Sunday, December 23, 2012

Great joy


It has been a most harrowing week for Newtown, a week which no one in their worst nightmares could have imagined.  Tears flow from Newtown as we witness the pain and anguish of those who lost their most precious, their most dear.  Our hearts are broken.  Deep sadness and dark sorrow pervades our very souls.

But soon we will hear the angel declare – except for those of us of a certain age, it is not the voice of an angel at all, but that of a small boy standing next to a bedraggled tree, clutching a blanket in one hand and a shepherd’s crook in the other – “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be for all the people.”

The joy of Christmas is near upon us.  But where can we possibly find joy amid such sadness and woe?  We look for it wrapped in paper under the tree.  We look for it in the pleasure and comfort of the traditional Christmas feast.   We look for it in the warm company of family and friends.  We find moments of happiness, yet no joy.  For no matter how gaily decorated the tree, no matter how well-filled our wish list of presents, no matter how merry the family gathering, we cannot forget, we cannot stop sighing, we cannot stop longing to turn back the clock, to make what was done be undone. 

Yet the angel – God’s messenger – announces great joy.  The root of all joy is to know that we are accepted; that we are wanted; that we have a purpose; that we are loved.  Yet loving ourselves is never sufficient, for self-love only becomes real when it is affirmed by others.  Who does not feel joy at hearing those three simple words – I love you.  Certainly, we have felt much joy in the outpouring of love and support from around the world in the wake of our tragedy.  But all human love, by its very nature, must be temporal and finite, bound by time and circumstance.  For great joy, joy which wipes away every tear, joy which shines through our darkest gloom, we need great love, unbounded love, love without condition or limit.

In faith, this is what we celebrate at Christmas – joy inherent in and an indelible mark on every soul.  Christmas reminds us that as humans, we are created in the image and likeness of God, validated by the unconditional love of God, saved by the infinite mercy of our God who so loved us that he gave us himself to share our pain, to share our suffering, to share our death, and then to show us the way beyond the pain, the suffering and the death to eternal peace.  We celebrate joy as the present tense of hope.  Our hope for a future of eternal life in the peace of the risen Christ is made present to us in God’s infinite and eternal love made evident by birth of the child Jesus, Son of God, Emmanuel, God-with-us.  At Christmas, we celebrate that, in Pope Benedict's words, it is good that we exist; it is good that we are human beings, even in these most difficult times. 

Despite our sadness, we are filled with great joy, for we are loved beyond measure.  We are needed now as we have never been needed before to confront the culture of death that has entwined itself so deeply in the fabric of our lives.  We have a purpose - to share God’s infinite love and grace with all the people who seek joy outside of the source of all life, the source of all love, the source of all that good, all that is noble, all that is holy. 

Fear not: for behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be for all the people.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Why, why, why


We are stunned by the horrific evil.  We are devastated by the loss of so many innocent lives.  We are frightened by our fragility.  We are frustrated by our impotence to control the seeming randomness of our lives.  Why has this happened to us?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned us?

God, if you are all-loving, how could you let this happen to us who are your beloved children?  If you are all-powerful, why didn't you use your power to prevent this evil?  If you are all-benevolent, why did you not want to protect us from this horror?   Why, why, why?

There are many who ask these questions and lose all faith in God.  They feel that a God who would allow such things to happen cannot be a God worth having at all.  And I would agree with them completely.  God would never allow, never condone, and would never use such evil for any purpose at all.  Our God is not some divine puppet master, pulling the strings that cause our world to go round, tugging us this way and that, controlling our every move, our every moment.

We ask why God cannot do more for us by protecting us from such evil, but He has already done what He can – and it is more than enough.

First, He has created each one of us out of love in his own image and likeness, vesting us with the capability to love as he loves, to look beyond our selfish interests to the needs of others.  He has also given us free will, as love cannot exist without it, for Christian love is a choice, the desire and the will to work for the best of the other.  We choose love and life when we choose to include God in our lives.  We choose hatred and death when we choose to exclude God from our lives.

Evil is not a physical thing.  It only exists in an absence.  It only exists in the absence of God.  It is overcome and conquered by the presence of God.

As I looked around the church on Friday night as two thousand people gathered to celebrate a vigil Mass, many of them huddled outside the open windows of the church that could hold less than half their number, as I looked out at one overflowing congregation after another on Sunday morning, even as we were being forced to evacuate the noon Mass due to more threats of violence, I remembered the words of St. Peter as he stood on the mount of Transfiguration, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  For in God’s presence, evil has no power.  And nowhere are we more present to God than gathered together at Mass.

For God not only created us out of love in his image and likeness, he so loved the world that, as we will soon celebrate on Christmas Day, he gave his only Son to reveal himself to us in a most perfect way, to be present to us in a most personal way, and to show us, though his life, his death, and his resurrection, and his gift of himself in the Eucharist, the way back to God, the way back to joy, to peace, to love.

To complete His work, God sends us his Spirit, filling us with the power and grace of God, gifting us with all the strength that we need to stay present to God, to be present to each other, to make God’s kingdom present to all of God’s creation, to conquer hatred with love, evil with good, and death with life.

It is only by God’s love that we have life; it is only with God’s mercy that we are saved; and it is only in God’s spirit that we are strong.

Lord, it is good that we are here.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

As it was then, is now


Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
  For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” (Lk 1:41b-44)

Oftentimes, people would visit Mother Teresa in Calcutta to observe her as she and her sisters served the poor.  One day, such a visitor accompanied Mother as she made her way through the streets.  She knelt down to embrace a person who was apparently dying in the gutter, asking her sisters for help to bring this man to shelter, to bathe him, and feed him.  Her visitor was amazed.  He told Mother Teresa that he would not have done what she did then for a million dollars.  Mother Teresa smiled and said she would not do it for a million dollars either.  But she would do it for Christ.

