July 24, 2009
17th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
To quote George Carlin:
“That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!
Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the place!
Sometimes you leave your house to go on vacation. And you gotta take some of your stuff with you. Gotta take about two big suitcases full of stuff, when you go on vacation. You gotta take a smaller version of your house. You get down to the hotel room and you open up your suitcase and you put away all your stuff. And even though you're far away from home, you start to get used to it, you start to feel okay, because after all, you do have some of your stuff with you.”
We never have enough stuff, do we? We seem to have this deep hole in us that we try to fill up with more and more stuff. What we have never seems to be enough. We are bombarded with thousands and thousands of messages telling us to get more stuff. Whether we can afford it or not. Because that’s how we’ve come to identify ourselves. By our stuff.
Sort of gotten ourselves in a bit of trouble doing it, haven’t we? When it’s all stripped away, it’s not the fault of the banks or the car companies or the government. It’s our fault. We’ve bought into the fallacy that the American dream has become. We’re never satisfied. We’ve become the enablers of disaster.
Well, most of us are doing with less and less stuff these days, aren’t we? And many of us are actually selling a lot of our stuff, even our houses, so we can have the stuff that is truly necessary and valuable. Having better stuff than the folks next door is not so important these days, is it?
I guess the main difference between us and God is that the more we acquire the less satisfied we are. We feel the need to get more and more and more, and we’re never fulfilled. Jesus is different. What he gives he gives in such abundance that everyone has their fill and there is even stuff left over.
Everyone has his fill. Not just the one who brought the loaves and fishes had something to eat. Everyone did. Because no one was left out there was enough. Only when everyone is included in the feast can Jesus work his miracle. Only then can there be an abundance. When we exclude others from the feast we block Jesus’ miraculous mercy.
Pope Benedict issued an encyclical this month entitled “Caritas in Veritate”. Charity in Truth. In it he builds upon centuries of Church teaching on justice and the economy. It is very fitting that this comes out at this time. Perhaps we’re ready now to hear the message it contains. Without all the stuff in the way. It’s a 30,000 word encyclical, so I won’t get into too much detail, but you should read it. It takes the message of charity in today’s gospel and applies it to the world economy. The basic theme is that stuff should not be just for a few, but that everyone has a human right to the stuff they need. This applies not just to individuals but to nations as well.
According to Benedict, man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life, not the other way around. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Charity is necessary for justice, but without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. The primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is the human person in his or her integrity. Therefore, every economic decision has a moral consequence. Every economic decision. What house you buy, what car, where you vacation, what you buy at Wal Mart. Because every time you buy something you affect someone else’s life.
The US Catholic bishops issued a statement on the economy in 1996 saying much the same things. The economy exists for the person, not the person for the economy. All economic activity should be shaped by moral principles. Economic choices and institutions must be judged by how they protect or undermine the life and dignity of the human person, support the family and preserve the common good. A fundamental moral measure of any economy is how the poor and vulnerable are faring.
One man may be able to produce an amount sufficient for his and his family’s own needs. A society can produce an abundance to feed not just themselves but other nations as well. Believe it or not, it is times like these that we need to focus not just on our own needs but on the needs of the world. There can be a tendency to hunker down and hoard our stuff. Jesus says that if we do that we will not allow him to work his miracle. If that small boy had hoarded his loaves and fish no one else would have had anything, and there would not have been anything left over.
Now is not the time to conserve. Now is the time to give.
But if God is involved there can be more than enough for all in the world. That’s where the miracle happens. We may not be able to change the heart of a senator or a president to pass and sign bills and treaties that protect and enhance life and are fair and equitable for everyone in this country and for people of all nations, but God can. But you and I have to take the first step and vote those people into office. And you and I may have a hard time figuring out what stuff is important to keep and what is meant to be given away, but God knows.
The miracle of Jesus in today’s gospel is not that he multiplied the loaves and fishes; it’s that everybody was satisfied. They didn’t want any more. They were content with what they had. That’s what happens when we’re filled up with the right stuff. Not the stuff that decays or goes out of style, but the truth of Jesus Christ. That’s the stuff that we were meant to have, and that’s the stuff we were meant to share with the entire world.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A Matter of Life & Death
June 27, 2009
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
You’ve all seen the pro life bumper sticker that proclaims, “Choose Life”. I don’t think one that reads “Choose Death” would sell very well. But is life a choice? Can and do we choose to live? And who really wants to choose to die? Doesn’t life just happen to you? I didn’t consciously ask to be created. Neither did you. And if I had a choice I wouldn’t want to die. I’d want to live forever. And all that pain in the world. Who would choose that? Does pain just happen? If I really had a choice I’d choose to have no pain in my life, wouldn’t you?
