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Monthly Archives: May 2015

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Pentecost

24 Sunday May 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in Catholic Church, Church, Holy Spirit, homily, Pentecost

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Church, faith, Holy Spirit, Pentecost

PentecostHave you ever held an acorn in your hand?  In that seed all the potentiality of a towering oak tree is present.  Have you ever held a newborn infant?  In that newly born child is all the potentiality of an adult human being whose very life will affect countless other people and maybe even the course of human history itself.  It has been said that growth is the only sure indicator of life but growth has to begin somewhere, from some kernel of life.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-11) we hear that the disciples and some women were gathered together when the Holy Spirit came upon them in the sound of a strong driving wind and in the appearance of tongues of fire – this smallest of groups.  They began to speak in different languages so that the people outside heard them speaking in their own language.

An unknown African writer of the sixth century offers these thoughts in regards to this miraculous event:

The disciples spoke in the language of every nation. At Pentecost God chose this means to indicate the presence of the Holy Spirit: whoever had received the Spirit spoke in every kind of tongue. We must realize, dear brothers, that this is the same Holy Spirit by whom love is poured out in our hearts. It was love that was to bring the Church of God together all over the world. And as individual men who received the Holy Spirit in those days could speak in all kinds of tongues, so today the Church, united by the Holy Spirit, speaks in the language of every people.

On that first Pentecost we find all the potentiality present of what the Church was and still is to become. We find the kernel of the beginning of the Church Universal – a Church present in every land, every culture, every class and ministering in every human condition.

The author knows that it is the love “poured out” out into hearts that allows for and sustains this life and growth. This love is nothing other than the presence of the Holy Spirit. This is not the “love” so often touted in our world today – a love that is often really just a reflection of our own ego. The love that is the Holy Spirit does not originate from us and our concerns rather it is “poured out” upon us. It is the love of the Father and Son which is given on Pentecost and which continues to enliven the Church throughout history.

Paul reminds us that no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit. It is only the Spirit who enables us to turn those mere words into a true profession of faith, rooted in lives which are continually being transformed and transfigured by the light of Christ.

In some sense looking back is also worth noting. For the most part, I do not today look anything like I did when I was first born. I’ve gotten taller, I weigh more, I grew hair and I have begun to lose hair, I have learned much more but, even though I may look very different from that newborn infant born forty-seven years ago, I am still the same person just more fully so. The Catholic Church today may not look exactly like that first gathering of disciples on Pentecost – there is two thousand years of history, institutions and roles have developed and continue to do so – but it is the same church just more fully so. The Holy Spirit enables this growth in truth.

Our Lord told us that the Spirit will guide us into all truth. We know this. We have been living it now for two thousand years as Church and continue to do so even today. The love which enables all this to happen does not originate from us. It is poured out upon us. It is the love of the Father and the Son, the very Holy Spirit of God.

Holy Spirit, continue to come upon us, continue to guide us into all truth, into who we are meant to be as your Church!

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: the concreteness of the Ascension

17 Sunday May 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in faith, homily, hope, service

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Ascension, discipleship, homily, hope, life in Christ

Ascension3Today’s gospel (Mk. 16:15-20) has the risen Lord sending his disciples into the whole world in order to proclaim the gospel to every creature.  This very same mission continues today.  Christianity cannot stay within, locked behind closed doors!  But, before we run out to the world, we need to know for whom we are running and whose message it is exactly that we are proclaiming.  I once heard a seasoned Catholic blogger give some sound advice to some young seminarians eager to evangelize the internet for Christ.  She cautioned that before you start saying things about faith and Christ make sure you actually have something to say.  The only way to speak authentically about Christ is to encounter Christ.  Another way of getting at this is by asking the question actually whose disciples are we?

We are not disciples for ourselves even if we might claim the name Christian.  Taking only the teachings of our Lord that we like and find agreeable and then trying to manage and live our lives on our own – agreeing with Jesus but not really feeling a need for him, too closely, in our lives.

We are disciples because God has first loved us – he has called us and saved us in love.  He sends us into the world in order to proclaim the good news in love and peace.  In many ways the gospel is a weak strength – the gospel needs us to proclaim it, if not love begins to disappear and peace begins to lose to violence and hatred.  But for any of this to happen we must live continually in relationship with Christ, remembering that we are his disciples and not disciples for ourselves.

