Author Archives: mcummins2172

The Gifts of Advent

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in Advent, humility, mercy, trust

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Caravaggio – The Holy Family with the infant St. John the Baptist

It is easy to rush through Advent.  With department store Christmas decorations appearing earlier and earlier each year it is quite easy to jump straight into Christmas mode after the Thanksgiving Day meal it seems.  Why a time of waiting and anticipation?  What is that all about?  After all the big day is Christmas with its exchanging of gifts and (at least for the religiously minded) the beautiful liturgies and reflection on the birth of Christ.  Who needs Advent?

Well, we do and Advent has its own gifts to share if we just take the time to appreciate and receive them.  I can think of three gifts that Advent has to give (similar in number to the gifts of the Magi) and they are gifts brought to us by the key figures of the nativity story – St. Mary, St. John the Baptist and St. Joseph.  
In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel we are told that the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary.  
…he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you.”  But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call him Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.  And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren.  For nothing will be impossible with God.”  Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  Then the angel departed from her.  
Much has been written of Mary’s “yes” to the angel and to God’s will for her.  Saints have reflected upon how all heaven and creation waited in hushed silence for Mary’s response.  Mary certainly knew the hopes and dreams of her people.  She certainly knew and trusted how God acted throughout the history of Israel. That God could and would act in such a way would not necessarily be a surprise to her but where it would end and the sacrifice it would entail, Mary certainly had no way of knowing and the angel did not share much information in that regard.  Mary did not know that her “yes” that day would lead to her standing at the foot of the cross – the epicenter of God and humanity’s sacrifice for death and sin.  Mary did not know how it would all play out or even what it all meant but she said “yes”.  
Mary brings us the gift of trust and she demonstrates to us that this gift is born out of a sure knowledge and belief of faith and how God has acted throughout history.   In opposition to the primacy of fate lauded in the pagan world; Mary reveals providence.  God is at work and continues to be at work in history and in our lives.  The gift of Mary’s trust also reveals that God wants nothing but what is best for us.  The God of Israel is a loving God and all things in God’s plan lead to fullness of life.  Mary brings us the gift of trust. 
Luke portrays John the Baptist as a relative of Mary and Jesus’.  During the Sundays and weekdays of Advent we read the gospel accounts of John’s ministry.  The gospels tell us that people from all over Judea and Jerusalem were coming to hear John preach and be baptized in his baptism of repentance.  This popularity and esteem of the people is even confirmed by the Pharisees and Sadducees coming out to receive baptism, not because of true conversion but because it looked good before the people.  John sees through this and denounces it.  Not much escaped John the Baptist.  It is in this context of expectation that Luke writes,
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  
The power of the multitude is a great power.  This is lesson 101 in the handbook of politicians, demagogues and tyrants throughout history.  John knew the expectation of the people.  He knew, probably more than any other person, how they were yearning for change.  Probably, he alone at that time in Israel could have tapped into that power.  He could have claimed it for his own and therefore claimed massive power but he did not.  To the crowd and to their desire to proclaim him “messiah,” John simply and humbly said, “I am not he.”  John had the authenticity to know who he was and who he was not.  John the Baptist brings us the gift of humility.  
It is a gift sorely needed in our world today.  The message of our world today, in so many words, is, “Build yourself up.  Claim all that you can.  Focus on yourself, forget everyone else.”  Our world exalts and glamorizes overweening pride.  John, just as much today as in the story of the gospel, stands in contradistinction to this message.  His poverty, simplicity of life, and reliance on the word of God gave birth to a humility and authenticity of personhood that the world cannot give.  In Advent, John the Baptist brings us the gift of humility.  
We have no direct words of St. Joseph.  He is the silent saint but he speaks through his actions.  Matthew, in the first chapter of his gospel, shares this about Joseph, 
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.  But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit…”
Notice that even before the first angelic visitation in a dream (there were to be a total of four) Joseph had already decided that he would not expose Mary to public shame and would dismiss her quietly.  This decision on Joseph’s part should not be passed over carelessly.  It reflects his character.  According to the laws and customs of the time, Joseph had every right to have Mary stoned and killed.  Joseph could have acted out of vengeance and hurt pride but he chose not to.  Joseph, at that moment, held the life of Mary and the incarnate Word in her womb in his hands.  Just as Mary’s “yes” allowed the incarnation, Joseph’s “no” to violence and vengeance and “yes” to mercy allowed the incarnation to continue.  Joseph brings us the gift of mercy. 
Matthew writes that Joseph was a righteous man.  Our Lord throughout his ministry and proclamation of the Kingdom of God will again and again proclaim that righteousness is not based on blind observance of the law but on mercy and love.  It was simple human mercy and care that allowed the incarnation to continue.  St. Joseph’s proclamation to us is the gift of mercy.  
The three gifts of Advent: trust, humility and mercy.  As Christians, we receive these gifts by living them out in our lives and extending them to one another.  
Ss. Mary, John the Baptist and Joseph please pray for us.       

