tax collectors and prostitutes would be among the first to enter the kingdom of God? Didn’t we talk about how God doesn’t cut people off, human beings do? Don’t we talk about God’s mercy and unlimited forgiveness?  What happened here ?

Well, two versions of today’s gospel were offered on the USCCB website. The second selection omitted the part about guest without the proper attire getting thrown out of the banquet amidst the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I thought it would be chicken hearted of me not to discuss the sad fate of the improperly attired guest. So, I thought we should talk about it.

I just want to begin with a bit of history. The thing to remember is that Matthew’s gospel, in fact, all of the gospels, were written after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which occurred in 70 AD. I think we discussed this before, but pre-Christian Judaism could only be practiced in and with the temple.   This is why the rebuilding of the temple after the Babylonian Captivity remained such a big deal in the First Testament. Those who were held captive by the waters of Bablyon could not even bear to sing the songs of Zion without their temple. After the final destruction of the temple in 70 CE, the rabbinical movement ultimately saved Judaism.   

The destruction of the second temple was an unmitigated catastrophe for the Jews. Matthew, like all observant Jews, would have been completely appalled and dispirited. What were they going to do?  How could this happen again?  There had to be an explanation for such a disaster. Someone/thing was to blame. If you look back at the First Testament, you will find the answer.  The words of the prophets place the blame for Israel’s many lost political/national battles upon their unfaithfulness to the God. This last, calamitous loss was, to Matthew, the final sign of Israel’s unfaithfulness.

Hence, we read the story of the people who reject the invitation to the banquet. This gospel piggybacks onto last week’s, where the tenants in the vineyard murdered the owner’s son. Matthew was making a point, a big one, so he hit really hard. He felt that Jesus was the natural outcome of a temple-less Judaism. He believed that Judaism had lost its focus when it refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. Of course, other, equally faithful and devoted Jews felt otherwise. This doesn’t make them wrong. It means that they had a different opinion.  Belatedly, we know that their opinion needed to be honored and respected since it was most probably made in good faith. As we discussed last week, human beings are the ones who punish other people and themselves for sin. God doesn’t.  As psalm 129 says, “If you laid bare our guilt, O Lord, who could endure it?”

But the rub here in this gospel is the guest sans wedding garment. Why would the king expect the hastily invited guests to wear proper party attire, especially since the king’s servants went out to the highways and byways to find guests where they were probably laying bricks or something? I daresay that most of the people we might encounter on the street on any given day would not have a wedding garment in their backpacks. If I had swept up in this festive action yesterday, for instance, my wedding garment would have been sweat pants and a tee shirt.  Surely, the king in the story knew that.  It sure sounds like a trick, a mean one. We get pulled off the street from our everyday lives and then get blamed for not wearing a tux or a gown? Could the kingdom of God possibly hinge on a dress code, especially when Jesus walked the streets of the Holy Land in tired old sandals and one sweaty robe?

The answer is, of course, “no.”  Only human beings would turn away people from a banquet for not having the proper credentials.

 But why was the guest without the wedding garment tossed out?

Rosemary made a great point a couple of weeks ago when she said that when most of us read the story of the owner who paid his/her workers the same salary whether they worked one hour or 8 hours, that we most often see ourselves as the person who worked all eight hours.  We compare our hard work with the guy who only worked for an hour and complain, “It’s not fair.”  Rosemary suggested that perhaps we only thought we worked for eight hours, when in reality, we only worked for one hour.

Perhaps we are looking with the same self- congratulatory eyes at the guest without the proper attire.  We, of course, have all the right stuff and would not think of showing up without wearing our best. Not us. Of course, not us.  We are so very perfect.  That guest was so tacky! H/she deserved to be tossed out.

Matthew was obviously upset about the lack of support for Jesus among the community at large as per the first part of the story. He was probably also upset by those who allegedly did follow Jesus and sat at the table as a welcome guest anyway, without doing much of anything but looking and acting sloppy. Was the invitation to the banquet a carte blanche?  Was just sitting there enough? Or was there more?

When we were baptized, we wore a white robe which symbolized the sinless nature of our newborn souls.  But Paul tells us quite emphatically to “put on Christ,” along with the new clothes, for we have become a new creation. Paul suggests putting on Christ means taking on far more than a wardrobe change or a dress up for dinner.