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta is an Elizabeth for our times.  Like Mary’s kinswoman, the Holy Spirit filled Teresa, giving her the eyes to see Christ in the poor and destitute of Calcutta, giving her the strength to serve Christ in the poor and destitute of Calcutta, giving her the courage to proclaim the advent of Christ, and, in turn, to be the advent of Christ to the poor and the destitute of Calcutta.

Larry DePrimo is also an Elizabeth for me, an Advent reminder that Jesus comes into my life every time I am faced with someone in need, someone created by God in his image and likeness, someone who Jesus came down from heaven to save, someone who Jesus insists I should help, for in helping that person, I am helping Jesus.  You may not know Larry DePrimo, but you have probably seen him.  He is the New York City policeman who, on his rounds one frigid night a few weeks ago, saw a barefoot beggar huddled on the sidewalk.  Officer DePrimo, moved by pity – and, I would assert, filled with the Holy Spirit – bought the man thermal socks and warm boots with his own money.  A tourist happened to snap a picture of him helping the man, and this picture quickly became a viral sensation on the internet.

I come to realize that my own life is filled with these advents, these comings of Jesus, if only I pay attention; if only I let the Spirit fill me as it filled Elizabeth, as it filled Mother Teresa, as it filled Larry DePrimo.

One of my favorite Advent hymns - one of favorite anytime hymns – is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  Perhaps I should add a companion hymn - Come Holy Ghost.  For unless the Holy Ghost takes up his rest in my soul, I’ll miss the advent of Emmanuel who every day presents himself to me, who ransoms me from exile, who teaches me wisdom’s way of to go, who is my victory o’er the grave.

Happy Advent.

Friday, December 7, 2012

your praises we sing


When I was a young boy – long, long ago – competition broke about between my brothers and me about this time of year.  Who did mom and dad love the most?  The answer would come under the tree on Christmas morning.  Of course, our parents would tell us they loved each of us exactly the same and that you couldn’t equate that love with the size, quantity, or desirability of the presents we each received, but we knew better.

It was only when I grew up, got married, and had my own small children – still a long, long time ago – that I found out my parents were right.  For I saw the same competition break out between Mary Kate and Joey, and while I faithfully repeated my parents’ reasoning, I’m sure they thought that I was just as dense as I thought my parents were.  Come to think of it, they probably still think I’m just that dense.

Our faith teaches us that we cannot equate gifts with love.  We also know that some people seem to be greatly talented, gifted far beyond normal folks like you and I.  Some people are gifted with plentiful wealth, countless friends, and perfect health – and others not so much.  Yet, God loves each of exactly the same, with infinite, unconditional, everlasting love. 

One person in history actually received a gift from God that had never been given before.  It was a most amazing gift, a gift which led to the salvation of everyone in this church, everyone in this country, everyone in the world.  That person, of course, was Mary.   What was her amazing gift?   Listening to today’s Gospel passage, we may think that her gift was getting to be the mother of Jesus, the mother of God.  But that wasn’t it at all.  That was her vocation, what God called her to be and to do.  It was the most important vocation – God never had called anyone to do this before and He will never call anyone to this vocation again.  It was such an important vocation, that God needed to give Mary an equally significant gift to help her accept His call.

The angel Gabriel gives us a clue when he says, “Hail Mary, full of grace.”  Our church understands this salutation to mean that Mary, at the time of the angel’s visit and for all her life, from her very conception in the womb of St. Anne, was filled with God’s grace, unstained by sin, even unstained by original sin, that predilection to turn away from God that bedevils each of us.

God’s great gift to Mary was given not because he loved her more than any of us; it came precisely because he loved each of us so much he would send His son to become one of us, to accept death for each one of us, to save each one of us.  Filled with God’s graces from the moment she was conceived, Mary had the strength to say yes to God, to accept a vocation which seemed to make no sense at all – a powerless peasant girl in a dusty backwater of the world who God had chosen to bear His son – how silly was that.  She accepted a vocation which exposed her to great danger, for an unmarried, pregnant girl in Mary’s world would be stoned to death as soon as her pregnancy became known.  She accepted a vocation which would cause her great pain, to see her only son arrested, tortured, and brutally killed, while the crowds mercilessly jeered and mocked his suffering and death.  What more pain could any parent endure?

This was a big request for God to make of her.  Could she have said no?  Certainly she had the free will to do so, but by eliminating the weakness caused by original sin, God empowered Mary to say yes and she answered His call.  The rest, as they say, is history.

But this theology doesn’t just end in history.  Just as Mary was called to a vocation particular to her, God has called every single person in this church to a particular vocation.  And just as God gave Mary the gift necessary to fulfill her vocation, he has given each and every one of us the gifts necessary to fulfill our own particular vocation. 

Figure out what gifts God has given to you, and you may gain some insights into what God has called you to do.  Figure out what God has called you to do, and you discover the gifts that he has given you to live your vocation.  But how do any of us figure out God’s call for us or the gifts we have to live out that call?

The short answer: prayer.  How can we possibly know what God has in store for us if we don’t listen to him?  But sometimes God speaks to us through his messengers.  Mary heard from the angel Gabriel.  We often are surprised when others see talents in us we never realized we had.

Listen to people who know God, listen to people who live close to God.  Most especially, listen to the one who lived closer to God than anyone else in history.  Listen to Mary, full of grace.  For Mary’s vocation continues today.  As she cooperated with God to bring Jesus into our world two thousand years ago, she continues connecting us to Jesus today.  She can help you discover what will make you truly happy, being the person that God has called you to be, the person that Jesus has saved you to be, the person that the Spirit has gifted you to be.