Notes on Preaching, #2 "The Joy of the Gospel"

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in homily, Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis, preaching

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Let us renew our confidence in preaching, based on the conviction that it is God who seeks to reach out to others through the preacher, and that he displays his power through human words. (EG, 136)

Pope Francis calls preachers of the Word to a sacred remembering of the power of preaching.  Throughout Scripture we find, time and time again, God choosing to work with human beings in all of our limits to proclaim his plan and his grace.  From Moses through the Old Testament prophets to John the Baptist to the apostles and to the great missionary Paul – there is a need that the Word of God be proclaimed and the need continues in our day!  People need to encounter the Word of God in all its richness and challenging beauty!  
I find it interesting that Pope Francis, after making this bold and challenging proclamation, then moves to the almost seemingly mundane character of dialogue and conversation as the foundation of preaching. 
It is worth remembering that “the liturgical proclamation of the word of God, especially in the eucharistic assembly, is not so much a time for meditation and catechesis as a dialogue between God and his people, a dialogue in which the great deeds of salvation are proclaimed and the demands of the covenant are continually restated”.   The homily has special importance due to its eucharistic context: it surpasses all forms of catechesis as the supreme moment in the dialogue between God and his people which lead up to sacramental communion. The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren. (EG, 137)
To help unpack this move toward dialogue and conversation I would like to quote in length a section out of Fr. Robert Barron’s book, The Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism.  
At one point in his book, Fr. Barron is exploring intersubjectivity as a component of true knowledge. 
For the Christian, authentic knowledge comes not through isolation or objectification but rather through something like love.  Therefore it should not be surprising that the fullness of knowing would occur through an intersubjective process, with knowers, as it were, participating in one another as each participates in the thing to be known.  If, as the Johannine prologue implies, the ground of being is a conversation between two divine speakers, it seems only reasonable that the search for intelligibility here below takes place in the context of steady and loving conversation.  
In a lyrical and compelling section of “Truth and Method,” Hans-Georg Gadamer reminds us that a healthy conversation is something like a game.  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are carried away beyond themselves in such a way that the game is playing them much more than they are playing it.  In a similar way, when two or more interlocutors enter into the rhythm of an intellectual exchange, respectful of its rules and of one another, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  The fundamental requirement for this sort of shared self-transcendence is a moral one: each conversationalist has to surrender her need to dominate the play for her purposes; each must efface herself, not only before the others but, more importantly, before the transcendent goal that they all seek.  To have a conversation is humbly to accept the possibility that one’s take on things might be challenged or corrected, that the other’s perspective might be more relatively right than one’s own.  
Holding these thoughts with those of Pope Francis we can see that preaching has as its true basis the very common and universal reality of honest conversation and dialogue rather than the latest and currently trendy fad, philosophy or method.  Rather than belittling the preaching task these depth explorations of conversation and dialogue show forth the true richness of understanding afforded this important and critical task!
The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. The preacher of the Word, along with the people of God, is himself caught up in this ongoing conversation between the Lord and his people yet he has a truly unique and important role to play.  The preacher must allow himself to be caught up in the game and must constantly fight against the temptation to dominate the play for his purposes.  This is a renunciation and an asceticism that every preacher must develop in his life.  If a homily is too self-referential then it has missed the mark and probably most of the people of God have already tuned out.  To make use of the above analogy – a person cannot play a good and rousing game of tennis if he is more concerned about how he looks rather than the game!  To preach is to enter into the great game of the dialogue between our risen Lord and his people! 
The proper progress of the dialogue though is dependent upon respect of the rules given.  Here are a few that I find present and have sparked for me in the thoughts quoted above.  
Fundamentally, the dialogue is Christ’s and not my own.  If my preaching is to mean anything then somehow Christ must speak through my words to the heart of those who are gathered.  This means that I must learn how to get out of the way and not try to dominate the play for my own agenda or emotional needs.  My experience has taught me that this is not as easy to do as one might think but it is essential.
For my preaching to be effective I must be in dialogue with Christ myself and I must be in dialogue with the community of the Church.  The preacher must know Christ and allow himself to be known by Christ fully.   The preacher must know the heart of his community, in order to realize where its desire for God is alive and ardent, as well as where that dialogue, once loving, has been thwarted and is now barren.  In order to know his community, the preacher must be with his community.  He must have the “smell of his sheep” on him as Pope Francis has famously said.  When the community is not known there is always the danger of preaching at people rather than continuing the great dialogue that the Lord has begun.  Would it not be an extremely sad thing for a preacher to come before the gates of heaven only to there be brought to the realization that his preaching was more of an interruption and distraction to our Lord’s great dialogue with his people rather than an assistance?
If authentic preaching has as part of its basis knowledge of the community then homily preparation is just as much about visiting the homebound, celebrating with families, serving the poor and weeping with those who mourn as it is about studying the Scriptures and reflecting on Biblical commentaries.  The preacher who shuts himself away in a rectory or a parish office is stunting his preaching potential and doing a great disservice to his community.  Christ dwells in the midst of his people, especially the poor.  Whenever and wherever Christ is encountered deeper understanding of Sacred Scripture is gained.     
The homily is the ultimate moment of catechesis but it is not just catechesis.  Scriptural studies and commentaries can provide good and worthy insights for preaching but preaching should not just become a lecture on Scripture or the faith.  There are appropriate moments for that (i.e. Bible Studies or Faith formation) but it is not the homily.  The homily is not meant to give facts about Jesus or his time or a period in Israel’s history; the homily is meant to help people encounter Christ, right now in their lives!    
Another rule – the preacher must learn how to allow the dialogue to carry him!  As two players surrender to the movement and rules of the game of tennis, they are quite often carried beyond their individual concerns and questions and taken somewhere they had not anticipated, the conversation having played them.  In humble prayer, the preacher must first encounter the Word and let the Word speak to him, once something sparks then the preacher must let the Word carry him to where it wants him to go.  Again, this gets into not trying to dominate the conversation.  We need to trust that the Word of God is indeed active and alive and we need to trust that the Word will take us to what the community needs to hear.  I believe that it is the author Annie Dillard who once reflected that if you want to learn where a bee hive is (and hence find the honey) then you must first learn how to follow bees.  The preacher must learn how to be guided by what sparks for him from God’s holy Word.  The preacher must learn how to follow bees.
Some thoughts for consideration as this ongoing reflection on the importance of preaching to the great task of evangelization continues…                        

In Praise of the Imperfect: Lessons Learned from a Christmas Tree

04 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by in beauty, Christmas, God's love, goodness, grace, imperfection, Messiah, truth

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I am from a family of four boys.  Usually around this time of year when we were growing up two of us would be given the task of getting the family Christmas tree down from the attic.  For us this was no small feat.  The tree was set in a large and heavy cardboard box.  Our main technique in regards to this task was shuffling the box to the top of the stairs, putting the front edge over the top step, lifting up the back of the box and then just letting it go!  The box would noisily slide down and come to a solid thump against the wall at the bottom of the stairway.  We would then wedge it out the doorway and into the hall.  This annual rite of retrieval gives an adequate portrayal of how this poor tree was treated over the years!  

