Monthly Archives: January 2014

Francis: Pope of the Periphery

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Church, Community of Sant'Egidio, periphery, poor, Pope Francis

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Pope Francis is on the cover of “Rolling Stone”.  I guess this is a good thing.  He has certainly caught the imagination of many people.  
For the record, I am a Pope Francis fan – just as I have been a Pope Emeritus Benedict fan and Bl. John Paul II fan – the popes during my lifetime.  I am a fan of the papacy and how each man, weak and limited in his own humanity as he is, brings his own gifts and personality to this institution and it is amazing to see how the Holy Spirit works through each one.  It does no good and, in fact, is a disservice to the Church to fall into a “red state”/”blue state” mentality when it comes to the papacy and the current inhabitant of the office.  The papacy transcends such misguided and ultimately dull attempts at division. 
Recently I was at a church meeting and much was being said about Pope Francis – specifically his simplicity and his call to help the poor.  I agree the Pope Francis has certainly highlighted the poor in his pontificate but I think his challenge goes further and I wonder if this is being picked up on or glossed over and, if so, why?  
Through words and deeds (many of the latter going viral in the visual world of social media), Pope Francis is preaching not just help for the poor but the willingness to go to the poor.  Picture his embrace of the disfigured man in St. Peter’s square.  This, I think, is a key element to his appeal.  Pope Francis is certainly not opposed to the important work of the parish or Church relief and charitable agencies but neither does he want these to become an end or a wall of separation.  I do not think that the Pope would be satisfied if he heard the following statement, “Yes, I support the poor.  I give to my parish and Catholic Charities and they help the poor.”  I think our Pope would respond by saying, “Yes, that is good but you also go to the poor.”  It seems that our current pope does not like any form of “middle-men”; whether they be social, organizational or ecclesial.  
Choices and even success have unintended consequences.  This being understood, might an unintended consequence of the success of the Church’s relief and charitable organizations be that they can help bolster the illusion (maybe even desire) of being a step removed from the poor and needy?   “I can give to the poor yet remain comfortable in my own bubble.”  “Yes, there are poor people but there are people whose work it is to see to their needs.”
I find it helpful to apply a term to the pope that I recently heard Prof. Andrea Riccardi (founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio) use; that term is periphery.  Pope Francis is a pope of the periphery.  This should come as no surprise.  The pope himself made allusion to this when he first walked out on the balcony of St. Peter’s to tell the whole Church that the cardinals of the conclave went to the far corners of the world to find the next bishop of Rome!  They went to the periphery.
Every city, every town, every society has a periphery.  It is where the poor live.  It is where people are marginalized and de-humanized.  It is the place often overlooked and forgotten and also where people fear to go.  Pope Francis is inviting the Church to a gospel awareness that it is just not enough to send money or aid or prayers or good intentions to the periphery.  We must go there ourselves!  Why?  Because Christ is there and wherever Christ is the disciple must follow. 
It has been my experience – limited as it is – that the periphery provides (when encountered consistently and authentically) a spiritual antidote to the stultifying effects of worldviews and ideologies turned in on themselves – which are multitude in our day and age.  The periphery can awaken one to the wonder of the Kingdom of God rather than the merely comfortable!  Again, to paraphrase some insights by Prof. Riccardi, in the periphery we learn that contrary to the dictates of the economy we do not have to substitute competition and rivalry for living together in friendship.  In the periphery we realize that the true history of the world often runs hidden and deep rather than in the illusion of the stages of the rich and powerful.  In the periphery hope can be found, take root and grow.  
The Church must allow herself to be evangelized by the periphery and the poor.  They know the suffering Christ.  
Last night, in the midst of the latest winter storm to hit the eastern U.S., members of the Community of Sant’Egidio in New York City took a warm meal and friendship to their homeless friends on the streets.  These men and women are not spiritual elites, they are not heroes.  They are simply disciples seeking to live their faith honestly and joyfully in friendship.  Wherever Christ is, there is life and wherever Christ is, the disciple must follow.  Pope Francis, as successor to Peter, knows this and he is pointing it out to the whole Church.  Hopefully, we will listen and respond to his invitation to the periphery.                                

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (A): The Law of Foundation

19 Sunday Jan 2014

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In the readings for this Sunday we can detect a dynamic of moving, of straining forward into discipleship and identity with Christ.  In the gospel (Jn. 1:29-34), John points him out; Behold, the lamb of God…  Seek Christ!  Move toward Christ!  Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:1-3) reminds his listeners that they are indeed, called to be holy.  For the Christian, holiness can only be found through living in relationship with Christ and his body – the Church.  Isaiah (Is. 49:3, 5-6) prophesies that the true servant of the Lord will not just be a light for the tribes of Jacob but a light to the nations.  