Despite the seemingly, other-worldly nature of today’s feast (What does it mean that Jesus ascends to the Father?), the Feast of the Ascension is a very concrete reality.   It is so because of the simple fact that the hope we celebrate today is not founded in some abstract or utopian principle or ideal of a better tomorrow but in the very resurrected body of Christ.  Christ is indeed risen which means he is risen body and soul, flesh and blood.  Anything less would not be fully and authentically human.  Christ ascends to the Father not just in spirit or thought but in the very concrete reality of his full humanity.  Throughout this Easter season we have heard Christ, time and time again, assuring his disciples that he is indeed present in “flesh and bone”.  This means fully present not just up to the moment of the ascension but in the ascension itself and now at the Father’s right hand.  From the day of the ascension heaven “began to populate itself with the earth, or, in the language of Revelation, a new heaven and earth began.”

In the ascension we truly realize that we are not orphans.  We are not left to the cold and cruel winds of chance, fate and odds or a history without direction.  Direction has been set.  The resurrected Christ now sits at the Father’s right hand!  This, and nothing less, is our goal.  It is what we are meant for and what we are called to by God’s grace.

It is truly concrete and it is achieved and experienced concretely.

In the gospel Jesus tells us that he is “the way” and the way, it turns out, is walked concretely.  The ascension is experienced again not in some abstract manner but in how we concretely treat and love the smallest and poorest brothers and sisters in our midst. When we love concretely we experience the ascension and we are brought toward the fullness of the future that God has prepared for us in Christ.

Let me share an example.  When I was chaplain at the Catholic Center at ETSU our Sant’Egidio group decided to take sandwich bags once a week to the John Sevier Center.  (The John Sevier Center is a low-income housing unit in downtown Johnson City.)  We did not go there as experts in anything.  We knew we could not solve the residents’ problems and struggles.  We just went and we were faithful in going and in this simple act of being present a human space was created both for the residents and for us.  We became friends.  By this we were brought a little bit further toward the fullness that awaits us all.  In this human space miracles happen and signs are given – demons of isolation, fear, hatred and resignation are cast out and life is gained.  I have seen it for myself time and time again.  Now, our Sant’Egidio group here at St. Dominic’s has begun visiting Holston Manor nursing home and it is beginning to happen again – a human space is being created.

Christ bestows his love upon us.  We are disciples for him and we are meant to communicate his love.  Love that is not communicated soon withers and dies.

Love is lived not abstractly but concretely and it is in the concrete act that we are brought toward the fullness that awaits us all.

The Recent Pew Survey, Individualism and Gratitude

14 Thursday May 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in discipleship, faith, individualism, life in Christ, social factors, society

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gratitude, individualism, life in Christ, younger generation and faith

individualismIn our society’s almost dictatorial focus on the individual have we forgotten how to receive and how to be grateful?

A realization that I have arrived at through my prayer with the Community of Sant’Egidio is that our Lord was neither as influenced by nor as burdened by individualism as we are.  It can easily be demonstrated that individualism is a cherished notion in the modern American cultural landscape if not, in fact, the highest virtue we subscribe to.  We exalt the positives of individualism (and they are there certainly) but do we also recognize as readily the negatives?  I would contend that one negative derived from an uncritical adoption of the tenets of individualism is being obliged throughout life to carry the weight of the presumption that if something does not originate from me exclusively then it is not really all that worthwhile.

I remember in a previous assignment as a college chaplain how I would visit the art museum on campus once a week where the work of art majors would be on exhibit.  For many of the students this showing was their senior thesis.  Much of the work of these students was engaging, creative and very thought-provoking.  But a good amount of it was not and one would leave the exhibit with the perception and hunch that the student was almost straining under the compulsion to have to present his or her own unique perception of reality, particular viewpoint or feelings to the world.  Frankly, in this forced condition, their viewpoint was not all that interesting and often it was clichéd and just plain boring.  At these moments I would exit the exhibit with the words of a wise, old Benedictine monk friend ringing in my ears, “Get over yourself!”

This weight can work in a subtle way but it is there – the weight to always have to be unique, always original and to have to prove it!  This is quite crushing and just not humanly possible.  Christ did not seem to be burdened by this though.  Our Lord demonstrates his freedom (as well as his oneness with the Father) when he responds to Philip’s request of showing the disciples the Father in the fourteenth chapter of John’s gospel,

He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?  The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. (Jn. 14:9-11)

Our Lord is quite comfortable in sharing that what he has to give comes both from the Father and out of his relationship with the Father.  He does not seem constrained by the presumption that everything has to be a totally original and unique thought originating from within himself alone in order for it to be authentic and worthwhile.  This freedom that our Lord demonstrates is in fact shared with the Spirit also.

I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  

These gospel passages lead the reader into the mystery of the Trinity but they also witness to the depth of freedom that our Lord enjoyed in his person with one such ingredient of this freedom being the ability to freely acknowledge what he has received from the Father.  Our Lord is the “free-est” person who ever walked the face of the earth – even being free of the negative weight of individualism.  Because of this our Lord could fully receive from the Father and he could fully live in gratitude.  We, on the other hand, not so much.