It was the only tree I remember from my earliest Christmas’s and it remained a holiday fixture in my family’s home up until my first couple of years in college.  The tree consisted of a metal base, a three-piece wooden “trunk” with slots for the branches which varied in length.  The branches were made of a twisted metal with artificial, plastic needles comprising the greenery.  
It was never that beautiful of an artificial tree to begin with and over the years it became even less so.  One year a bird flew into the house immediately followed by our barking dog.  The bird landed in the tree; again, immediately followed by our barking dog!  This brought the tree down to a crashing thud, scattering ornaments everywhere!  The tree always had a bend to it after that year.  The ravages of Christmas wore on the tree.  After so many years there were just massive and solid wads of silver tinsel that could not be removed nor hidden.  Some branches gained bare spots as the plastic needles melted away after coming too close to the hot and large multi-colored Christmas lights.  At some point a couple of branches were lost.  (How do you misplace branches of a Christmas tree?)  It also did not seemingly help the cause that our parents made my brothers and I place tacky and not very attractive ornaments – made by ourselves as young children – on the tree each year.  All this being said; it was a wonder that we were able to assemble anything that even remotely resembled a Christmas tree each year.  
Yet we did and not only that, each year it somehow became quite beautiful.  After everything had been thrown on the tree – the new layer of tinsel, the ornaments, the lights, colored garlands – we would turn off the lights and stand back and gaze in wonder at the beauty of our tree!  When we were young, my brothers and I would lie under this very imperfect tree, with our heads touching the base and look up and it was beautiful – the lights, the ornaments, the branches…  It was like looking into a different world!  
Now that I am older I have come to realize something that my parents understood as they insisted that we not toss out the tree in favor of a “newer” and “more improved model”.  Our tree was made beautiful not in spite of its imperfections but because of its imperfections.  Somehow the tacky ornaments, the burnt branches, and the gobs of tinsel came together to make something quite beautiful and even magical each Christmas. 
This is a part of the great mystery; beauty and truth and goodness are found not in spite of our imperfections nor apart from them but in the very midst of our imperfections and even because of our imperfections.  This is an aspect of the mystery we await each Advent.  In the coming of Christ we realize that God does not abandon the imperfect.  We can often think that the contrary is the case.  Only when we are perfect will we then win affection and care!  Only when we are perfect will we achieve fulfillment!  The message so often told us, “Be perfect, or at least pretend to be, and abandon the imperfect!”  Yet, what a cold, lonely and ugly world that creates!
God does not abandon the imperfect and because of this Christians cannot abandon the imperfect and this includes even our very selves.  We are imperfect and God loves us.  God loves us and yet (at least in this world) we remain imperfect.  “My grace is made manifest in weakness,” says the Lord.  In other words, “God’s beauty shines forth!”
There is a freedom and a joy found here that the world just cannot match and also that the cultured despisers of Christianity fear (although they are loath to acknowledge it).  When we deny the Messiah and the need for one then we all must become messiahs unto ourselves.  We must be perfect!  What an unbearable weight to carry!      
When I acknowledge the Messiah, when I await his coming and realize my need then I realize that the job of “messiah” has already been filled.  I do not have to carry that weight!  I do not have to pretend to be perfect!  I can learn to be comfortable in my own skin and in who I am!  I can gain an authenticity that the world cannot afford because it is an authenticity rooted in the very fact that I am imperfect and yet I am beloved of the Father!   
As a priest of eighteen years now I am beginning to understand a little of the subversive nature of the sacrament of reconciliation.  In a time that cries out, “Be perfect!  Abandon, reject and distance yourself from the imperfect!” the Church quietly in reconciliation chapels and confessionals around the world provides a space (maybe for some the only space) where we can honestly acknowledge that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes – sometimes quite painful ones – and that we are loved by God even in our imperfections.  One fruit of true reconciliation is an authenticity that the world just cannot give.   
God does not abandon the imperfect and because of this; goodness, truth and beauty can be found not in spite of our imperfections but even in their very midst.            

Notes on Preaching, #1 "The Joy of the Gospel"

30 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in ever newness of Christ, Joy of the Gospel, memory, New Evangelization, Pope Francis, preaching, sermon

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I have been told that I am a good preacher.  I am appreciative of this and take it both as a compliment and a responsibility to continually strive for but I have to admit that I sometimes wonder if people heard the same homily that I did when I preached at a Mass!  Fr. Mike Creson, a friend and priest in my diocese, once joked about given the same Sunday homily at a multitude of Masses (which can often be the case in my diocese), “The first time preached the homily is new and you stumble a little.  The second time you are more comfortable and it comes better.  The third time is good and you got it down although it is getting a little wearisome.  By the time of the fourth Mass, well … you wonder if even you believe it!” 