And the rest, as they say, is joy and peace.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

A prayer for hunger


In an economy based on subsistence agriculture, desperate, life-threatening hunger is just one bad harvest away.  When one is hungry to the point of starvation, finding food becomes an obsession.  Nothing else matters.  Virtually everyone in Jesus’ day – as is true in many places of the world today – would have known times of extreme hunger.

For this reason, scriptural images of heaven often centered on feast of rich foods and fine wine in abundance, as we see in Isaiah’s vision in today's reading.  Many of Jesus’ parables of the kingdom also featured such feasts.  Today’s miracle of the feeding of four thousand was such an important story for the early disciples that it is included six times in the four Gospels.  Other than the resurrection, it is the only miracle story recorded in all four gospels.

I have never experienced the pangs of hunger as Jesus’ disciples often did.  I have always known that the next meal is only hours away - and snacks are even closer!  I take food for granted.  Perhaps this is my good fortune, but it is also my loss.

For Jesus wants us to experience hunger – spiritual hunger for Him and for God’s kingdom.  He wants us to seek him out as a starving person seeks food – constantly, persistently, and obsessively.  Put all other things aside, we must have Jesus.

Advent is a time for us to assess our hunger for Jesus.  Do we constantly seek to be close to him, to follow him, or do we simply take him for granted?

On many mornings, I realize that it’s already 9:00, I have been up for several hours, and I have yet to pray that day, yet to thank God for the life he’s won for me, yet to offer the day to the him, yet to seek his help for all that I am to do that day.  Haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

When I sit down to eat while reading the paper or scanning email, not remembering to thank God for his providence, haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

When I pass by a homeless person or a beggar on the sidewalk without stopping to talk or to offer some small piece of the abundance that God has given me, haven’t I taken Jesus for granted?

This Advent, I pray for hunger, hunger to be near Jesus, hunger to learn from Jesus, hunger to follow Jesus as if my very life depended on it.

Because it does.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Are you ready?


In my younger days, I was sympathetic to the “Keep Christ in Christmas” crowd who always seemed to come alive about this time of year decrying the secularization and commercialization of Christmas.  Yet, on reflection, I realized that Christmas has, for some time now, been irreversibly transformed into both a religious and a secular celebration.  Furthermore, I realized that many of my most cherished Christmas traditions – watching Bing Crosby in “White Christmas”, enjoying Ralph’s travails in “A Christmas Story”, reading “The Night Before Christmas” to the kids, or crooning along with Nat King Cole on “The Christmas Song” – “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” – have absolutely no mentions of our Savior’s birth at all!

So, if Christmas for many people is nothing more than a time to exchange gifts, kind wishes and peace with others, is there not some good in that?  And since the church is always jammed to the rafters come Christmas Day, have we really lost the religious nature of Christmas?

On the other hand, in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the big celebration, Advent has suffered.  With our focus on shopping for the perfect gift, planning the Christmas feast, trimming the tree and decking the halls, and partying with family and friends, we can lose sight of the all that we should truly be preparing for during this holy, yet often slighted, season of Advent.

Advent is a time to assess and reflect on three comings, or advents, of the Lord.  We meditate on how deeply grateful we are for the first coming – the birth of Jesus some two thousand years ago; on how joyful we are at the second coming – the present coming of Jesus to be in relationship with us this very day; and on how eager we are for that final coming – either at the end of time or, more likely, the end of our own time here on earth.

As I reflect on these advents, I wonder how much I really get – in my heart of hearts, my gut of guts – what happened two thousand years ago.  Do I really get the infinite bounty of a God who “loved the world so much, he gave his only Son?”  Do I really get the absolutely unconditional nature of God’s love and mercy that “while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us?”  If so, why do I seek more when I already have the infinite; why do I always feel less loved when my actions seem to deserve scorn?  If I really, really got this, why am I not more grateful – radically grateful – as Mary Jo Leddy describes in her book, Radical Gratitude?  Maybe I’ll do better on the second Advent?

So, how’s that day-to-day relationship with Jesus thing coming?  Jesus died for me, but he also rose again.  He is alive and comes to me at every moment of every day, desires to be with me, desires my intimacy.  Without accepting this, I am lost.  As Cardinal George – God rest his soul – stated, “Without a relationship to Christ, doctrine is just ideas and morality is only rules.  Relationships give life.”

Have I nurtured this relationship in frequent, daily prayer?  After all, what good is relationship without intimate and regular communication?  Have I availed myself of the sacraments – those times when Christ is especially present to us – in his own Body and Blood at the Eucharist, and faced directly with his boundless mercy in Reconciliation?  But the acid test is how my relationship with Christ has transformed my relationships with others – as Jesus insists it must – “Love God with your whole heart, your whole strength, your whole soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

How do I treat every other person, who – like me – is created in the image and likeness of God; for whom, like he did for me – Christ became man and died to save; who – like me – is loved by Christ with infinite and unconditional love; who is like me in every important respect and unlike me in mere incidentals?  Do I ignore these people, or worse, wish perdition on them, or do I love them as Christ loves me?

Even on my best days, it never takes me much more than thirty seconds to realize how far I fall short of the demands of Christ.  And that bring us to the final advent reflection – how ready am I – how eager am I – to be faced with the final reckoning?  Not much, I’m afraid.   I gain a whole new appreciation of the “fear and trembling” with which St. Paul says we must work out our salvation. 

And that is the key to the season of Advent, for it gives us time to reflect on what keeps us from truly appreciating and being thankful for what God did for us some two thousand years ago.  It gives us time to reflect on what keeps us from entering into the intimate relationship with Christ that transforms all of our relationships, that gives life to our faith.

And when we do that, when we put our failings and shortcomings before the God who loves us so dearly, who wants to forgive even our most grievous sins, when we seek His help to remove the stumbling blocks we have placed before us, we are ready.  We can join the angelic host in full throat, filled with absolute joy come Christmas Day.