 I don’t know about you, but sometimes I leave the Christ part of my wardrobe at home on purpose. Yes, I might wear a crucifix around my neck. I might end my voice mail message with “God Bless You.” I might even be the most scrupulous adherent of the law and have faith strong enough to move mountains. But many times, my Jesus clothes don’t match anything I have, so I stick him in the back of my closet.  Or, I roll him up and push him way back behind the stuff in my drawer. I try to drown out his voice with amens and hallelujahs. I pretend that he’s somebody else or that he was really trying to say something else, or he wants me to do something else. He, the One who told me to love everyone the way he loved me, well, I really don’t want to follow the letter of that law. It’s just easier to show up with the crucifix, the credo, or the hallelujahs and announce, “Here I am, Lord, I’m yours, the chosen one.”

Matthew warns us today not to presume that the credos  are enough.  Presumption, we memorizers of the Baltimore Catechism know, is a sin against the cardinal virtue of hope.

The gospel verse ends with the line, “Many are called but few are chosen.”  Such scary words! Such presumption!  Such self-consciousness! To think that God would choose certain people over others and extend certain privileges to certain people based upon human defined criteria! What God offers us is available to all people as grace, pressed down and overflowing into our laps. It is human beings who choose good or evil, death or life, happiness or misery, not God!  It is human beings who drive the stake of division into the hearts of a nation or a church. We create the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. We bind people up with our misjudgments and prejudices and throw them out into the darkness. We might have our reasons, reasons tinged with all sorts of human prejudices to do the things we do, but they are not God’s reasons.

Can the God who tenderly wipes away our tears that we read about in our first reading be the same God who throws us out in the cold darkness for a wardrobe malfunction? No, it is God, as our first reading says, who will point us in the right direction. God’s hand rests upon this mountain, and if we are quiet enough, we can feel it. God can destroy the veil that makes us view our siblings as less than us and ourselves as “the chosen.” Once that veil is destroyed, then all people will be able to partake of the rich food that Isaiah described, a food that the vast majority of the world can only imagine.

I thought that I would conclude with a description of what putting on Christ might have looked like to Paul. Others might have other ideas. This description is from chapter 6 of Ephesians. I don’t think I have ever heard these verses read during mass, but the clothes Paul described are certainly available to all. Perhaps that is why it is never read.

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of the Lord’s power. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, so that you might be able to withstand on an evil day, and having done all, stand firm.  Stand, therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist and put on the breastplate of righteousness.  As shoes for your feet, put on anything that will help you proclaim the gospel of peace.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Regardless of what happens, have faith that God will be there. Above all, do not fear.  Do not be swayed by arguments that do not follow the rule of love. Be peaceful in your words and deeds, even in the midst of trial. Hold firmly to and boldly preach the Word of God, the two great commandments upon which everything else rests. And while you do all this, rejoice and be glad,  and know that you, like every other person on earth, are one of God’s invited guests.

Homily, 4th Sunday of Easter

The community that formed around the gospel of John knew what it was like to be on the outside looking in.  Written about 60-70 years after the death of Jesus, it reflected the in-house disturbances that began dividing the Body of Christ almost from the beginning.  The first generation of eyewitnesses had died, bequeathing their experiences to subsequent generations, many of whom developed different interpretations of Jesus. Hence, the existence of the four canonical gospels and the large numbers of non-canonical gospels that were never validated.

If you compare John’s gospel to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it is very different. It is the only gospel that describes Jesus as the pre-existent Word of God.  We can imagine the early Christians gathering and talking or arguing about what Jesus meant for the world, or not talking and pulling rank, much as subsequent generations of church rulers have done. The members of John’s community got the short end of the stick. They were persecuted not only by their Jewish brethren but also by their fellow Christians.  They were thrown out. Like many other once marginalized groups, they went on to do their own share of throwing people out. But that’s a story you can read in the three epistles of John.

The story of the Good Shepherd was written to explain how people who were abandoned by their religious communities dealt with their loss. The people of John’s community loved God and followed the commandments, even if they disagreed with the prevailing view of the religious authorities. They knew instinctively that God loved them and would never abandon them.  So they rephrased the words of the fourteenth psalm. Not only was the Lord their shepherd, the Lord, unlike humans, would never abandon them. In fact, the Lord would actually abandon the status quo and go searching for THEM.