There are many factors that can affect the “effectiveness” of preaching (however one chooses to define that).  A number of which are out of the preacher’s control – factors going on in a parishioner’s life and in the life of a community, the attitude a person brings to church, the crying of a baby in a congregation and other distractions that can occur during Mass, duties and emergencies that can come up that limit homily preparation time and even just the temperature setting in a Church.  The list can go on and on.  All this being said though, the bishop, priest and deacon have a solemn duty to proclaim God’s Word faithfully to God’s people.  This is truly an important task and one every minister of the Word should give the utmost care and attention to; not least of all because we promised to do so at our ordinations!  
In his first Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel” Pope Francis spends a good bit of time reflecting on the value and importance of preaching in the overall mission of the Church with its mandate to evangelize.  Using our Holy Father’s exhortation as a touchstone and guide, I would like to offer some thoughts on preaching.  I do not know how many posts I will devote to this topic nor do I claim that every post here on out will focus exclusively on preaching without interruption until completed but I want to spend some time reflecting on this invitation of our Holy Father because, I believe, preaching is truly important in the Christian life and frankly, when preaching is minimized, community suffers.  
I know not every bishop, priest or deacon will be a Bishop Fulton Sheen or a St. John Chrysostom and I believe that Pope Francis is aware of this also.  But, when ministers of the Word continually strive to be faithful and authentic to the call to preach the Good News (whether we be the most dynamic speaker or not) something important happens in people’s lives because it is not only us at work, the Spirit of God moves through us – often very poor vessels that we are.  We need to trust in this and truly recognize that just a God works through us in the sacraments of baptism, matrimony, reconciliation and Eucharist so also is God working through us in our sharing and breaking open of His word which is an essential part of every celebration of the Eucharist.
It is worthy to note where Pope Francis grounds his understanding of preaching as expressed in the the first chapters of “The Joy of the Gospel” – the ever-newness of Christ (chp. 11) and memory (chp. 13).
Christ is the “eternal Gospel” (Rev 14:6); he “is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb 13:8), yet his riches and beauty are inexhaustible. He is for ever young and a constant source of newness. The Church never fails to be amazed at “the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God” (Rom 11:33). 
Later in his Exhortation the Holy Father will reflect on every sermon as a continuation of the original dialogue begun by Christ with his disciples.  (The homily takes up once more the dialogue which the Lord has already established with his people. #137)  This is a wonderful understanding of the sermon and one I will reflect on in more detail in a later post but for our purposes here it is good to remind ourselves that we and our preaching are part of something much bigger.  Our preaching is not something separate from, nor just an add-on to the coming of the Kingdom of God; our preaching is part and parcel of this ongoing and ever new dialogue between Christ and his disciples!  For preaching to be truly effective and efficacious then the preacher himself must be ever immersed in an ongoing encounter and dialogue with Christ in his own heart.  The efficacious sermon will “tap into” this ever new and ongoing dialogue between Christ and his disciples. 
… as Saint Irenaeus writes: “By his coming, Christ brought with him all newness”.   With this newness he is always able to renew our lives and our com­munities, and even if the Christian message has known periods of darkness and ecclesial weak­ness, it will never grow old. Jesus can also break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world. Every form of authentic evangelization is always “new”.
Yet the Holy Father goes on to caution that the “ever newness” of the Gospel does not negate memory rather, in the Gospel, memory is fulfilled and memory itself becomes a means of encountering the newness of Christ.  The apostles never forgot the moment when Jesus touched their hearts: “It was about four o’clock in the afternoon” (Jn 1:39).  A primary duty of the preacher is to call the community back to memory not in a sense of a mistaken nostalgia (“Things were so much better way back when…”) but in the depth of a sacramental sense.  When we remember, individually and communally, how Jesus has touched our hearts then we encounter Christ anew!  The preacher must preserve this deep sense of memory!  We live in a world that thrives on distraction and a glut of superficial information.  People are yearning for a depth to memory.  A sermon that just skims the surface of the superficial does no one any good! 
The believer is essentially “one who remembers”.    
Every sermon should call people back to this sense of memory and therefore to a new encounter with Christ.  People are starving for this!  They are not starving for the priest’s latest travelogue or the newest internet joke – that is the superficial they are fed every day of the week.  The Church truly nourishes and she does so through Word and Sacrament!  My spiritual director in seminary, Fr. Lou Cameli, once gave me a treasured piece of advice about preaching: “Just say something that invites people to prayer.”  It is about memory and the ever new encounter with Christ. 
Every Monday, I begin to pray over the readings for the upcoming Sunday and part of my prayer is a simple request to the Lord, “Jesus, let me know what you would have me say to your people.”    

 

Christ the King and how we honor Him

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Christ the King, humility, image and likeness of God, will, willing the good of the other

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There is a story told about the temple mount in Jerusalem.  

Before there was a temple, before there was even a city, there were two brothers that lived on either side of the hill.  One brother was wealthy yet he had no family.  The other brother had very limited resources but he had a large family.  One evening the wealthy brother was thinking of his brother on the other side of the hill.  “My brother,” he thought “does not have much and he has many mouths to feed and here I am with all my wealth.  I know what I shall do, every night under the cover of darkness I will take one sack of grain from my granary and carry it over to my brother’s and place it in his granary.”  Now, that very same evening the other brother was thinking of his wealthy sibling.  “My brother,” he thought “does not have the blessing of a family but he does have riches, I might as well help him grow even more in his riches.  I will take a sack of grain from my granary every night and carry it to my brother’s granary and place it with his grain.”  The brothers began to do this every night, all the time not saying a word to the other about what they were doing.  They were both amazed to see every morning that the number of sacks in their granaries remained the same although they had taken away a sack the previous evening.  This all continued for a while until one night they met one another at the crest of the hill carrying their sacks of grain.  Upon seeing one another they immediately realized what had been transpiring and they embraced one another in love.  And upon their embrace the voice of God sounded from heaven, “This is where I will build my house upon earth!” 