This very moving and straining forward is the Church’s law of foundation.  There is a wonderful analogy used by St. Augustine in reflecting on Christ as the foundation of the Church and of our very lives. 
 

Foundations, Augustine points out, are usually at the bottom supporting a structure but Christ, as the head, is above.  How, therefore, can we call Christ the foundation?  There are two kinds of weight, observes Augustine, and here he defines “weight” as that force within a thing that seems to make it strain to finds its proper place.  For example, hold a stone in your hand – you feel its “weight” because it is “seeking” its proper place.  Take your hand away and the stone falls to the ground.  The stone has reached the goal it was tending toward.  It has found its proper place – its foundation.  Now (and here is where the poetry of Augustine’s analogy comes in), some weights find their proper place by pushing down and others by pushing upward.

Imagine, writes Augustine, a container of oil falling into the ocean, underneath the water and then rupturing.  The oil is not content to remain under the water, at the bottom.  It seeks its proper place so there is the ‘uneasy movement’ while the oil strains toward its proper place – its foundation – above.  
God’s Church – though established here below – strains toward heaven precisely because our foundation is found there – Christ and the fullness of God’s Kingdom.  The law of foundation says that objects strain toward their particular foundation and proper place.  This is why the Church throughout history and indeed the very life of every Christian strains forward – toward a more just and right existence.  This occurs because we seek our foundation.  The Church lives in the crucible of history but the Church always strives beyond the merely historical of our world because we seek our proper foundation which is not of the world.  If the Church (if we) fail to point and strive toward the Kingdom, if we just become self-referential and enclosed within our institutions then we have forgotten our truth.  Yes, there is ‘uneasy movement’ as we strain forward – we have to strain through the weight of this world and our false selves – but we do so in order to reach our true foundation which is more than this world.  Our foundation is the Kingdom of God and Christ himself! 
John points him out, Behold the lamb of God!  We are indeed, called to be holy.  This very dynamic of straining toward holiness (often turbulent and uneasy), itself witnesses to the law and truth of our foundation – who is Christ himself.  
St. Josephine Bakhita – a woman who was severely mistreated as a slave and who bore the scars of horrendous whippings on her body – implicitly knew this law of her true foundation.  She put it this way, “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this love.  And so, my life is good.” 

P.S.  Technical issue – I am having trouble uploading photos onto my posts.  This has only happened recently.  If anyone has a suggestion on how to correct this please let me know. 

Sign language and "the hamburger of Christ" – NDHS homily on January 9th

10 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in homily, language of God, peace of Christ

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I have been talking with Rosa.  Rosa is the lady who helps to keep the school clean.  You have probably seen her around during the day.  Rosa is deaf and she is helping me to re-learn sign language.  A while back I was chaplain to the deaf community in our diocese.  The ministry was always small – centering around a few Catholic students at Tennessee School of the Deaf and a few deaf adults.  Well, the students graduated, some of the adults passed away, others moved out of the diocese.  The ministry has been kind of shuttered for a few years now and I have not signed for a while.  
As I am re-learning my signs I have been reminded of my first few months signing and the mistakes I made along the way.  To begin learning sign I went to Camp Mark 7, a sign language learning camp in the Adirondack Mountains begun by the first deaf priest in the U.S.  I first learned how to sign the Mass.  I remember it was about six months into signing the Mass back in the diocese that a member of the deaf community came to me with a concern.  She signed, “Father, you keep making this sign (hands tightly clasped together) for ‘peace’ like when you say, ‘The peace of Christ.’  This is not correct.  This is the sign for peace (she held her hands together but then she moved them apart as if they were flowing out).  The sign which you keep making is the sign for ‘hamburger’.” So … for close to about six months I, throughout the Mass, kept wishing people the “hamburger of Christ!”
It seems to me that a couple of dynamics in learning a language are the rules and structure of the language (those things that must be memorized) as well as the willingness to just take a risk and, frankly, being okay with the fact that mistakes will be made and sometimes one will make a fool of himself or herself.  But, you know what – the world doesn’t end.  I can honestly say that I have learned enough now to make a fool of myself in multiple languages … not just in English!
In today’s first reading (1stLetter of John 4:19-5:4) we are given a bit of John’s wonderful reflection on what it means that God is love and that we have been loved by God.  (I really encourage all people to take some time to truly read and reflect upon John’s first letter.) 
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the Father loves also the one begotten by him.  In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments.  For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.  And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.  And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
The word “commandments” here seems quite heavy and (at least in the tenor of our day and age) not very thrilling.  But I think it helpful to hold this word together with an awareness of the role of rules and structure in language.  The rules and structure of language are means to an end.  We learn the rules that we might communicate, have relationship and friendship with another person, that we might be able to speak their language.  The “commandments” that John makes mention of are not just a set of arbitrary rules we are forced to follow just because; rather they are the specific means to an end.  Christianity, at its heart, is a way to live and to encounter God and one another.  Christianity is not so much rules as it is relationship.  In living our faith, in obeying God’s commandments, we begin to learn the language of God and enter into true relationship with him! 
And like any language, to learn it we have to be willing to take a risk, to step out and possibly even make a fool of oneself.  In today’s gospel reading (Lk. 4:14-22) Jesus took a risk.  This was his first act of public ministry.  “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”  I think he must have been nervous when he said that.  We need to be sincere when we profess that Jesus is fully human just as he is fully divine.  Part of the wonder of being human is sometimes being nervous, part of the wonder of being human is taking a risk.  Jesus is risking reaching out to us and to all of humanity in the language of God – a new way to communicate with God and one another, a new way to have relationship and friendship and a new and full way to live and experience life.
The rules and structure of language and the commandments of God which are not burdensome but give life and the willingness to take a risk, step out and live an ever-new relationship with God.   