Although there are those who would like us all to think that what became the church was written in stone from the beginning, ,John’s gospel – the one that almost didn’t make it into the New Testament-  highlights the tendency of a minority position to morph into the majority position.  The church has inherited the high Christology of the gospel of John rather than the low Christology of Mark. And the question of who Jesus was and what he meant to the world was not really settled, if indeed we can use that word, until the 4th century after knock down, dragged out fights, excommunications, and banishments.


There have been many stones rejected by those in power who thought that they were building an edifice that would last for all eternity.  The strongest, of course, is the construct of male power and superiority.  What woman being led to the stake by her inquisitors in the 16th century could ever imagine that her descendants would not only attend the university, but also vote and become ordained priests!

Other ideas that were once fringe movements – civil rights, religious freedom, separation of church and state, and the equality of all people before God and before the law- once unimaginable, in spite of scripture which states that all people are created equal- are now enshrined in western law.

But there remain kinks in both religious and civil law.  Although we have the example of the Good Shepherd who searches high and low for those outside the pale, it is often those who are most observant of the law who persists in driving their sisters and brothers out.  So we have God fearing Christians building a wall to keep out their fellow Christians immigrating from Mexico. We have Christian agents of the law ripping apart families to the point of tearing nursing babies from their mother’s breast.  

We have our gay sisters and brother labeled “disordered,” which gives church people permission to discriminate and persecute. And we have a group of 100 women and some men in Roman Catholic Womenpriests who have been repeatedly excommunicated by men who actually consider themselves to be shepherds.

So one must ask, where is God in all this? What kind of God do we believe in? That big old mean white man god didn’t work for me. He was too scary. He did too much soul damage.  I couldn’t love him. He reminded me too much of people I didn’t like or respect. He certainly didn’t make the kingdom any closer than it was 2,000 years ago.

I’ll take the Good Shepherd any day.  Or the image of God as the woman who turns her house upside down looking for the lost coin. Or the Mother most high who shelters her children under her wings. Or Emmanuel who gave his life so that his friends might live.

Today’s gospel is probably the greatest story ever told.  It sets up an almost impossible paradigm – that no one is to be left out or behind.  Jesus tells us that whenever we want or try to set human defined limits, God lets us know that it is precisely those in the outer limits who belong in the fold. God has no borders. We’re all in.  God will literally breach any fence, knock it down, or extend life- lines to pull the excluded back over.  Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the very first one to go and find those who were rejected and despised and acquainted with grief as he was.  There is to be no silencing of the lambs.

God knows us better than any other human being. And God has our back. This is the love that God has bestowed upon us. As our second reading said, “When it is revealed, we shall be like him.” All of us, all for one and one for all.

Mother’s Day Homily, 2009

The words, “This is my body; this is my blood” are holy words.  We need these words in order to become the Body of Christ.  The People of God are made holy by these words. They are fed and strengthened in order to do the hard work of building up the Body in the world.

Several years ago, I read about these holy words in the Jesuit magazine, “America.”  A young mother wrote of trying unsuccessfully to calm her crying infant during mass. While carrying the baby out of the church, she heard the priest say the words, “This is my body, given up for you.” She looked down at her child and understood that she had given up her body for her baby.

Like the Eucharist, life and death are intermingled in birth.  Many of us who were born prior to 1960 recall stories about relatives and neighbors who died while giving birth.  With our current low rates of maternal mortality in the western world, it is almost unimaginable to think that in some places at some times, more mothers died than lived while giving birth.

Before the advent of asepsis, becoming pregnant in some parts of the world was a death sentence.  Doctors would go from doing autopsies to attending women in childbirth without washing their hands. The women these doctors touched died within days of overwhelming infection.  Mary Wollstonecraft, author of “A Vindication of the Rights of Women, died of this infection which was euphemistically but appropriately called “Childbed Fever.”  This was her body, given up for her child.

Only in recent history could childbirth practitioners manage anything beyond he most minor deviations in labor and delivery without harming mother or child or both.  Many other women died in childbirth because they had too many children in too short a time and had to work too hard to keep them all alive.