Have a most blessed, reflective, and holy Advent. 

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Apocalyse now?


During this last week of the liturgical year, the readings turn our attention to the end times, the second coming of the Lord.  Thus our selections come from apocalyptic sections of the New Testament – the Book of Revelation and the twenty-first chapter of Luke.  For the early Christians, who suffered persecutions daily, many of whom knew family members or close friends who had even suffered death for their faith in Jesus, these readings were comforting, as they looked to ultimate justification for their suffering in the end days.

For us, perhaps not so much.  Despite living in economic times that don’t seem to be living quite up to snuff, despite fighting wars that never seem to end, despite hundred-year storms that seem to come every year, we live much more comfortably and more securely than the typical first century Christian.  Combined with the fact that we are not steeped in the language and symbols of first century Judaism, and these types of readings can easily lead to confusion and discomfort.

My tendency is to simply compartmentalize them – put them in a box on the shelf, as it were - historical passages that are important in that they show how it was in Jesus’ time, not so important or relevant for me in my times.  But then, I've lost the whole point.  For God’s words in Scripture, are timeless – as relevant now as they were thousands of years ago, as relevant now as they will be thousands of years in the future.

So while it’s not likely that I will be seized and persecuted, called up by kings and governors to give witness to my faith in Jesus, there is not a day that goes by without many opportunities, some subtle, others blatantly obvious, that I am called up – not by kings and governors certainly – but by the simple needs of those around me, to put aside my pride, put aside my selfish wants, put aside my niggling fears – and reach out in love, reach out in charity, reach out in Jesus’ name.

My greatest danger is that, in my generally comfortable and secure life, I often miss these calls.  In my pride, I lose sight of the great things God has done for me, preferring instead to focus on the great things I have done for myself, the comforts I have earned, the security my diligence deserves.

In my effort to maintain my comfort and my security, I pay close attention to my own needs, my own fears, and my own dignity.

I become blind to the needs, the fears and the dignity of others.  I become deaf to Jesus’ call to love unconditionally, to love without end, to love without measure.  I ignore the wisdom Jesus offers, but cling to the secular wisdom of this world – survival of the fittest, might makes right, dog eat dog, look out for number one.

And if I miss Jesus’ call today, then I am certain to miss it at the final bell, whenever that will be.  If I miss the signs today, then I am certain to be lost in the end.

And so today’s readings remind me to be vigilant in hearing Jesus’ call, faithful to heeding Jesus’ wisdom, always depending on Jesus to give me the courage, give me the strength, and give me the will to stand tall, to die to myself, and to live for the other. 

This is what Jesus urged on his contemporaries two thousand years ago, what he is urging for each of us today, what he will continue to urge on future generations thousands of years from now, forever and ever, Amen.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The call of the King

Over 200 years ago, an amazing thing happened.  A group of men gathered in Philadelphia to create a new government.  They were steeped in a world where kings were considered to have God-given rights to rule as they saw fit for as long as they lived.  Yet, these men reached back to ancient Greece to craft a democracy – of the people, by the people, for the people.  They realized that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  By spreading power across a wide base – the people – and by checking and balancing the necessary powers of government, they created what today is the most politically free, economically rich and militarily powerful nation on earth.  And, I’m pretty sure most of you here today feel as I do about this accomplishment – thank God we’re part of it.

However, despite these accomplishments - perhaps because of these accomplishments - we live in great danger.  Not just the danger of terrorism, though that is certainly present.  Not just the danger of economic collapse, though that risk is certainly present.   The danger we face is much more tragic.  If we are not careful, our blessings will turn to a curse, our vaunted freedom will turn to slavery and our paradise will turn to damnation.  For the intuition of the founding fathers remains true today – power corrupts.  With so much power on our side, we slip easily down a spiritual dead end.  We assume that since we have political, economic and military power, we have it all.  And, logically enough, what is the sense in having all this power if it goes unused?

Despite our great blessings, we seem to be living in great fear.  How do we live with this fear?

We viewed Osama bin Laden as a serious threat to our lives and our loved ones.  There is no doubt that he hated us as few have hated us before.  Surely we had the power - and the right! - to hunt him down and kill him.  Did we assume that by killing the hater, we also killed the hate?

We watched with great fear as our houses and investments dramatically declined in value.  Unemployment remains uncomfortably high - particularly among the less educated, the less experienced, the less white - and even those who have jobs never seem secure in them.  We jealously protect what is left and turn against others who seem to be threatening our livelihoods.  Have we assumed that our future can only be guaranteed by securing our jobs and our possessions?

We revel in the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, the freedom to choose our own lifestyle, to maximize our own opportunities and comfort.  We rationalize our actions towards others as our politically granted freedom of choice.  Have we equated freedom with selfishness, liberty with licentiousness?

Christ is our King, as uncomfortably those words may fall on our American ears.  And as King, he demands our obedience to His will – to God’s will.  As our King, he exerts the only power that cannot corrupt – the power of God’s unconditional, everlasting, infinite love.  It cannot corrupt as it comes from the source of all good, the source of all holiness, and the source of all love.  While our forefathers succeeded in establishing a “more perfect union,” Christ has already called us to live in the most perfect union – the kingdom of God.

It uses the only power that can save us from the one whom we should truly fear – the One who can destroy not only our bodies, not only our wallets, not only our political freedoms, but also our very souls.  And Christ has given us this power to conquer evil:  Love your enemies, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless. 

We experienced and participated in that power in action one year ago.  Faced with unfathomable horror and evil, we responded with love.  Faced with sorrow beyond knowing, we responded with compassion.  Faced with crushing loss, we responded with generosity.  Faced with blackest darkness, we responded with Christ's light.