The first reading today is tremendously important, addressing some of our deepest questions: “Why does Death exist?” and “Did God make death?” The Book of Wisdom says that God did not create death, and He is not happy about it. All that He created was meant to be wholesome, not destructive. In the Book of Genesis, when God created the world, at the end of each day he looked at what he had created and saw that it was good. Until the sixth day, after he created man and woman, and he looked and saw that it was very good.
God cannot create evil. Wait a minute, you say, God can do anything, so of course he can create evil. But think about it. God is love, and true love cannot be evil, it is always good. Therefore it is not in God’s nature to do or create anything less than good. Evil must come from somewhere else.
Why then does death exist? Well, there are two very wrong yet opposite opinions that people hold regarding death, pain and suffering. The first is sort of like, “Stuff happens.” There is a fatalistic idea that we are the victim of forces beyond our control. The ancients believed that we have no control over our lives and so have no responsibility for our destiny. “It’s all in the stars,” they would say, or it’s all up to the will of the gods. And some religions believe in Karma or Joss. Fate or luck. That’s not what we believe. The Book of Wisdom tells us that we do have control over our destiny: if we follow God we will be raised up by Him. If we turn from Him, we turn to death.
The opposite and perhaps more widespread wrong opinion on why death exists is that somehow God wills it. A wife, husband or child dies. Well meaning people and even clergy will say, "It was God's will." This is blatantly wrong. God does not will death. We've got to get the concept, "It was God's will" out of our vocabulary when dealing with death. Remember the Book of Wisdom, "God did not make death and does not delight in the death of the living."
Why, then, does death exist? Death exists because we can choose good. The ability to choose good means that we can also choose not to do good, and that's evil. The ability to choose life means that we have the ability to reject life. That's death. Evil does not exist for the creatures who do not have the ability to choose it. Neither does good.
Perhaps you may be saying to yourself, "Then wouldn’t we be better if we couldn't choose at all." Would we? Do you really wish you were a robot? Or a slave? Do you realize that if you could not choose you could not give and receive love. After all, real love is a matter of a choice. If people truly love each other they choose each other over others. In fact they even choose each other over themselves.
The ability to choose results in the ability to love and be loved. It also results in the ability to hate and be hated. God did not create hatred, but He gave us free will which means we have the ability to hate. He created life and gave us the ability to choose life and receive life. That also means that we have the ability to choose death and to be victimized by the choices that others make. Still, it is better to love and suffer hatred then to be incapable of ever experiencing love. And it is better to suffer the effects of death than never to live.
So then, how do we understand death? Death is due to the decision for evil we all suffer from. To fight death we have to choose life. At the same time, we recognize that ultimately we will all die, but if we have worked for what is good and right, our death will only be physical. We shall live forever with God.
Death doesn't just happen. Nor is it God's will. It is the effect of evil in the world brought about by the ability to choose. God does not want anyone to die, but He does want us to be able to choose life, and to be able to choose love, even if this means that we can also choose hatred and death. And remember, God took the very thing that keeps us from him – death – and turned it to be the thing that brings us to eternal life. Jesus’ chose his own death to bring us life forever with him.
It’s a bit more complicated than a bumper sticker, but then, most important things are. But I find that phrase, “Choose Life” to be very comforting, because it gives me hope that no matter what the world throws my way, I still have a choice. Life is mine to embrace or mine to throw away. As Mother Teresa once said, “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is bliss, taste it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it.
13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle B
You’ve all seen the pro life bumper sticker that proclaims, “Choose Life”. I don’t think one that reads “Choose Death” would sell very well. But is life a choice? Can and do we choose to live? And who really wants to choose to die? Doesn’t life just happen to you? I didn’t consciously ask to be created. Neither did you. And if I had a choice I wouldn’t want to die. I’d want to live forever. And all that pain in the world. Who would choose that? Does pain just happen? If I really had a choice I’d choose to have no pain in my life, wouldn’t you?
The first reading today is tremendously important, addressing some of our deepest questions: “Why does Death exist?” and “Did God make death?” The Book of Wisdom says that God did not create death, and He is not happy about it. All that He created was meant to be wholesome, not destructive. In the Book of Genesis, when God created the world, at the end of each day he looked at what he had created and saw that it was good. Until the sixth day, after he created man and woman, and he looked and saw that it was very good.
God cannot create evil. Wait a minute, you say, God can do anything, so of course he can create evil. But think about it. God is love, and true love cannot be evil, it is always good. Therefore it is not in God’s nature to do or create anything less than good. Evil must come from somewhere else.
Why then does death exist? Well, there are two very wrong yet opposite opinions that people hold regarding death, pain and suffering. The first is sort of like, “Stuff happens.” There is a fatalistic idea that we are the victim of forces beyond our control. The ancients believed that we have no control over our lives and so have no responsibility for our destiny. “It’s all in the stars,” they would say, or it’s all up to the will of the gods. And some religions believe in Karma or Joss. Fate or luck. That’s not what we believe. The Book of Wisdom tells us that we do have control over our destiny: if we follow God we will be raised up by Him. If we turn from Him, we turn to death.