The Feast of the Epiphany and a story by Franz Kafka

04 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by in conspiracy of self and world, Epiphany, God's love

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There is a short story told by Franz Kafka.  In the story there is an emperor who is on his deathbed and he wants to send a message to you alone.  Yes, you – poor, insignificant subject that you are – living at the furthest edge of the empire.  But the message is extremely important to the emperor, so important that he summons a messenger and even has the messenger repeat the message back twice to make sure he has it memorized correctly.  After the second time of checking the accuracy of the message the emperor nods his head approvingly.  Then in the presence of his entire court the emperor dismisses the messenger and sends him on his mission to bring you the emperor’s message.  Immediately the messenger sets out, he is a strong and vigorous man but immediately he encounters resistance – the members of the court are so packed around the emperor each vying for his attention.  Bit by bit the messenger has to elbow and squeeze his way through the crowd.  Finally, he makes his way out of the royal chamber but all the rooms of the palace are packed with people!  He shows the royal insignia and this clears the path for a few feet but then he is faced with a wall of people again.  But the messenger is determined; he keeps struggling against the crowd – one room after another, down stairways and inch by inch through the courtyard.  Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of struggle, the messenger passes through the final gate of the palace.  But now what lies before him is the vast imperial city, piled high with mountains of its own rubbish through which no one can make headway.  You, meanwhile sit at your window and dream about the message, as evening falls.  

A strange story for the Feast of the Epiphany when we proclaim and celebrate in faith that the glory of the Lord shines forth in our world!  Magi from the East arrive in this Sunday’s gospel (Mt. 2:1-12) looking for the newborn king.  All nations and all peoples share in the light of Christ!  A strange story by Kafka but a story that raises an important question; on the Feast of the Epiphany as we proclaim the glory of Christ for all nations do we actually allow the light of that glory to reach us – poor, insignificant subjects that we are, seemingly living on the furthest edge of the empire?  Do we believe that the emperor has a concern for us and a message so important for each one of us that even on his deathbed he is determined that it be sent?   
The vastness of the crowd and rubbish that the messenger valiantly struggles against is a joint conspiracy of self and world – our world’s preoccupations, biases, prejudices and determinations in what it considers important as well as our own weaknesses, our sins and our fears.  Together these continually try to block and hinder the messenger who carries the emperor’s message for you.  “Joy is possible!  Sin is overcome!  Life can be different!  A child is born in Bethlehem!”  In the birth of Christ, God begins to whisper this one message for our world and meant for each one of us, “Tell the world that I love it and am dying for its sins!”  As we sit at our windows, thinking ourselves at the furthest edge of the empire, do we actually allow this message to reach us or are we content to just dream about it? 
Here is a new year’s resolution that I will bring to you just as it is has been laid on my own heart from this Sunday’s readings: this new year, let us pray God that by his grace (and it is only by his grace that this is possible) we come to recognize this conspiracy of self and world active in our lives that keeps the messenger distant and removed and let us, with every ounce of our ability, do all that is possible to overcome that conspiracy.  This year, let us not just proclaim that the glory of Lord shines forth, let us receive and welcome that glory into our own hearts and let us tear down whatever might separate the light of that glory from reaching us and reaching all of our brothers and sisters! 
“Tell the world that I love it and am dying for its sins!”