Our King does not wave a mere flag to rally his troops.  He calls each of us, his faithful subjects, to pick up the cross of salvation and follow Him who loves, Him who serves, Him who saves.  And like kings of old, he will be the ultimate judge of how closely we followed.  He will judge us not by the size and might of our armed forces, but by the size and might of our heart.  He will judge us not by our Constitution, but by our compassion; not by what we have earned, but by what we have given away; not by what we did for a living, but what we did for life.

Our kingdom, the kingdom of God, is besieged by fear and greed.  Our King calls us to his side, to his cross, to love our enemies as He loves us, to care for others as He cares for us, to do His will as it is done in heaven.  How will we answer our King?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

It is enough

A nobleman called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, 'Engage in trade with these until I return.'  When he returned, he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money, to learn what they had gained by trading.

The first came forward and said, 'Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.'  He replied, 'Well done, good servant!
  You have been faithful in this very small matter; take charge of ten cities.'

Then the second came and reported, 'Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.'  And to this servant too he said, 'You, take charge of five cities.'

Then the other servant came and said, 'Sir, here is your gold coin; I kept it stored away in a handkerchief, for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man; you take up what you did not lay down and you harvest what you did not plant.'

He said to him, 'With your own words I shall condemn you, you wicked servant.
  You knew I was a demanding man, taking up what I did not lay down and harvesting what I did not plant; why did you not put my money in a bank?  Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.'  And to those standing by he said, 'Take the gold coin from him and give it to the servant who has ten.' (cf Luke 19:12-24)


Fear is a terrible thing.  Of course, it is.  Terrible things, by definition, are those things which terrorize us, which cause us to fear.  One of our greatest fears is fear of loss – the loss of people or possessions we hold dear, the loss of respect and honor, the loss of love.

In our fear of loss, we desperately cling to what we wish to keep.  We zealously protect it and guard it, lest it be taken away from us.  We anxiously seek more and more, knowing that some loss is unavoidable.

Our fears make sense in a finite world, where gains and losses are commonplace, where one person’s gain may be another person’s loss, where value is equated with price, where more is always better and less is always worse.

This is the world in which the unfortunate third servant lived.  He so feared the loss of his master’s coin – and the subsequent loss of prestige that this would entail – that he could not see his true purpose.

This, also quite unfortunately, is the world in which I often live.  When I assume that my value lies only in that which can be counted, that which can be banked, that which can be summarized on a balance sheet or a list of Facebook friends, I have utterly lost any sense of true purpose, any sense of what I am intended for.

For I, like you, have been created by God and have been created for God.  I have not been created to dwell in the finite-ness of this world, but in the divinity, the grace, the eternity, the faithfulness, and the infinity of God.  For this purpose, God has gifted me – as he has gifted you – with infinite and unconditional love.  It is infinite; it cannot be counted.  It is unconditional; it cannot be lost. 

And all God asks of me – God’s purpose for me – is to give His love away in the same fashion.  For it is giving it away, that I become more aware of its presence.  It is in giving it away, that I live in the economy of grace, where giving multiplies that which is given, where fear of loss is banished and the gratitude of what has been given is plenteous, where more is unnecessary since what has been given – God’s love – is always enough.

Tomorrow, we have set aside a special day to give thanks to God for his great and bountiful gift of love, his gift of life.  Do not fear.  It is enough.  We need nothing more.


Sunday, November 18, 2012

Number one - not!

Wow.  Unusually for me of late, I was closely following a couple college football games on television last night, hoping against hope for a at least one big upset.  As a Domer from South Bend, I was rooting hard for Stanford to upset Oregon or Baylor to beat Kansas State.  Nothing against those Ducks or Wildcats, but they were between my beloved Fighting Irish and a chance for being number one.

Amazingly, both Stanford and Baylor won!  For the first time in decades, Notre Dame fans could chant "We're number one!" and mean it!

Of course, in our heart of hearts, we don't really believe that silly claim, for if you look up "ephemeral" in the dictionary, there is a picture of a football fan pointing a finger to the sky.  Sometimes, it's only the next weekend, when the claim is proven false - once again.  And yet, these claims of position and rank can dominate our our everyday lives and can completely determine how we relate to each other.

We rank ourselves against others based on the schools we attended, the jobs we have, the houses we live in or the money we make.

We rank ourselves against others based on our gender, the color of our skin, our age, the countries we are from, or what we believe or not believe about God.

And we may even rank ourselves against others based on the number of Masses we attend, the length of our prayers, the devotions we perform or the sins we don't commit.

Almost 2000 years ago, St. Paul reminded his disciples in Corinth, as he reminds us to this day, that this need to rank and compare is fundamentally, diametrically, and radically opposed to our faith.  It belies our baptism.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?  Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.  (1 Cor 10:16-17)
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:12-13)
The theologians explain to us that the sacrament of the Eucharist involves two "ontological changes."  Now, "ontological" is certainly a five-dollar word, one that theologians love to use, but it simply means that it relates to the very existence of something or someone.

The first "ontological" change is one we have known since our first instructions in the faith: the bread is mysteriously changed into Christ's body and the wine changed into His blood.  But this change is truly a mystery, undetected by our mere human perceptions, for we see no change to the elements, we taste no change, we smell no change, we simply believe.

The second "ontological" change we may not think about as much, yet it is much more demonstrable than the first.  For St. Paul reminds us that as we partake of the Eucharist, sharing the one loaf and the one cup, our community undergoes a change.  We become, as Paul says, one body.  When the minister presents the host to us and states "The Body of Christ," our "Amen" asserts that not only has the bread been changed, but we - as a community - are also changed into the Body of Christ.

And with this faith, our community changes from one based on rank to one based on equality, from one based on competition to one based on mutuality, from one based on retribution to one based on reconciliation, from one based on power to one based on love.  We turn to the other, rather than the self.  We become one God, and thus one with each other.

"We're number one!" - Not hardly.