The opposite and perhaps more widespread wrong opinion on why death exists is that somehow God wills it. A wife, husband or child dies. Well meaning people and even clergy will say, "It was God's will." This is blatantly wrong. God does not will death. We've got to get the concept, "It was God's will" out of our vocabulary when dealing with death. Remember the Book of Wisdom, "God did not make death and does not delight in the death of the living."
Why, then, does death exist? Death exists because we can choose good. The ability to choose good means that we can also choose not to do good, and that's evil. The ability to choose life means that we have the ability to reject life. That's death. Evil does not exist for the creatures who do not have the ability to choose it. Neither does good.
Perhaps you may be saying to yourself, "Then wouldn’t we be better if we couldn't choose at all." Would we? Do you really wish you were a robot? Or a slave? Do you realize that if you could not choose you could not give and receive love. After all, real love is a matter of a choice. If people truly love each other they choose each other over others. In fact they even choose each other over themselves.
The ability to choose results in the ability to love and be loved. It also results in the ability to hate and be hated. God did not create hatred, but He gave us free will which means we have the ability to hate. He created life and gave us the ability to choose life and receive life. That also means that we have the ability to choose death and to be victimized by the choices that others make. Still, it is better to love and suffer hatred then to be incapable of ever experiencing love. And it is better to suffer the effects of death than never to live.
So then, how do we understand death? Death is due to the decision for evil we all suffer from. To fight death we have to choose life. At the same time, we recognize that ultimately we will all die, but if we have worked for what is good and right, our death will only be physical. We shall live forever with God.
Death doesn't just happen. Nor is it God's will. It is the effect of evil in the world brought about by the ability to choose. God does not want anyone to die, but He does want us to be able to choose life, and to be able to choose love, even if this means that we can also choose hatred and death. And remember, God took the very thing that keeps us from him – death – and turned it to be the thing that brings us to eternal life. Jesus’ chose his own death to bring us life forever with him.
It’s a bit more complicated than a bumper sticker, but then, most important things are. But I find that phrase, “Choose Life” to be very comforting, because it gives me hope that no matter what the world throws my way, I still have a choice. Life is mine to embrace or mine to throw away. As Mother Teresa once said, “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is bliss, taste it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it.
Let the Spirit Move You!
May 31, 2009
Pentecost Sunday
Cycle B
Does the spirit move you?! Have you ever felt compelled to stand up and sing? Have you ever felt so moved by something that happened to you that you just couldn’t keep it in, you just had to tell everyone about it? Have you ever had such a deep joy in your heart that you felt you were just going to burst? You probably felt that way when you saw your children being born. Or when you bought that new Escalade. Or when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.
Have you ever had that feeling in church?... Well, no, Deacon Tom, of course not. We’re Catholic. Catholics don’t do joy. We do piety. We do obligation. We do donuts.
You just heard the story of the first Mass, of the birthday of the Church. What do you mean, you say? Well, they were all gathered together in assembly… Check. They had a priest; actually they had a pope and ten bishops…Check. I assume that while they were all there they talked about stuff, and most likely they told Jesus stories… Check. And they also probably ate, and you know what happened when they broke the bread… Check. Yup, just like us here today.
Well, not exactly. They didn’t have a magnificent building, or a piano, and all the fancy furniture and gold plates and cups. They didn’t even have the New Testament or a tabernacle. But what they did have was all they needed. They had the Holy Spirit. And more importantly, they recognized the presence of the Spirit among them, and it moved them deeply. The Spirit moved them. And they found joy.
So, maybe not just like us here today.
The apostles were profoundly changed when they received the Holy Spirit. They were cowering in the upper room, unsure and afraid. When the Spirit came upon them they immediately understood their new role in the world, and they opened wide the doors and began to preach the good news.
The Spirit does that. When we have the Spirit within us we have a deeper understanding of God’s plan for us, and we are then compelled to go out and do something about it. Knowledge by itself is nice, but does not produce fruit. If we are to produce fruit we need to put that knowledge to use in the kingdom. In fact, if we have the Spirit we really have no choice but to spread the good news. We are compelled to get out and tell people about it. When’s the last time you did that? When’s the last time you even talked about God outside this building? When’s the last time you talked about God inside this building?
I have been working with a company in Ogden that designs and builds churches for non-denominational evangelicals. I have been struck by the depth of their joy in their faith. Unlike a lot of Catholics, me included, they are not embarrassed to talk about their faith in public. They are not just trying to proselytize, although they do a lot of that; their faith is integral to who they are, and they cannot keep it in. They have a joy that I rarely feel anymore. I have really felt the Holy Spirit at work in them.