The moral of the tale, I believe, is this: when we make the choice to love and to give then we open our hearts that God might come in and make a dwelling place within us.  When we choose to love, God makes his home within and with us.

In one of the Harry Potter movies (I cannot remember which) the wise wizard Dumbledore shares this insight with the young Harry, “Harry, it is neither our abilities nor our skills that define our character, rather it is the choices we make that truly define who we are.”  It is when we make a choice, when we exercise our will; that we truly define and determine who we are.

One of the beautiful aspects of our Christian faith tradition is the belief that every human person is made in the very image and likeness of God – the “imago Dei”.  As we proclaim this, it is understandable to then ask how we are made in God’s image.  Is it in our bodies, our physical makeup, that we image God?  No, because God is pure spirit and does not have a body.  Is it in our abilities or our skills that we image God?  Well, not really, our skills and abilities (no matter how impressive they might be) are not really all that much compared to the truth of God.  How are we made in God’s image?  Many of the greatest thinkers and saints of our faith tradition have answered this question by saying that it is in our will where we find most fully the image of God.  It is by our choosing the good that we show forth God’s image in which we are made.  When we, aided by God’s grace, make the choice to love, the choice to give, the choice to let go of self, the choice to forgive, to show mercy then we truly reveal the image of God in which we are made.  Our character is defined and determined by the choices that we make.

On this feast of Christ the King we proclaim that Christ is indeed Lord and King of all creation.  He is master.  Christ is the one who was dead but who is now risen and alive.  He is the firstborn.  As we proclaim Christ as King it is fair to ask what type of king do we have?  What is our king’s character?

The Gospel reading for this feast (Lk. 23: 35-43) tells us something truly important about the king we have and proclaim and it is revealed in the choice he made.  It is important to note that in the space of just eight verses, as our Lord is being crucified, he is presented with the same temptation three times; three times from different groups: the rulers, the Roman soldiers and the criminal hanging next to him.  The temptation is simple, “Save yourself!”  Rulers: “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.”  Soldiers: “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.”  Criminal: “Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us.”  Three times this temptation is presented before our Lord and he could have chosen to save himself … but he did not.  Rather, he made a different choice.  He choose to obey the Father’s will; he choose to love both God and us, he choose to give of himself even unto death.

This is the king we have, the king that we proclaim and that we glorify!  Our character is defined by our choices and our king’s character is revealed in his choice here at the end of Luke’s gospel.  In the face of all the world’s temptation, Christ made a different choice – he made the choice of love.  Today we glorify Christ as king and as we do the same gospel truth is now put before us.  We all have the same temptation that our Lord faced and we know this.  In so many varied ways the world continues to put the same temptation before every disciple of Christ – sometimes subtly sometimes very blatantly.  “Save yourself!  Do not care about others.  Do not think of others.  Who cares about them?  Think only of yourself.  Save yourself!” 

But Christ our King shows us that there is a different way, a different choice can always be made.

When the world says, “Save yourself!” we, with God’s grace, can make a different choice.  We can make the choice to love.  We can choose to serve and to give of self.  We can forgive and offer mercy.  “Save yourself,” is not the only option we have.  Like Christ, our king, we can make the choice to love and to give.  We can always make the choice for the good regardless of the situation or the context in which we find ourselves.    

And the gospel truth is this: it is when we choose to love and to give (even when it seemingly leads to more hardship, more pain, difficulties and even death) that new and more abundant life is found and known.  More abundant than we could ever possibly imagine!  This is the truth of the cross and the resurrection – the seed of the glory of the resurrection is always found in the loss of the cross!

Today we celebrate Christ as King of Creation and we recognize the gospel truth that he puts before us.  As the world loudly proclaims, “Save yourself” to be the only option we know this not to be true.  Our king has shown us a different way.  There is always another choice that can be made – the choice to love – and it is in this choice that we find new and more abundant life.                   

Mayor Rob Ford and the Knockout Game – signs of our times

16 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by in anthropology, authenticity, human person, Mayor Ron Ford

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Mayor Rob Ford

Two things have struck me this past week. 

The first is the train wreck occurring in Toronto around Mayor Rob Ford caught in the use of drugs and a new allegation regarding prostitutes.  The videos of the imploding mayor ranting during a city government meeting have gone viral on the web.  It is painful to watch as Mayor Ford is clearly a man out of control yet one who will not resign his office and someone who therefore, in effect, is holding an entire city and its government hostage.  Yet, what particularly struck me was a news commentator reporting on the situation who made the observation that regardless of whether one agrees with the mayor or not he is showing that he certainly has a “huge pair”.  First of all, I will say that I think that the commentator’s remark was unacceptable and unprofessional and secondly, I will leave it to the reader to surmise to what the commentator was referring.  