"We're one!" - with the grace of God, most assuredly.

Monday, November 12, 2012

An Attitude of Gratitude


As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem, he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.  They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"

And when he saw them, he said, "Go show yourselves to the priests."  As they were going they were cleansed.  And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  He was a Samaritan.

Jesus said in reply, "Ten were cleansed, were they not?  Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"

Then he said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you."  (Luke 17:11-19)



At some point, every parent faces a certain challenge – teaching their children to say the “magic words.”  Please and thank you.  “Please” is easy.  After all, there is immediate positive reinforcement; you say please, you get what you want.  Thank you is another story.  Kids don’t see that thank you’s get them much of anything. 

Many, many years ago, as mere little guys, my brothers and I were always battling our mom's insistence on proper thank you notes.  My youngest brother had a clever strategy for deferring the dreaded task.  His birthday was at the end of June, almost exactly six months from Christmas.  He would claim that he was waiting until Christmas and would thank everyone once for both gifts.  Of course, when Christmas rolled around, it was only six months until his birthday.  No sense with thank you notes then, he’d just wait and kill two - or was that three, or maybe four - birds with one stone.

Grandparents make this parenting challenge even more difficult.  My mother-in-law, Pat, would send things to the kids all year long!  We’d say, “send a thank you to Grandma or she’ll stop sending you these goodies.”  Of course, the postman was never overwhelmed by the mail that followed, but that didn't stop Pat!  The gifts kept coming!   What’s a parent to do?

Of course, Pat and other grandparents aren't the only ones whose generosity is unstopped by lack of thanks.  God is on their side.  In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus offers a gift beyond wildest imaginings.  As lepers in the ancient world, the ten supplicants were not simply sick; they were cast out from any contact with society.  So Jesus did not simply cure their disease, he reunited them with the community, made them one again with humanity.  And yet only one came back to thank Jesus for this great gift.  Jesus praises this man, but, as the kids might be quick to point out, despite their ingratitude, the other nine lepers are not “uncured.” 

What’s the deal?  Why should we have to thank God for his grace if, as its very name implies, God freely and unconditionally gives it to us?  Why does Jesus make a connection between gratitude and salvation if the other lepers are cured despite their ingratitude?

Perhaps our model of God is deficient, and therefore, our concept of gratitude is flawed.  We imply to our children that in giving thanks, they will encourage others to continue their generosity so that the gifts keep coming.  Gratitude is simply a subtle instrument of self gratification.  As givers, that’s the way we work, right?  We expect thanks when we give a gift.  If we give a wedding gift and don’t receive the obligatory note of thanks, we feel miffed.  We look at that couple in a different light.  See what they get from us on that first anniversary.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.

We assume that God acts in the same way.  If we remember to thank God, then He will continue to remember us in our need.  And, thus, we have reduced the eternal, almighty, all-knowing, all loving God to a simple vending machine – put in the right coins and hit the right buttons and we receive grace.  Fortunately for us, God is much greater than a heavenly vending machine.

God loves us and graces us not for what we do, but for who we are.  He created us out of love, he created us in his very image and likeness, and he created us to be with him in love for all eternity.  We are for God.  Yet we live as if we don’t believe this at all.

Instead, we take our lives and all that God has given us for granted.  Our goal then becomes to work hard to make our lives as good as they can be for us and for our children.  And yet this hard work never completely satisfies.  It seems we never have enough.  There is always something that seems just beyond our reach, but if we work just a little bit harder, it can be ours.  Of course, if we get it, there is then something else just beyond that, and the cycle continues.  We never work hard enough, we never satisfy ourselves, and on our worst days, we feel that we are simply not good enough.

We seek the new and improved, but once we get it, it quickly becomes the old and the ordinary.  We think that more is always better – more possessions, more pleasure, more power, more beauty, more friends, etc. – yet we soon learn that more may be better for a while, but more is never enough. 

Mary Jo Leddy, in her book, Radical Gratitude, refers to this state as perpetual dissatisfaction.  It is ugly, but it is the lifeblood of our money-based economy.  Without our constant yearning for the newer car, the bigger house, the latest fashions; without our obsession for the new and improved; without our mantra of “more is always better,” we spend less, the economy falters, jobs are lost, and our material wealth and our self-worth shrinks.  We no longer live for God, but only for ourselves.

Jesus praises the grateful leper for he has broken this cycle of dissatisfaction.  The man has recognized the source of his life, the source of all that he is, the source of all that he has, and it is enough.  His sight is no longer focused on what he lacks, but on what he has already been given.  

When we come together here to celebrate the Eucharist – the root word for Eucharist is the same word that Luke uses to describe the man’s thanks and praise to God – we recognize that God has given us our very lives as a gift, that God loves us with a love that knows no bounds, that He gave us his only Son to die for us that we might have eternal life with Him.  It does not change God, it changes us.  When we live with this radical, at-our-very-core gratitude, we, like the leper, appreciate and honor what we have, not obsess over and crave for what we are missing.  We can see ourselves for who we are – loved children of God – rather that constantly trying to be who other people want us to be.  And unlike the perpetually dissatisfying more, this is enough, for it is the fruit of God’s infinite and everlasting love.

It is enough.  Thank God.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Got prayer?