We are being compartmentalized more and more in our society. We have put up all sorts of barriers to spreading the Good News to the world. And we put them up ourselves. They are not forced on us. We do it willingly. We have created great divisions among God’s people. As the world is shrinking through advances in technology we should be able to proclaim that Good News more effectively than at any time in history. But is Jesus growing larger as our world becomes smaller, or is it the other way around?
We claim every Sunday that we are an apostolic church. One, holy, catholic and apostolic. What does it mean to be apostolic? What did the apostles do? They preached and taught, they healed and forgave. They offered their lives up for others. They didn’t just die for their faith, they lived for their faith. They were invaded by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and they had to bring the fruits of that Spirit out into the world. They left that first Mass and brought that Mass out into the world in a spirit of unity. But first they had to leave the comfort and safety of the upper room.
The Holy Spirit gave the apostles the ability to cross language barriers and cultural divides and speak the universal truth of Jesus Christ to all who would listen. Jesus is all about unity, not division. His message of peace is designed to bring us all together. Why does it seem that the greatest divisions are among the very followers of Christ? Forget language differences, forget cultural differences. Christians are the most divided religion in the world. There are more denominations in Christianity than in any other religion. There seem to be more divisions in the Catholic Church than in any other. We have fallen short in our apostolic mission. We have become splintered. We are broken and we are in need of forgiveness.
It’s not by accident that Jesus tied the gift of the Holy Spirit to forgiveness. He could have said anything to the apostles when he appeared to them that night. He is God, he knew what he wanted to say, and he never wasted words. He didn’t tell them to build this huge hierarchical church. He didn’t tell them to go back to school and get degrees in theology. He gave the task to the apostles to forgive sins. He gave them the understanding that God is all about forgiveness. His spirit is a forgiving spirit. And that forgiveness brings peace. All the rest is commentary.
We also have the power to forgive sins, you know. And we have the power to retain them. When someone hurts us, we hold the power of forgiveness. And if we withhold that power, the sins are retained. Not retained in heaven, because God always forgives. We hold them within ourselves, so that they stew and become bitter. When we retain the sins of those who hurt us, we take them upon ourselves, and they become ours. Without forgiveness there can be no peace. Without forgiveness there is no Spirit within us.
We cannot exist without the Holy Spirit. St. Paul says that in Christ we live and move and have our being. We have our very being. We exist because of Christ living within us, whether we acknowledge it or not. And the manifestation of Christ is through the Spirit, because it is a creating Spirit. Just because we do not constantly think about the air we breathe does not mean it isn’t there, giving us life with each passing breath. Just because we don’t acknowledge the love we have for each other every minute of the day doesn’t mean we are not loved. And just because we may not even think God exists doesn’t make it so. The Holy Spirit is a reality, and realities don’t go away just because we don’t believe in them.
But how do we know the Holy Spirit exists? We have seen Jesus, who said to Philip, “If you see me you see the Father”, but we cannot see the Holy Spirit. How can we know the Spirit?
We cannot see air. It is invisible to our eye. It is only when air moves that we experience it. We draw in our breath, moving the air. We feel it moving in the breezes around us. We see the wind’s affect on the things it moves about. It’s the same with the Spirit. We only experience it when it moves things; when it moves us.
How do you know love exists? Show it to me. We can’t see love itself. Instead, we see the manifestations of love. We see the results of love. Love is always fruitful, by definition. Therefore, we know of love by its fruits. So therefore, if God is love and the Holy Spirit is God, we know of the Spirit by His manifestation, by His fruit.
The Jewish feast of Pentecost celebrates the ripening of the Spring grain and the giving of the first fruits back to the Lord. It is fitting that God chose to send the Holy Spirit upon his church at the very time they were celebrating the fruitfulness of the earth. Because the Spirit is all about fruitfulness.
Just as we know the Holy Spirit exists because of the manifestations of the spirit, so also the world knows the Spirit exists because of our actions. Whenever we act with love that’s the spirit working. But we must act or it’s not love.
What did Jesus say first that night in the upper room? “Peace be with you”. The Spirit of Christ always brings peace. His next words are pretty clear. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” So get off your tail and get out the door.
And let the Spirit move you.
Pentecost Sunday
Cycle B
Does the spirit move you?! Have you ever felt compelled to stand up and sing? Have you ever felt so moved by something that happened to you that you just couldn’t keep it in, you just had to tell everyone about it? Have you ever had such a deep joy in your heart that you felt you were just going to burst? You probably felt that way when you saw your children being born. Or when you bought that new Escalade. Or when the Red Sox finally won the World Series.