I never did learn why my great Aunt Helen died in September of 1924 while delivering twin girls who also died.  My grandmother, also pregnant at the time, told me of how Helen fearlessly approached childbirth while my grandmother feared for her life.  My grandmother delivered my aunt, a ten pounder, a week after Aunt Helen’s funeral. Sixty-five years of living did not erase the picture of seventeen –year- old Helen lying in a coffin, her dead infant girls cradled in each arm.  This was her body, given up for her children.

When women volunteer to have their child’s birth televised on “Good Morning America” while wearing eye shadow and mascara, we tend to lose sight of the very serious business that is childbirth.  We forget that every pregnant woman gives up her body for her child as the growing fetus harnesses every organ system of the mother’s body in order to sustain its growth. If any organ system is not up to the task, both mother and child can die.

Some women never recover completely from childbirth. They never lose the weight they gained during pregnancy. Others might develop varicose veins, diabetes, or high blood pressure. Some develop permanent urinary tract or bowel problems from injuries sustained during childbirth.  These are our young bodies, which we have offered up for our children.

Each time a woman goes into labor, she travels into the valley of the shadow of death, a place one cannot imagine if one has not given birth.  One of my neighbors who gave birth was appalled by the fact that I didn’t use anesthesia during the births of my children.  I told her I was more stupid than brave and truly believed that I was giving my children the best possible start in life by not using drugs.  This was comfort for my body, which I was willing to give up for them.

Childbirth is always accompanied by a certain amount of blood. The shedding of blood during childbirth used to render a woman, “unclean,” a verdict Christianity inherited from Judaism.  Until Vatican II, a post partum woman was supposed to be “churched,” a ceremony which “purified” the mother of childbirth, so that she could return to communion.  However, without the shedding of the mother’s blood, there can be no birth and no life. Even Jesus, born of Mary came into this world purple, wet, and slippery, covered with his mother’s blood. Mary gave her holy body and blood to Jesus. This was her body and blood, given up for him.

Two women I know almost hemorrhaged to death after giving birth.  After birth, the uterus is supposed to contract and clamp off all of the blood vessels that supplied the placenta and nourished the baby during pregnancy.  If the uterus fails to contract, the blood vessels remain wide open and blood gushes out of the woman with each beat of her heart.  Both women described lying in a state of suspended animation as their blood poured onto the floor, knowing what was happening to them, but too weak to rouse themselves to call for help.

One looks at blood, at the bright red bewilderment of it, with awe, for it is life itself.  How many of our foremothers saw this blood, felt it leave their bodies, and understood what it meant to shed every last drop of blood in order to give life to another human being!

On this Mother’s Day, I invite you to image God, who is truly beyond whatever paltry picture we might imagine, as Mother God.  Imagine God our Creator as the Mother clothed in the sun, wearing star in Her hair, groaning in hard labor as She tries to give birth to a new heavens and a new earth where all mothers are forever freed of the sins of patriarchal misconceptions and misogyny.

Today on Mother’s Day, remember your mother. Honor all mothers in whom unborn babies once lived and moved and developed their very beings.

This is our body; this is our blood, given for the life of the world.


May 17, 2009 Guest Homily by Jerry Devine

I  ask blessing on this gathering, all who are here, all who are connected to all those here.  May the God Spirit of Love in each of us shine forth and be the source of these blessings.

Three words kept coming to me in these readings:        

                Dissension, Love and Surrender

The reading from Acts describes an incident where there was a great deal of dissension.  Who are worthy to receive the Word of God?

The gifts of the Holy Spirit being expressed ends the tension and argument.  How can we argue with the Spirit?

Dissension is a continuing part of our lives, within ourselves, in our families, in our cities, towns, nation, world.  Even those who present themselves as our spiritual leaders can be the source of dissension.  Religious leaders are often seen more as political leaders, and not focused on the growth of the Lord’s spirit in our world.  But Peter is able to focus on the critical issue at that moment, speaking of those who received the Holy Spirit as we have.  Differences fall away.  Peter focuses on the spirit in each, rather than the external self where differences become most important.


        Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation.