Why do I pray?  In some sense, it seems so unnecessary, even illogical.
If God is all-knowing, God is all-powerful, and God is all-loving, then He knows everything I need, has the power to give me everything I need, and loves me enough to want to give everything I need.  Why are my prayers of petition necessary?
If God is secure in his being - and who could be more secure - then why are my prayers of praise necessary?
If God loves me unconditionally, then what do my prayers of thanksgiving or even contrition mean?  God still loves me.
Yet Jesus insists that I pray.  And he leads by example.  The Gospels are filled with instances of Jesus at prayer.  The disciples see this and ask Jesus to teach them how to pray.
And in teaching them how to pray, Jesus gives us insight into why we pray.
Jesus begins the prayer with “Abba”, an Aramaic term of endearment for father.  In English, it would be more properly translated as “Daddy.”  Of course, since every person is created by God, every person, whether Christian or not, believer or not, is a child of God.  But by using the intimate term “abba,” Jesus teaches us that, as his followers, our relationship to God, our status as children of God, is much deeper and more intimate than that of creator and creature.  Instead, it is the relationship of a loving parent and a loved child. Our anxiety is replaced by comfort and peace. 
Jesus then teaches that “when we pray,” we begin with praising God, for hallowed is his name.  In ancient thinking, a reference to one’s “name” implied the entire essence of the person.  God is the holy one, the source of all that is holy and all that is good.  Our pride is replaced by humility.
As Christians, Jesus has us pray for the entire world, for God’s kingdom to come – a kingdom of peace, a kingdom of justice, a kingdom of love.  He then connects the coming of the kingdom with the doing of God’s will, "on earth as it is heaven."  Jesus places prayer for God’s will and prayer for others ahead of our own desires.  Our greed is turned to generosity.
Jesus has us pray for “daily” bread, that which sustains us, that which is necessary for our survival.  This reminds us that our sustenance is an every day affair.  At the very end we still depend on God to protect us from temptation, the final test.   Our self-righteousness is turned to gratitude.
We pray for forgiveness, for we forgive all who do wrong to us.  We are reminded of our call to emulate Christ who demonstrated forgiveness to the point of forgiving even those tortured and killed him.  Our vengeance is transformed to mercy.
C. S. Lewis had it right.  When a skeptic once asked him why he thought his meager prayers could change the almighty and immutable God whom he professed, his answer was simple.  He said that his prayers did not change God, they changed him.
Whether in praise, petition, thanksgiving, contrition, or contemplation, the essence of prayer is placing us in the transforming presence of God, making us the peaceful, humble, generous, grateful, merciful servants whom God created us to be, whom Jesus calls us to be, whom the Spirit gives us the strength and courage to be.
With confidence, let us pray.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Oh When the Saints...


Since the earliest days of the Church, Christians have venerated those people who showed heroic devotion to the faith, to the truth, to the life and the way that Jesus taught and embodied.  Perhaps our very first hagiography, or saint-story, is told in chapters six and seven of the Acts of the Apostles where we read about Stephen, one of the first deacons and first martyrs for the faith.

Remembering and venerating the saints is an important part of many Christians' traditions and an important part of our spiritual growth.  The saints' lives are edifying - they show us how different people in different places and different times, sinners just like us, followed Christ and found themselves with Christ in everlasting glory.

Some, though, have argued that a cult of saints is unnecessary, perhaps even sacrilegious.  For these people, the only model is Jesus himself.  WWJD is their watchword.  Simply consider “what would Jesus do”, act accordingly, and all will be right in the world.  Of course, Jesus is the perfect model, and WWJD can certainly be a useful discipline.  But if we ignore the saints, or pretend that they are irrelevant, are we then to suppose that nobody, in the two thousand years since Christ walked this earth, has ever followed His way?  Would't it be the ultimate hubris to believe that we will be the first successful disciples, simply because we've adopted WWJD as our way of life?

We are mere mortals.  We discourage easily.  The saints offer us hope that even when we fail, even when we sin, the Spirit is stronger than us.  The Holy Spirit has worked through countless millions of people just like you and me, helping to bring God’s kingdom to light.  These people are part of the Church to this very day, part of the “communion of saints” that we proclaim in the Apostles' Creed.  And the Church has officially recognized some of these people as “big S” saints.  To ignore their stories, to ignore their friendship, is to walk Jesus’ way with legs shackled, arms tied to our side, and dark glasses clouding our sight.  I guess it’s possible to do this, but I’d rather not.

There are thousands of saints that the Church recognizes by name.  Of course, the Church doesn't “make” saints - only God can do that.  However, for the past thousand years or so, the Church has “canonized” certain people who it believes led holy and virtuous lives.  Before then, saints were declared by acclamation, generally by those people around whom the saint lived out his or her life here on earth.  Of course, these named saints are only a tiny fraction of those who presumably are in heaven.

The fascinating thing about saints is that they come from all walks of life and from all parts of the world.  There are saints from privileged backgrounds like St. Katherine Drexel and St. Thomas More, chancellor to King Henry VIII.  There are saints from very humble backgrounds like St. Isidore the Farmer and many of Jesus’ first disciples, poor fishermen from the dusty backwater of Galilee.  There are saints from Africa like St. Charles Lwanga and St. Augustine of Hippo, saints from North America like St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, saints from South America like St. Rose of Lima and St. Martin de Porres, and saints from Asia like St. Paul Miki and St. Lorenzo Ruiz.

The thousands of saints all have their unique stories and there is bound to be a saint who experiences may match quite closely with your own.  And this leads us to a second benefit we gain from our veneration of the saints.  In addition to modelling Christian living for us, the saints are potential prayer partners in our times of need.  Again, some have claimed that Catholics, in praying to saints, are blaspheming God.  But we don’t pray to the saints in the sense that they are replacements for God, we pray with the saints just as we pray with our friends and our neighbors at Mass.  We pray with the saints just as St. Paul prayed for and with his disciples, and as he asked them to pray for and with him.

Some saints are patrons of certain causes, perhaps due to some characteristic in their own lives, the manner in which they died, some trouble they may have endured, or some feat they may have accomplished.  That patron saint may be a particularly apt prayer partner when faced with particular situations or challenges.