Have you ever had that feeling in church?... Well, no, Deacon Tom, of course not. We’re Catholic. Catholics don’t do joy. We do piety. We do obligation. We do donuts.
You just heard the story of the first Mass, of the birthday of the Church. What do you mean, you say? Well, they were all gathered together in assembly… Check. They had a priest; actually they had a pope and ten bishops…Check. I assume that while they were all there they talked about stuff, and most likely they told Jesus stories… Check. And they also probably ate, and you know what happened when they broke the bread… Check. Yup, just like us here today.
Well, not exactly. They didn’t have a magnificent building, or a piano, and all the fancy furniture and gold plates and cups. They didn’t even have the New Testament or a tabernacle. But what they did have was all they needed. They had the Holy Spirit. And more importantly, they recognized the presence of the Spirit among them, and it moved them deeply. The Spirit moved them. And they found joy.
So, maybe not just like us here today.
The apostles were profoundly changed when they received the Holy Spirit. They were cowering in the upper room, unsure and afraid. When the Spirit came upon them they immediately understood their new role in the world, and they opened wide the doors and began to preach the good news.
The Spirit does that. When we have the Spirit within us we have a deeper understanding of God’s plan for us, and we are then compelled to go out and do something about it. Knowledge by itself is nice, but does not produce fruit. If we are to produce fruit we need to put that knowledge to use in the kingdom. In fact, if we have the Spirit we really have no choice but to spread the good news. We are compelled to get out and tell people about it. When’s the last time you did that? When’s the last time you even talked about God outside this building? When’s the last time you talked about God inside this building?
I have been working with a company in Ogden that designs and builds churches for non-denominational evangelicals. I have been struck by the depth of their joy in their faith. Unlike a lot of Catholics, me included, they are not embarrassed to talk about their faith in public. They are not just trying to proselytize, although they do a lot of that; their faith is integral to who they are, and they cannot keep it in. They have a joy that I rarely feel anymore. I have really felt the Holy Spirit at work in them.
We are being compartmentalized more and more in our society. We have put up all sorts of barriers to spreading the Good News to the world. And we put them up ourselves. They are not forced on us. We do it willingly. We have created great divisions among God’s people. As the world is shrinking through advances in technology we should be able to proclaim that Good News more effectively than at any time in history. But is Jesus growing larger as our world becomes smaller, or is it the other way around?
We claim every Sunday that we are an apostolic church. One, holy, catholic and apostolic. What does it mean to be apostolic? What did the apostles do? They preached and taught, they healed and forgave. They offered their lives up for others. They didn’t just die for their faith, they lived for their faith. They were invaded by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and they had to bring the fruits of that Spirit out into the world. They left that first Mass and brought that Mass out into the world in a spirit of unity. But first they had to leave the comfort and safety of the upper room.
The Holy Spirit gave the apostles the ability to cross language barriers and cultural divides and speak the universal truth of Jesus Christ to all who would listen. Jesus is all about unity, not division. His message of peace is designed to bring us all together. Why does it seem that the greatest divisions are among the very followers of Christ? Forget language differences, forget cultural differences. Christians are the most divided religion in the world. There are more denominations in Christianity than in any other religion. There seem to be more divisions in the Catholic Church than in any other. We have fallen short in our apostolic mission. We have become splintered. We are broken and we are in need of forgiveness.
It’s not by accident that Jesus tied the gift of the Holy Spirit to forgiveness. He could have said anything to the apostles when he appeared to them that night. He is God, he knew what he wanted to say, and he never wasted words. He didn’t tell them to build this huge hierarchical church. He didn’t tell them to go back to school and get degrees in theology. He gave the task to the apostles to forgive sins. He gave them the understanding that God is all about forgiveness. His spirit is a forgiving spirit. And that forgiveness brings peace. All the rest is commentary.
We also have the power to forgive sins, you know. And we have the power to retain them. When someone hurts us, we hold the power of forgiveness. And if we withhold that power, the sins are retained. Not retained in heaven, because God always forgives. We hold them within ourselves, so that they stew and become bitter. When we retain the sins of those who hurt us, we take them upon ourselves, and they become ours. Without forgiveness there can be no peace. Without forgiveness there is no Spirit within us.
We cannot exist without the Holy Spirit. St. Paul says that in Christ we live and move and have our being. We have our very being. We exist because of Christ living within us, whether we acknowledge it or not. And the manifestation of Christ is through the Spirit, because it is a creating Spirit. Just because we do not constantly think about the air we breathe does not mean it isn’t there, giving us life with each passing breath. Just because we don’t acknowledge the love we have for each other every minute of the day doesn’t mean we are not loved. And just because we may not even think God exists doesn’t make it so. The Holy Spirit is a reality, and realities don’t go away just because we don’t believe in them.