Recently, I have noticed a string of articles in response to a just released Pew survey on why younger people are no longer practicing their faith and leaving the Church.  I am not proposing this as the definitive answer but I do think a contributing factor in this trend is this negative weight of individualism and specifically how it limits our ability to recognize what we have received and to be grateful for that.  Many people will say that the Church needs to get better at reaching out to young people, preaching needs to be better and more engaging, we need to return to a sense of traditional Catholic identity or be more involved in pressing social issues that are of concern to younger generations … the list can go on and on.  I agree with these points and believe there is validity to them.  Yes, there is more that the Church needs to do and should do but I think there is another aspect to this equation and I offer this with the greatest pastoral sensitivity having worked many years with younger generations.  I think a number of younger people (as the wise monk would say) need to get over themselves and, frankly, just need to grow some backbone when it comes to their faith.

A number of times now in my ministry I have had the experience of a young couple approaching me for marriage preparation with one of the two being Catholic and the other one from a different Christian faith tradition only to hear them say that they plan to attend a different church once married, almost as if it is no big deal.  This then leads generally into a full discussion where I ask them if they are able to recognize how their faith tradition (Catholic or not) has helped to shape who they are.  What I have come to realize is that more often than not they do not recognize this.  This is quite damning but, I hold, not so much for the couple themselves (as I have come to see them more as victims in this equation, although some as willing victims) but rather the milieu in which they have grown up and live in.  We focus so much on the individual in our society that we fail to help people learn how to recognize what we have received and how we have been formed through outside influences including our faith.  We fail in helping one another realize that we are more than just ourselves.  I encourage the couple to realize that part of what they love and are attracted to in their fiancée is how his or her faith tradition has helped to shape who he or she is.  To summarily toss aside one’s faith tradition or ask the other person to do so or to plan to do so later as a married couple as if it does not really matter is a profound disservice and demonstrates a sad lack of awareness.

Many people suffer from this lack this awareness.  We focus so much on the individual and the illusion of how we are self-made that we forget how much we have, in fact, received, we forget how to receive and we lose the ability to be grateful.  It is a sad state of affairs really.

Yes, the Church needs to do its part but the young people also have a role to play.  They have choices to make.  I do not believe that the younger people choosing to leave the Church are necessarily innocents lacking responsibility in this whole regard.  Maybe their choice reflects how much they themselves have bought into the illusion of individualism where they cannot recognize nor be grateful for what they have received just as much as it might demonstrate certain lacks on the Church’s part.

In all times and seasons the Church must look to the Lord for wisdom, grace and insight.  The Lord’s willingness to acknowledge his reliance on the Father and the joy he found in that is a salvific corrective to the illusions of individualism with its crushing burdens.  Christ knew what he received from the Father, he knew how to receive and he knew how to be grateful.  Christ was neither as influenced by nor burdened by individualism as we are.

The words of my Benedictine monk friend are not meant to be hurtful and are actually quite pastoral if understood in a slightly different nuance, “For the sake of yourself, get over yourself and, yes, grow some backbone in regards to your faith!”

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Love and Friendship (6th Sunday of Easter – B)

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in friendship, homily, life in Christ, love

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Christ, friendship, love

Rue_dyingEarlier this week I was channel surfing and came across a broadcast of the first of the “Hunger Games” movies.  I have to admit that when the books and movies initially came out I was skeptical and avoided them altogether but then one day, kind of on a whim, I joined some friends who had decided to see the movie.  I am now a fan.  At the heart of that first movie (which I saw again this last week) is a scene where a young girl is killed in these games that pits child fighting against child to the death.  The heroine, who was trying to protect this young girl is heartbroken.  But in her pain and grief she does a tender thing.  She gathers flowers and places them around the body of the young girl lying dead on the forest floor.

In the cold world depicted in this story where, I would say, the sense of God has been lost (a world that at best can only say, “May the odds continually be in your favor.” rather than, “God be with you.”) the heroine performs a corporal work of mercy.  She buries the dead and she does it in love and friendship.  Via video cameras the nation silently watches and in response, in an imprisoned part of the country, a fight against the injustice of the oppressors breaks out! All because the heroine performed this simple act of taking the time to acknowledge the humanity and the dignity of this young girl … a humanity and dignity that all the “powers that be” were trying their best to negate.