For example, St. Anthony of Padua was once teaching about the Psalms at a monastery.  Now, Anthony had a hand-copied Book of the Psalms that he used in his teaching.  Since Anthony lived in the early twelfth century, long before the printing press, books like this were very scarce and almost impossible to replace.  One of the monks in the monastery recognized the value in this book and stole it and ran off.  There was much consternation but Anthony seemed rather sanguine about the affair.  He simply prayed for the wayward monk.  Soon after, the monk came to his senses and returned to the monastery, restoring Anthony’s precious book to him and seeking his forgiveness.  Today, we call on St. Anthony to pray with us that we might find some lost object as dear to us as Anthony’s psalter was to him, or failing to find it, we might receive the grace to accept our loss as with St. Anthony's equanimity and love.

So where do we find out more about our friends, the saints?  Since each saint has a feast day (and each day has at least a few saints who share that day as their feast day), “saint-of-the-day” books are a natural.  Two favorites of mine are 365 Saints, by Woodeene Koenig-Bricker, and All Saints, by Robert Ellsberg.  

Ms. Koenig-Bricker’s book has just a paragraph or two on a particular saint each day, but also includes how that saint may relate to our lives today and a closing affirmation or prayer for the day tied in somehow to that day’s saint.  Mr. Ellsberg gives us a much more detailed story of a saint for each day, but no more than we can easily read in just a few minutes.  The twist is that his stories of the saints often cross-reference other saints in the book.  It's hard to just read about the saint for that day without jumping around in the book to read about the connection one saint may have had with another.   Both books contain mostly “big S” saints, some more well known than others.  However, both also contain some stories of other holy people who may not have been canonized by the Church, but who may have some enlightening aspect of their lives.  Mr. Ellsberg even includes a few non-Catholic Christians and even a handful of non-Christians, so we can see how others may have led holy, that is, God-centered, lives. 

While not organized on a day-by-day basis, My Life With the Saints, by James Martin, S.J., is an often humorous memoir of how the saints, including St. Jude of the sock drawer, have influenced his life.  

The Internet is also a gold mine of information about the saints.  An example that is fairly reliable, interesting, and easy-to-use is from Catholic Online (www.catholic.org/saints).  It includes search capabilities that allow you to find basic information on thousands of saints.

Study the saints, pray with the saints, for each of us is called to be a saint, too.  What better way to learn what we are called to be than to know the stories of those who have already been there, done that.  What better friends can we have to help us on the way than those who have tread the path ahead of us.

Happy studying, happy praying.   

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Mighty mites


Occasionally, I am startled and deeply humbled by how far short my efforts fall compared to the demands of the Gospel.  In fact, what I have come to understand is that if am not humbled by what I read in the Gospel, it is not because I have been miraculously transformed into saintliness.  On the contrary, if I am not humbled by what I read, then I have not paid enough attention to the reading.  This Sunday's passage - the widow's mite - is a case in point.

Jesus sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury.

Many rich people put in large sums.  A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.
Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them,  "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more
than all the other contributors to the treasury.   For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth,
but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood."  (Mark 12: 41-44)


When Jesus lauds the widow for contributing “from her livelihood,” literally, contributing her very life, he is both hinting at his own soon-to-be-realized sacrifice and offering us a model of giving totally and sacrificially of our own lives.  How often have I done that?  Not even close.

Okay, giving up my life, that’s a pretty extreme demand, but do I even try to give sacrificially?  At least that would be a step in the widow’s direction.  To help me with that, let’s explore another aspect of the widow’s actions.

What must the widow have been thinking when she made this contribution?  Sure, the Jews considered contributing to the Temple as a direct command from God, a giving back to God some small, small portion of what he gave to them.  Yet surely there was plenty of reasons why she should be exempt from giving.

The priests in Jesus’ day were among the wealthiest citizens of Jerusalem.  The temple was a vast source of wealth for them.  Did they really need her meager donation?  Or would they just waste her contribution on more extravagant gowns and lavish feasts?

Just before this passage, Jesus tells us that the priests and scribes did not always act as the holy people they purported to be.  Did they even deserve her two little coins? Or would they just use them to take further advantage of people like her, the poor and the powerless?

The Temple was a truly magnificent building, perhaps the most impressive edifice in the entire Roman empire outside the city of Rome.  The widow could easily rationalize that her small contribution could not possibly add anything to it.

Despite these justifications for withholding her contribution, she gives - not just one coin, but two!  One coin  would have fulfilled her obligation.  What made her decide to give the second coin when just giving the first coin would have left her hungry for a day?  Did she consider this in her calculations?

I’m guessing not.  She was a bit reckless here, in the literal sense of not considering, or perhaps not caring about, the consequences of her action.  Or perhaps she depended on God to not let her jar of flour run empty or her jug of oil to run dry.  That’s my key. If I can be a bit more reckless in my giving, I can develop habits which lead me to more sacrificial giving. 

But, of course, I have been well-trained to avoid being reckless with my money, to be prudent.  Ben Franklin runs deep in my veins: a penny saved is a penny earned; God helps those who help themselves. 

How often I face the same considerations as the widow and make the opposite decision.  I see a beggar in the street and may think, “if he tried to get a job, he wouldn't need to beg – he doesn't deserve my charity.”  Or maybe, “if I gave him money, he’d just waste it on booze or drugs. I'd just be wasting my charity.”  Or maybe, “I only have a few bucks in my pocket and I didn't bring any lunch to eat today, I’ll give him some money next time.”  The widow did so much better than me. 

Perhaps I’ll never get the opportunity to match the sacrificial nature of the widow's offering, but if I could just put aside my prudence for a time and give the next beggar or whoever needs my help all the cash I happened to have in my pocket that day - don't count it, just give it - I could approach the recklessness of her gift, the recklessness of her love.

So that's the plan.  Stop rationalizing.  Stop counting the cost.  Stop being Ben Franklin and start being the widow: give recklessly; love recklessly.  Trust God to pick up the pieces.