But how do we know the Holy Spirit exists? We have seen Jesus, who said to Philip, “If you see me you see the Father”, but we cannot see the Holy Spirit. How can we know the Spirit?
We cannot see air. It is invisible to our eye. It is only when air moves that we experience it. We draw in our breath, moving the air. We feel it moving in the breezes around us. We see the wind’s affect on the things it moves about. It’s the same with the Spirit. We only experience it when it moves things; when it moves us.
How do you know love exists? Show it to me. We can’t see love itself. Instead, we see the manifestations of love. We see the results of love. Love is always fruitful, by definition. Therefore, we know of love by its fruits. So therefore, if God is love and the Holy Spirit is God, we know of the Spirit by His manifestation, by His fruit.
The Jewish feast of Pentecost celebrates the ripening of the Spring grain and the giving of the first fruits back to the Lord. It is fitting that God chose to send the Holy Spirit upon his church at the very time they were celebrating the fruitfulness of the earth. Because the Spirit is all about fruitfulness.
Just as we know the Holy Spirit exists because of the manifestations of the spirit, so also the world knows the Spirit exists because of our actions. Whenever we act with love that’s the spirit working. But we must act or it’s not love.
What did Jesus say first that night in the upper room? “Peace be with you”. The Spirit of Christ always brings peace. His next words are pretty clear. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” So get off your tail and get out the door.
And let the Spirit move you.
Why Did They Hate Him So Much?
April 10, 2009
Good Friday
Cycle B
Why did they hate him so much?
What was it about Jesus that caused the people to turn against him so much they wanted the worst kind of death for him? What was it about him that made those same people who wanted to crown him king suddenly want him tortured and killed? He never hurt anybody. What had he done to deserve such treatment? Healed the sick? Raised the dead? Love one another as I have loved you? Were these such revolutionary ideas that they deserved a revolutionary’s death? Weren’t all these ideas already in the Jewish scriptures for all to see and follow? Weren’t they all supposed to be living that way already? Maybe that was the problem.
Most of those who condemned him were not evil people. They were not possessed by the devil. They went about their lives much like we do, and many were very religious. They did what they thought God wanted them to do. But something happened to them during that last week of Jesus’ life to rip the scab off their souls and turn them from an adoring throng into a bloodthirsty mob. They didn’t just feel the need to get rid of Jesus, they wanted to absolutely destroy him and his following. They wanted to hurt him, humiliate him, and kill him in the most horrifying way so that no one would ever remember him again. Even Pilate was shocked at the level of hatred the people had for Jesus. He tried every way he could not to condemn him. It made no sense to him, a pagan.
If you strip away all the politics, and the power trips, and the religious bigotry, you come to the kernel of truth that they hated Jesus because he forced them to see themselves for who they really were, and they didn’t like it. They hated Jesus because he called them to a life they were unwilling to live. He showed them the way, and the way was not what they wanted to do. They wanted to live the way they wanted to live. They didn’t want anyone telling them what to do or how to live. They liked their sins. They liked being in charge. They liked setting themselves up as God.
Why do they hate us so much?
The president of the United States said the other day in Turkey that we are not a Christian nation, implying that that’s a good thing. Basically saying that because we aren’t really Christian we aren’t a threat to anyone. Why would anyone think that being a Christian is a threat? What has happened to us that being a Christian is not seen as a good thing anymore? The life and message of Jesus Christ is one of love of neighbor and self sacrifice for the good of others. What’s threatening about that? Many would point to all the mistakes the church has made throughout history, when we have not lived up to our mission as we should. But the world has seen Christianity as a threat from the very beginning, before there was a church, from the life of our very founder himself. Why has the world never embraced such a message and such a messenger?
Why does it seem that the world wants to make Christianity inconsequential? Pope Benedict said today in his Good Friday homily, “Jesus is humiliated in new ways even today – when things that are most holy and profound in the faith are being trivialised, the sense of the sacred is allowed to erode. Everything in public life risks being desacralised – persons, places, pledges, prayers, practices, words, sacred writings, religious formulae, symbols, ceremonies. Our life together is being increasingly secularised. Religious life grows diffident. Thus we see the most momentous matters placed among trifles, and trivialities glorified.”
Is it because Christianity holds a mirror up to the world and shows us who we really are, and we don’t like what we see? Is it because Christianity holds us up to a higher standard, and we like things just the way they are? Is it because we want to play God ourselves, and don’t like it when confronted by the reality of God? Is it because the world is evil? I choose to think not.