The second incident of the past week is a video news report I saw on the “game” called knockout.  This game involves a teenage male running up to an unsuspecting person, often from behind, and hitting the person in an attempt to prove that he is powerful enough to knock the person out.  It does not matter if the unsuspecting victim is male, female or an elderly person.  All are fair game.  There are videos of these random attacks that are very disturbing and people have died as a result of these violent outbursts.   
I would propose that both Rob Ford’s ranting and the knockout game demonstrate a crisis in anthropology and particularly masculinity in our society.  Both are a misuse of power and neither gives testament to true courage, strength and determination or having a “huge pair” as the news commentator erroneously remarked.  
Rob Ford boasts that he has done great things for Toronto as mayor and maybe he has but he (at least on the videos I have seen) seems utterly enable to recognize that sheer exercise of power alone does not make the mayor … or the man.  Yes, he is defiant but his defiance should not be lauded but condemned because it demonstrates a profound and dangerous ignorance.  The human person (and therefore human community) is not just will to power and damn all other considerations!  Life is not just about ambition, achievement and reaching the highest possible position with any means justifying the end or any side activity excused as long as it does not interfere with the final goal and the exercise of power.  Ford’s implicit claim that his drug use should be excused, overlooked and hand-slapped because of what he has achieved for Toronto demonstrates a truly stunted view of humanity and yet, sadly, a view that is not uncommon.  
Enter the young men participating in knockout.  The goal of the game is to prove that you are “strong enough” to knock someone out.  I am sure that there are numerous sociological, cultural and historical forces behind such an act of violence yet it cannot be denied that this game fundamentally equates manhood and masculinity with the ability to exercise power and achieve ones purpose – i.e. knocking another human person to the ground.  Nor also, should any of these sociological forces excuse this violent action.  It is wrong and cowardly to attack an unsuspecting person.  Yet, these young people seemingly fail to perceive this and that needs to be recognized for what it is – again, a truly stunted view of humanity and what it means to be a human person and a man. 
Rob Ford and these young men participating in knockout are one and the same. 
I have heard it said that the next great issue facing the Church to which we must bring the light of the Gospel is that of anthropology.  What does it mean to be a “human person” and a subset of that question is what does it mean to be a man?  Rob Ford and the young people participating in knockout demonstrate the fault line of this great issue.  We should not pass these incidents by as unrelated and tangential curiosities in the cultural landscape.  Together they witness a profound shift and loss in an understanding of the human person that has the potential to and already is shaking all levels of society and human understanding and to which no person or group is immune. 
As Christians we must address this loss and fault line running through our times but we need to be authentic in how we do so.   
A truly critical component of the New Evangelization is the proclamation of the Christian understanding of the human person as fully revealed in the person of Christ Jesus himself.  Our world stands in desperate need of this proclamation, yet it is not enough to rest on past laurels.  We can certainly draw inspiration and direction from our heritage in Christ and Christian thought but simply repeating old pat phrases will not do.  We need to proclaim to a new time and a new need what it means to be a human person in Christ and this means that we must, as they say, “have some skin in the game ourselves.”  In order for any proclamation of the dignity of the human person to be authentic, we must first of all encounter Christ in the totality of who we are and we must allow the light of the Gospel the process of penetrating and transforming every single aspect of our very selves.  This alone will enable us to avoid the double pitfalls of a stunted understanding of the human person and of an inauthentic and shallow proclamation that can easily be recognized by the lack of fruit it produces.  
Rob Ford and the young men participating in knockout demonstrate the profound fault line running through our understanding of the human person and, at the same time, the profound need for which so many are yearning – a true understanding of the human person and what it means to be a man.  They show what happens when this understanding is lost.  They are very sad characters.  Only an authentic answer can satisfy this need and that can only be found and gained through a continuing encounter with Christ. 
The New Evangelization cannot be faked.  The Gospel in every age always demands that we have some skin in the game and only this authenticity can answer the stunted view of humanity and the crisis of masculinity present in our time.             

Resurrection: Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in resurrection

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As we come to the end of the liturgical year the Church invites us to reflect on the end things – the second coming of Christ, life, death, resurrection and judgment.  The Old Testament itself only reached a degree of certainty about the resurrection quite late, as presented in the first reading from the Second Book of Maccabees (2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14).  In the time of Jesus belief in the resurrection was hotly debated with the Sadducees being the main group opposed.  So, when the Sadducees approach Jesus in today’s gospel with their lengthy and convoluted question (Lk. 20:27-38) they are more interested in putting him in a verbal trap and proving their point than actually being open to the ever-new possibilities of grace.   

Jesus easily sidesteps their question and their narrative of reality and gives us a glimpse of the fullness that awaits us in the resurrection.  (It is helpful to note here that sometimes the wisdom of the Church in shown in what she chooses not to say just as much in what she explicitly teaches.)  Our belief in what comes after death and in the end things all come from the little glimpses we have been given through the Scriptures and what Christ himself has revealed (as seen in today’s gospel).  This wisdom is pastorally present in the Church’s celebration of funerals, I believe.  In the funeral, we commend the beloved to the mercy of God and that is as far as we can go.  God alone judges the human heart at the moment of his or her death and also God alone knows the time of the end things with their explicit details.  To speculate and then try to speak authoritatively on what we cannot know reveals more foolishness and hubris on our part than any sense of wisdom.   
Sometimes wisdom is also shown in knowing when to keep ones mouth shut.   
In today’s gospel our Lord says that the children of the resurrection will neither marry nor be given in marriage; that they will no longer die for they will be like angels and that God is God not of the dead but of the living, “for to him all are alive.”   
The reality of the resurrected life is a reality that we cannot fully understand because we are all hemmed in by death and this affects our view of everything, our pursuits as well as our relating one to another.  The opposite is true for the resurrected life because with the resurrection, life is continuous; it has neither beginning nor end; there is no further need of marriage for procreation, and death is no longer possible. It is a life full of loving communion with God and with one another, a life without tears, bitterness and sorrows.  This in no way denies but rather fulfills the reality of human existence and relationship.   
In his book on Jesus of Nazareth (the volume focusing on Holy Week) Pope Emeritus Benedict offers this thought in regards to the resurrection: 
Throughout the history of the living, the origins of anything new have always been small, practically invisible, and easily overlooked.  The Lord himself has told us that “heaven” in this world is like a mustard seed, the smallest of all the seeds (Mt. 13:31-32), yet contained within it are the infinite potentialities of God.  In terms of world history, Jesus’ Resurrection is improbable; it is the smallest mustard seed of history. 
To refer to the resurrection of Christ as the “smallest mustard seed of history” seems counterintuitive to say the least but Pope Emeritus Benedict is, in fact, making a profound statement.  From our perspective, from the perspective of those hemmed in by death, the resurrection is truly improbable and just plain impossible but not from God’s perspective.  God is not, nor has God ever been, hemmed in by death as we are.  This “smallest of all seeds” has indeed broken into our world and now all life and all of creation is being transformed!  Death is not the last word!  God is not God of the dead but of the living!   
We, ourselves, are already caught up in this newness of life which has this smallest of seeds as its origin!  In the Apostles Creed we do not profess belief in “life after death” rather; we profess belief in “life everlasting”.  The newness of life in the resurrection is not a “not yet” reality.  It is a reality that has already begun within us.  Today, through our baptisms, we are participating in life everlasting.  The transformation has already begun and is at work within us.  We have a hope which endures because the seed of the resurrection has broken through the dominance of death which had hemmed all humanity and all history in. 
In terms of world history, Jesus’ Resurrection is improbable; it is the smallest mustard seed of history. 
Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.”      