“It is a great mistake to confuse the person (the spiritual and hidden self, united with God) and the ego, the exterior, empirical self, the psychological individuality who forms a kind of mask for the inner and hidden self.  This outer self is nothing but an evanescent shadow.  Its biography and its existence both end together at death.  Of the inmost self there is neither biography nor end.  The outward self can “have” much, “enjoy” much, “accomplish” much, but in the end all its possessions, joys and accomplishments are nothing, and the outer self is, itself, nothing: a shadow, a garment that is cast off and consumed by decay.”


How much time is spent with our hidden, authentic self out in the world?  What percentage of ourselves and how we operate is this hidden self?  5%?  10%  It is difficult to be much more than that because our lives are so complex and the pressures we face are always present.


But What if this person, the spiritual self united with God, was 51% what we brought to the world?  What would the world look like?  If this is an idea that excites us, it is because the spiritual person inside us is saying this is why we are here.  The moment we entered into God fully, there is no sin, no desire, nothing ever happened and time does not exist.

How do we claim this hidden self, build in in ourselves, help build it in each other so that we are following Jesus and His Path?

I have learned that for me it’s combining prayer with meditation.  To do this the word that comes to mind for me in the Gospel about love is Surrender.

In our country surrender is probably up there with a lot of words that we do not find often in anyone’s vocabulary.  To surrender is to die, to be dishonored, to have shame heaped upon me.  But Jesus is speaking of giving up that part of me that maintains the separation, that part of me, that mask I put on each morning to go out and face another day.  But what if I chose to instead build up that spirit self, the Jesus in me.  Giving up my life for my friends is not surrender in the world’s sense.  It is the greatest sign of Love.  Jesus says He has told us all He has learned from God.

Which Jesus boils down to one Commandment:  Love One Another.


THE MIRACLE OF SHARING  Guest Homily  by Joseph L. Butler, Sr.  July 26, 2009


In today’s readings from Kings and John, we hear wondrous stories of many being fed from sparse resources.  And both stories remind us of the miracle of generosity.

From a present-day perspective, we don’t have to figure out how 5,000 people got across the Sea of Galilee.  Somehow they did.  They gathered on that grassy plain to see another healing. 

Then Jesus asks, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?”  The first point that hits home is the typical male response: “We can’t afford to feed them.  Where are we going to get the money?”  At one time or another, everyone here has dealt with that lament.  Despite our world’s abundant resources, we daily see rampant hunger and starvation, and we feel impotent.  We bemoan the fact that we can’t solve the problem.  We get discouraged.  We need a miracle.

Which raises the second point:  the simple heart of a young boy who shyly steps forward to say, “I have some barley loaves and a couple of fish.  You can have them.” Jesus smiles at the boy’s generosity, and accepts this small gift of food.  What happens next brings to mind “a little child shall lead them.”  Isn’t the boy’s good will and kindness infectious?  Do others reach into their pockets to help?  It certainly seems likely. 

The third point is the invisible women.  The gospel says “the men reclined.”  But I suspect if food were being shared, women were orchestrating the whole thing.  Certainly no picnic, no dinner, no celebration of life (baptisms, first communions, weddings) and no healings seem to happen without women’s contributions.  For centuries, the women were the first to ask, “What can I bring?  How can I help?  And what about the children?”  So this is a gospel for our day.

We Christians of this generation are no further removed from the ministry of Jesus than this gathering of followers 2000 years ago.  We feed others in many ways:  we make casseroles, we invite a friend to dinner, we make a phone call, or offer a kind word to those in distress.  We bring the story of Jesus of Nazareth to today’s world when we are neighbor, when we are caring, when we are kind.  Each of us is called to listen to our own inner voice, and to give that voice expression. 

When we receive the Eucharist today, we are called to become the body of Christ.  Like the disciples who eventually came around to Jesus’ way of thinking, we will share the food and gather the fragments at the meal’s end.  We too come to recognize that “generosity of spirit” is Jesus’ message, and the on-going miracle.

There is a beautiful prayer adapted from the Hebrew book of blessings, The Berakoth, which is a fitting close.  Let us pray today with all those assembled on that distant hill: 

Blessed are you, God of Compassion.
Hold us in the heart of Your love.
Accompany us in our praise and in our prayer,
in our silence and in our song.
Teach us to serve life, to serve the earth,
and to serve one another,
and live in deep and holy communion.
Amen.