But what is it about good that threatens us so much? We were created with the capacity to choose good and evil. Why do we choose evil so much? Why can’t we see that we are created in the image of goodness itself, and our natural state is to live in that image? And why do we feel that we have to go out of our way to destroy goodness? Are we that selfish? Are we that convinced that we are little gods who know what’s best for us? Isn’t that the sin of Adam? Maybe that’s the human condition, and we cannot break out of it. We were given the ultimate second chance; God himself came to live with us. We were given a glimpse of what it really means to be a human being, and we destroyed it.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all lived as Jesus lived? If we all loved as he loved? If we all emptied ourselves of all our prejudices and hatreds and selfishness, and gave ourselves to each other as completely as he did, as completely as we just heard told? Can you imagine what that would be like? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this nation, and all nations, were truly Christian nations, if not in name than in practice, and conducted themselves according to true Christian principles? Maybe that’s what heaven is like.
We read the passion every year and we think, “How could that have happened to God himself? How could those people have done such horrible things to such a good person? What were they thinking?” Well, two thousand years later, things haven’t changed much, have they. We don’t just remember Calvary on Good Friday, we live it.
The Rest of the Week
April 4, 2009
Palm Sunday
Cycle B
It’s funny the difference a few days can make.
Today we are here remembering and celebrating Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, when the people welcomed him into the city, hailing him as their king, the messiah, and waving palm branches before him. Today is the beginning of Holy Week, a week that we have been looking forward to for the past four weeks. We have been preparing throughout Lent for the great celebrations of the Triduum, the three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. These are our holiest of days, our most sacred liturgy. We have run the good race, and now the finish line is in sight.
But what of the other three days of Holy Week? What of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday? It seems that there’s a gap in our worship and devotion. We gather with excitement today, just like the people of Jerusalem did so many years ago, then we gather again for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday seem to be forgotten. What are we supposed to do on those days?
What did Jesus do on those days? According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus was very busy from the time of his entrance into Jerusalem until his exit later that week carrying his cross to Golgotha. He drove the moneychangers from the temple. He gave some of his most famous teachings and told some of his most special parables in the temple precincts. He was symbolically anointed for burial when the sinful woman washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. He did and said a lot of things that upset a lot of important people. Those same people who had hailed him as their king eventually cried out for his crucifixion.
What do we do on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week to make a difference? Do we also stir things up in our lives? Do we drive the moneychangers from our hearts with special works of charity? Do we take the time each day to ponder the meaning of Jesus’ words in the gospels? Do we make one last act of contrition for the times we’ve failed to live up to our discipleship? Or will Thursday night suddenly arrive, and we’ll have to rush home from work and switch gears to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually to celebrate that most special of nights? How will we arrive at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday? Will we be prepared to be footwashers? Will our celebration on Thursday lead us deeper into the paschal mystery of Jesus’ suffering and death that we’ll enter into on Good Friday? Will Good Friday prepare us for the glory of the Easter Vigil on Saturday? It would be a shame to have spent the past forty days of Lent so well, only to stumble at the finish line.
It’s funny the difference a few days should make.
Palm Sunday
Cycle B
It’s funny the difference a few days can make.
Today we are here remembering and celebrating Jesus’ triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, when the people welcomed him into the city, hailing him as their king, the messiah, and waving palm branches before him. Today is the beginning of Holy Week, a week that we have been looking forward to for the past four weeks. We have been preparing throughout Lent for the great celebrations of the Triduum, the three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. These are our holiest of days, our most sacred liturgy. We have run the good race, and now the finish line is in sight.
But what of the other three days of Holy Week? What of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday? It seems that there’s a gap in our worship and devotion. We gather with excitement today, just like the people of Jerusalem did so many years ago, then we gather again for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday seem to be forgotten. What are we supposed to do on those days?
What did Jesus do on those days? According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus was very busy from the time of his entrance into Jerusalem until his exit later that week carrying his cross to Golgotha. He drove the moneychangers from the temple. He gave some of his most famous teachings and told some of his most special parables in the temple precincts. He was symbolically anointed for burial when the sinful woman washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. He did and said a lot of things that upset a lot of important people. Those same people who had hailed him as their king eventually cried out for his crucifixion.
What do we do on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week to make a difference? Do we also stir things up in our lives? Do we drive the moneychangers from our hearts with special works of charity? Do we take the time each day to ponder the meaning of Jesus’ words in the gospels? Do we make one last act of contrition for the times we’ve failed to live up to our discipleship? Or will Thursday night suddenly arrive, and we’ll have to rush home from work and switch gears to prepare ourselves mentally and spiritually to celebrate that most special of nights? How will we arrive at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday? Will we be prepared to be footwashers? Will our celebration on Thursday lead us deeper into the paschal mystery of Jesus’ suffering and death that we’ll enter into on Good Friday? Will Good Friday prepare us for the glory of the Easter Vigil on Saturday? It would be a shame to have spent the past forty days of Lent so well, only to stumble at the finish line.
It’s funny the difference a few days should make.