Zacchaeus and Jesse James – Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in grace, sin, Zaccheus

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Often, when we think of movies with a faith theme we tend to envision movies that portray the glory or triumphant struggle of faith but there are also movies that explore the other side – the reality of sin and its consequences.

 “The Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford” is one such film I believe.  It is not necessarily an “easy” movie to watch precisely for this reason.  It is a film that explores the psychological and spiritual landscape of sin and its effects.  Within the movie there are many amazing scenes of fall and winter landscapes which visually portray the stark inner landscapes of the film’s characters … landscapes that have been deadened and made barren by violence and sin.
Jesse James, played by Brad Pitt, is not romanticized in this movie.  He is presented as a fully complex character – extremely violent, a killer, yet human and full of paranoia near the end of his life.  Robert Ford (played by Casey Affleck) – the man who would assassinate James – is also presented in the complexity of his humanity.  He does not come off as a hero nor is he meant to.  Both characters are men fully caught up in the twisting and disfiguring reality of sin and violence.

There is a telling scene near the end of the movie where James and Ford are sitting together in a room of James’ home in St. Joseph, Missouri.  The house is quiet and James is staring out the window.  He says, “I go on journeys outside my body and look at my red hands and angry face and I wonder where I have gone wrong.  I’ve been becoming a problem to myself.”  Ford is in a stunned silence.  He does not have a response to this admission of James.  He departs the room and James continues to stare out the window.

It is, I believe, a poignant portrayal of the affect of sin in ones life.  In sin, we become problems to ourselves.  Problems that we, on our own, can neither solve nor riddle our way through.  We are too twisted, too ineffectual and too lost.  We stand in the need of grace.

The first reading for this coming Sunday is taken from the Book of Wisdom.  The first verse of the reading says this, “Before the Lord the whole universe is as a grain from a balance or a drop of morning dew come down upon the earth.” (Wisdom 11:22)  In the Gospel reading we are given the story of Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19:1-10).  In the story we are told that Jesus is passing through Jericho and Zacchaeus – a short man – has climbed a tree in order to see the controversial rabbi.  When Jesus comes to the place where Zacchaeus is, he looks directly up at the man and says, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”  

When I hold these two verses together I find myself envisioning a common cinematic technique – the movement from a grand scene of the universe step by step to a particular place and moment in our world.  The full universe to our galaxy to our solar system past the moon to earth through the clouds to the Middle East to the Holy Land to Jericho to the street to our Lord looking up at this short man in a tree.  From the Lord who views all creation as a grain of sand to Zacchaeus in the tree – it is the movement of grace.  “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.”

As soon as our Lord says this, we are told that the other people began to grumble.  Zacchaeus is a tax collector, he is a man caught up in the barren landscape of sin and violence and the others know this.  He is a sinner, let us not kid ourselves, we must neither romanticize this man before the advent of grace in his life nor reduce him to a funny little children’s cartoon character.  We must see him for who he is, acknowledge the violence of the system he represents and recognize the very real need in which he, himself, stands.  (Maybe an equivalent to our day which might bring all this out for us it to imagine our Lord deciding to go and dine at the house of Bernie Madoff.)   

But something new has now happened!  Zacchaeus has been a problem to himself, a problem in which he has been trapped and lost, but now, in this moment of encounter with Christ, he does something different.  We are told that Zacchaeus stands there in the very midst of the grumbling and he proclaims to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”  In the encounter with Christ a new way is found!  The starkness of sin, violence and separation is broken through!  The problem that we become to ourselves through sin is broken through!

“And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a descendant of Abraham.  For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”  In sin, humanity turns in on itself; we become problems to ourselves – a problem that we, on our own, have no hope of solving.  There is a depth to our brokenness that only God can answer.  It is in the gift of grace, the encounter with Christ, that a new way is found … for each and every one of us.

The Feast of All Saints: Don’t Worry, Heaven’s Got a Plan for You

01 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by in Feast of all Saints, trust

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Swedish House Mafia is a former DJ group.  (They have since broken up.)  One of their songs is, “Don’t You Worry Child”.  I would like to share some lines from the first part of the song.
           
There was a time I used to look into my father’s eyes.
      In a happy home; I was a king, I had a golden throne.
     Those days are gone, now just memories on the wall.
 I hear the songs from the place where I was born.
      Upon a hill, across a blue lake, that’s where I had my first heartbreak.
       I still remember how it all changed. 
My father said, “Don’t you worry child.  See, heaven’s got a plan for you.  Don’t you worry now.” 