There is a power to love and friendship. You know, if you think of all the great stories – whether they are expressed in movies, plays, literature, opera, whatever medium – a common element that runs throughout them all is the exploration of love and friendship. The settings both geographical and in time may be worlds apart. The characters and plot may be very different but in any good story there is an underlying story and exploration of the dynamics of love and friendship in life. The reader or viewer might not know what it is like to fly a bomber in WWII or stare at the walls of Troy or fight off zombies but everyone knows what it is like to yearn to give love and receive love and to desire friendship and remain in friendship.

Part of the essence of love and friendship is that it does not have to be flashy in order to be true. I thought of this yesterday in our parish’s celebration of first communion. Christ gives us himself (his body and blood) in the form of bread and wine – two things so utterly common. God does not need flash, God does not need smoke and mirrors and God does not need the latest fad in order to accomplish his plan in our lives. We might believe we need these things but God does not. Think of moments of friendship or moments when you gave or received authentic love … I would wager that the memories that come to mind are anything but flashy, more than likely they are common even to the point of being unnoticed by others – laughing with a friend, holding a loved one’s hand, comforting a child…

In today’s gospel (Jn. 15:9-17), Jesus says, As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love … love one another as I love you … You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. 

What does Christ give us and what does Christ call us to? Love and friendship. We must not pass this over, because this is the heart of it all! What unites all the great stories? What speaks to the depth of universal human existence? What does Christ give us? What truly transforms our lives and our world? Love and friendship. And the gospel message is that it is both love and friendship with one another and, through Christ, love and friendship with God! Christ calls us his friends; we need to take this to heart. We can never be friends in a sense of peer to peer with Christ but, nonetheless, he calls us friends. We need to pray on this truth and therefore on the great power of friendship that our Lord himself alludes to in this passage.

We should never underestimate the power of love nor the power of friendship.

…love one another as I love you.

I no longer call you slaves … I have called you friends…

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: “Remain” (5th Sunday of Easter – B)

02 Saturday May 2015

Posted by mcummins2172 in discipleship, homily, life in Christ, vine and branches

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Christ, discipleship, homily, I am the vine you are the branches, martyrs

Vine1Like me, this past week, you may have been saddened by the rioting occurring in Baltimore.  Now that it has been determined that there is need for a criminal investigation we pray for justice and peace in that city.  In the midst of the rioting though, I was personally moved by the report of the gathering of clergy of many different denominations also marching through the streets calling for peace.  These clergy have chosen to remain.  You may also remember not long ago reports of Orthodox priests literally placing themselves between the warring factions in the Ukraine also praying for peace.  These priests chose to remain.  Recently, there were doctors and nurses who chose not to leave the different regions of Africa that were struck by Ebola rather they stayed to help the ill.  They chose to remain.  Every day, unnoticed and unreported, men and women help the elderly, the homeless, the addicted, the imprisoned and the ill.  These men and women choose to remain.

In today’s gospel (Jn. 15:1-8) our Lord specifically uses this word “remain” over and over again.  Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me … Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit … If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.

True strength is found not in violence, or insults, or in making a scene or calling attention to oneself but rather in the choice to remain.  The choice to persevere.  The choice to trust.  The choice not to live a distracted and self-focused life.  The choice to trust in the good of the other person.  The choice to bear patiently the injustices of our world and even wrongs endured.

No Christian is nor can ever be an isolated island.  The Christian life, by its very nature, must be rooted in the very life of Christ.  For us, Christ is not just a nice idea or ideal or great teacher; for the disciple Christ is Lord and our very lives must be rooted in his.  We must remain in Christ.  The Christian can be thrown into different raging fires of our world and not be burned, not wither precisely because the Christian is rooted in Christ who has overcome the world.  This has been seen throughout history and it continues to be seen in our world today.

A prized part of this “remaining” in Christ is found in the power of his words.  Our Lord says specifically to his disciples, You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you.  Later he says, If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you.  God’s word prunes but it prunes for life – it cuts off that which corrupts and that which stunts life.  When we begin to live God’s word then we remain in Christ.  St. John knew this and it is what he shares in his letter (1 Jn. 3:18-24), Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them… 

Every day we need to pick up and read God’s word!  Every day we need to let these words sink into our hearts and every day we need to strive to live these words!

Christ never says that his disciples will not experience the fires and troubles of this world.  What he does say is that the one who remains in him will not wither, will not burn even in the midst of the fires of our world precisely because he or she is rooted in the very one who has overcome this world!  The Coptic Christians martyred by ISIS died saying the name of Jesus.  They did not wither in this fire of brutality, they remained in Christ, they endured and witnessed the hope we have in Christ and from their witness new life will emerge.  This has been seen throughout history and we see it in our world today.  We are today, and have always been, a church of martyrs.

Christ is Lord!  We remain in him.

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