Amazing Grace
March 21st, 2009
4th Sunday of Lent
Cycle B – Scrutiny
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind but now I see
We all know the story of John Newton, the composer of Amazing Grace. How he was the captain of a British slave ship in the 18h century who had a conversion experience that led him to become an Anglican priest and abolitionist. He had only been living according to the beliefs of his day, and for years saw nothing wrong with treating slaves the way he did. Because they were not like him. Something in their makeup made them inferior, and therefore, subhuman. Much like the Pharisees saw people who had been born blind. John Newton came to see his former life of sinfulness as blindness. And as one blind he was lost, in the darkness. Through God’s grace he was given his sight again. He was able to change his life and be saved.
We equate darkness with evil. We call Satan the Prince of Darkness, and we fear the dark. Because we can see we feel uncomfortable in the dark. We fear the unknown, we fear what we cannot control. We’re afraid we’ll stumble and fall in the dark. Darkness is frightening for us only because we know the difference between light and darkness. If we were born blind we would never have experienced light, so darkness would hold no fear for us. For one born blind, who has never experienced the light, stumbling and falling is a natural thing. Relying on the help of others is a requirement for survival.
This gospel begins with Jesus’ own disciples asking a question based upon a belief all Jews had at the time – that physical weakness and disease meant you or your family were steeped in sin. If you were a sinner God punished you with infirmity. If you were righteous you were healthy, wealthy and wise. Everybody believed this: the Pharisees did, the disciples did, and the blind man himself did.
The blind man could not enter the temple. Everybody said he shouldn’t be there, and he himself thought he shouldn’t be there. He also thought he was unworthy to be in the presence of God, just because he was blind. He was reduced to begging at the door. The people who passed him every day saw him as unworthy, beneath them, worthless to God and man. And so he saw himself as unworthy and worthless. How could he ever become worthy? How could he ever come in out of the darkness and be included among the seeing?
The saddest thing about the blind man is that he bought into his culture’s prejudices and allowed them to make him feel less about himself, to alienate himself from God and his community. Even today, we can allow outside influences to keep us from God. We can beat ourselves up so much that we actually stay away from God. How wretched you must feel to keep yourself from God. Have you ever not come to Mass because you felt unworthy? Or stayed away because you were not in the “right frame of mind” to receive the Eucharist; that you just didn’t think you could come to Mass with all those people there and try to pretend that everything was ok? Why just go through the motions?
Do you think that you shouldn’t come to Mass if you haven’t exactly been living a perfect Christian life lately? I mean, why add one more hypocrite to the mix? Do you think that you have to have it all together in order to worship the Lord? I’m not perfect, so I’ll stay away. Does Jesus really only call the righteous? If that were the case there’d be no one here. It’s sort of like saying that I’m starving, so I really shouldn’t come to the banquet. The very thing you think you should avoid is the thing you really need. Sometimes we blind ourselves to what we’re really doing here.
It’s ironic that the best way to become worthy of the Eucharist is to experience the Eucharist. None of us can ever make ourselves worthy of being here. If blindness is equated with sinfulness, then we’re all born blind, aren’t we? As John Newton said, it is through God’s grace that we can see again. Only God can make us worthy, just by willing it so. So we have a choice, to beat ourselves up for not being worthy or to accept the grace of God that allows us to see. To exclude ourselves from the banquet or to humbly accept the invitation.
This morning we are celebrating the second scrutiny for our elect and candidates. Last week we heard the story of the woman at the well, and how she received the life-giving waters of Jesus. Today we hear a story that closely parallels those of our elect and candidates. Like the blind man, they’re on the outside looking in. Not really sure what they’re seeing. Jesus calls them forth. He makes them uncomfortable at times and calls them to the waters. They do not know the way, so others need to help them get there .When their eyes are opened, they still are not sure exactly who Jesus is, even when he is right in front of them. They come up against opposition. The entrenched prejudices of others try to derail their journey. Sometimes they are thrown out. Sometimes others try to keep them in their places. Finally, Jesus comes to them in the light and they recognize him for who he is. They have become his disciples.
It’s funny, isn’t it, that the ones who thought they were worthy – the Pharisees – were the ones that Jesus said were blind. Their sin was their prejudice against people like the blind man, people they thought were sinners. They could not see their own shortcomings, and that we’re all blind in one way or another. The story ends for us just as it did for them. We’re the Pharisees; we’re the good church going folks who think we have all the answers. We’re the John Newtons of the world, who go along with the conventional wisdom of our day, blinded to how we are actually making things worse in our ignorance.
In many ways these elect and candidates see more than we do. They hunger for the light that we take so easily for granted, and they don’t have all the barnacles we good Pharisees have built up on our carcases over time. But just as they have needed our help to see from time to time, we too can draw on their light as we all stumble together towards our Lord.
Amazing, isn’t it?
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