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of All Saints – the feast of the men and women of heroic virtue and faith throughout the centuries who witnessed to Christ – both those publicly known and proclaimed by the Church and those who are known to God alone.  The saints, through their encounter with Christ, allowed their lives to be transformed and, I would say, they came to realize a deeper meaning to the words of the song quoted above.  The saints came to know the truth of where we have come from and what we are meant for.   

“There was a time I used to look into my father’s eyes.”  There was a time we lived in relationship with God, we looked into God’s eyes – in a home, we were “kings on a throne” – beloved.  But, something happened – pride grew, we turned away, there was sin.  “Those days are gone, now just memories on the wall”.  There is heartbreak.  It has all changed.  Yet, even in the heartbreak we know in the deepest part of who we are that it is not right, we are meant for something more.  “I hear the songs from the place where I was born.”  On our own we are lost and left yearning for what we once knew.  But God comes to us.  “My father said, “Don’t you worry child.  See, heaven’s got a plan for you.  Don’t you worry now.” 
The saints through their encounter with Christ came to know the truth of where we are from, the pain of our isolation, the Father who has not forgotten and what we are ultimately meant for.  Blessed, indeed, are they!  In this awareness all becomes a blessing – blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, blessed are those who seek for righteousness, the merciful, the clean of heart, the peacemakers and blessed are even those who are persecuted.  Blessed indeed are they, for in this saving awareness all becomes a moment of encounter with Christ and a moment to know who indeed we are and what we are meant for.  
It has been said that when we get to the end of our lives the one regret we might be left with is not to have been a saint.  Each one of us is meant to be a saint … you are meant to be a saint.
Encounter Christ. 
Be attentive to those moments when you catch those songs from the place where you were born. 
Don’t worry.  Trust that heaven has a plan for you.      
(P.S. Here is a link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9BtTrZdft8)

Pope Francis and non-defensive Christianity

24 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis, young people

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My friends in Rome tell me that Pope Francis is drawing about four times as many people to the Vatican as did both Pope Emeritus Benedict and Bl. John Paul II.  Pope Francis has certainly caught the world’s attention and whether he is being quoted correctly or not people are showing up to listen.  

My own hunch is that many of the people are ones who have not felt connected to the Church in a while.  Why?  I think that the Holy Father is witnessing a non-defensive Christianity and that people find this extremely appealing and attractive, especially younger people.  Whether through his pastoral phone-calls, his choice not to reside in the papal apartments, forswearing security measures and wading into crowds or sitting down with a prominent atheist for a newspaper interview; Pope Francis is demonstrating a Christianity secure in itself and comfortable both in its own skin and in the world.  He is authentic and authenticity attracts.   
The pope has himself said that he is a, “son of the Church”.  He has not changed doctrine.  He thinks with the mind of the Church but he also demonstrates that he is not afraid to encounter the world, he is not afraid to be creative and that he recognizes the beauty of the world and of people while also not being naïve to sin and human weakness. 
The authenticity of Pope Francis can only be born of faith, humility and contact with the poor.  When asked how he would define himself, Pope Francis responded with, “I am a sinner … a sinner upon whom the gaze of Christ has fallen.”  What beautiful words!  And words that immediately connected the pope with every other single person on the face of the earth!  We are all sinners upon whom the gaze and mercy of God has fallen.  
A telling picture I have seen of then Cardinal Bergoglio was a random photo taken of him sitting, obviously tired and weary, on either a bus or train.  The story has been told of how he would take public transportation whenever possible during his time in Argentina – demonstrating both his chosen simplicity of life and his need for being with ordinary people.  If other popes have spoken of the “school of prayer” or the “school of the family”, Pope Francis has truly learned and knows the lessons and wisdom that can only be acquired from the “school of the poor”.  Wisdom acquired from the school of the poor cannot be faked nor pretended.  It is authentic and it speaks directly to people’s hearts.  
I think that it is also of import that Pope Francis is of an older generation and living a non-defensive Christianity.  This should not be underestimated.  I think Pope Emeritus Benedict also lived a non-defensive Christianity but, honestly, too many factors and false perceptions negated against this message getting out.  I think that time and history will demonstrate this component of Pope Benedict’s papacy.  Certainly, Bl. John Paul II proclaimed the goodness of God and the world but for most young people of today their first memory of him is rooted not in the athletic hiker and skier pope but in the time of his physical decline and ill health. 
Pope Francis is the first pope of our era who was not present at the Second Vatican Council. 
I have spent my priesthood working with young people and one thing I have found that truly turns young people off and shuts their ears is when older generations speak as if theirs was the greatest generation or when older generations (because the world may be changing in ways they did not expect) act as if the world is coming to an end!  Neither perspective being true and both demonstrating an inherent narcissism.  By living a non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis (a man in his later seventies) is doing neither and I think that young people are picking up on it.  
Might a fair question of why young adults are not present in our churches be partly because these two forms of our own narcissism leave them no room in our church pews?  Honestly, why would a young person want to go to a place where either he or she is reminded that his/her generation does not measure up or that there is no future and that everything is coming to an end?  Both are denials of the possibility of youth and are ways of telling younger generations (in subtle and not so subtle ways), “you don’t really matter”.  
Pope Francis is not saying that.  He is saying quite the opposite.  He is saying, “You do matter.”  By living a non-defensive Christianity, Pope Francis is demonstrating a Christianity of hope and a faith that is certainly aware of the beauty and gift of the past but also open to the possibility of the future and he is demonstrating a profound recognition of the dignity and gift of all generations.  
People are showing up to listen for a reason.