Category Archives: Church

Thoughts on the Sunday readings: Pentecost

24 Sunday May 2015

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

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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!

The Possibility of Holiness

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by in Catholic Church, Christian living, Church, discipleship, faith, following Jesus, God, gospel, holiness, Jesus, joy

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I am not holy.  My sins, failures and weaknesses are before me every day, but I believe in the possibility of holiness and it is this belief that keeps me in the Church. 

I am not naïve to the sins and failures of the institution of the Church nor its representatives – past and present, universal and local – but neither am I naïve to the sins and failures of those outside the Church and those who deride “church”.  I have also witnessed their sins and their hidden despair and I want none of it.  The louder and more forced the laugh; the deeper the despair, I believe.  
I do not want nor need a “Church” made in my image.  I know my sins.  Holiness is challenge – lived daily and without fanfare.  I am a creature and I need my Creator to heal what is broken within me.  To pretend that there is no brokenness is, in fact, to deny my Creator. 
Holiness is simple.  I am tired of a presentation of faith that needs to be hyper-stimulated.  I feel sorry for our young people who are growing up in such a world.  I am sorry for the times the Church buys into this.  Holiness cannot be manufactured.  Holiness grows simply and quietly.  What is manufactured quickly fades and leaves a void.  Maybe holiness can begin to grow in this void maybe it cannot.  I know that God can work as God so chooses and I have to trust in this.  
Holiness is not argument and it is not philosophy.  Debate does not lead to conversion, the witness of holiness does.  Philosophy and its structure is a good tool but it is not salvific faith.  The wise steward, we are told, is the one who can go to the storeroom and pull out both the old and the new as needed.  Maybe there are other tools available?
Holiness does not isolate.  Christ, the All Holy One, came into our very midst.  He called us brothers and sisters and taught us to love one another.  Holiness is found in my encounter with the other although it may not be immediately apparent.  The holiness uniquely found in community forces me out of myself and I need this.  If anything, the direction of holiness is from the mountain back down into the valley of the everyday. 
Holiness is not on a mountaintop somewhere but in the Gospel, the sacraments and community.  I need these every day.
Many people like to point to the sins of the Church.  It is nice to have an excuse isn’t it?  Pointing out the perceived sins of others does not grow holiness in my own life; it just gives me a way out.  I need to stand before my Creator on my own and not in contrast to what I perceive as the sins of others. 
Holiness is beautiful and I need beauty – a child playing peek-a-boo, friends laughing, feet being washed.  
I feel sorrow for those who have left the Church.  Christ loves the Church … how can you love Christ and not love what he loves?  Maybe Christ’s love should be bigger than my own resentments and excuses?
Holiness is living in friendship with God.            

The Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran and Stewardship Sunday

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by in Basilica of John Lateran, Church, collection, discipleship, gospel, support

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One summer when I was in seminary I spent seven weeks in Cuernavaca, Mexico for a Spanish immersion program.  Cuernavaca is a beautiful city located in the mountains outside of Mexico City.  I was living with a host family and I would walk a couple of blocks each day to the language institute for my classes.  The previous semester in seminary I had taken a class on the writings of St. Paul and I decided to also read through all of Paul’s letters that summer.  So, each day in the afternoon after class I would walk down the street to a little neighborhood park with my Bible and Spanish books and read a little bit of St. Paul and study some Spanish, read some St. Paul and study some Spanish.  St. Paul became my Spanish study companion.  
Reading Paul’s letters though I started to note how he often emphasized and encouraged the fledgling Christian communities in their collections and support for the needs of the church.  At first I thought this was just about the reality of money and how you just need it in order to get things done.  But the more I read St. Paul, the more I realized that the collection itself was not the primary thing for him rather it was what the giving of support itself represented in the growing spiritual maturity of the community.  The willingness to give to support the needs of the church community (whether local or not) was a reflection of the gospel taking root in one’s heart – either the heart of an individual or that of a community.  It was a sign of one’s ability to let go of self in order to focus on the needs of the other.  Paul realized that the ability to give was an important demonstration of maturity in discipleship; so by encouraging these communities in their support he was actually encouraging their growth in discipleship.  
This Sunday the Church celebrates the Dedication of the Basilica of John Lateran in Rome and in our own parish we also mark this as Stewardship Sunday.  An historical note – the actual “cathedral” of the Bishop of Rome is not St. Peter’s but the Basilica of St. John Lateran.  Before the Basilica of St. Peter we know today was constructed the bishop of Rome (the Pope) resided at St. John Lateran for hundreds of years and this basilica is still considered the actual cathedral seat of Rome.  The Church celebrates this Feast of Dedication as a moment to reflect on our unity as Church throughout the world and our understanding of the Bishop of Rome having a unique authority given by Christ for the shepherding of his Church.  
It is also a good moment to reflect on the reality of what it means to be “Church” and the gift of faith we have been given and the gift we are called to pass on to others.  Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “Brothers and sisters: you are God’s building.  According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it.  But each one must be careful how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is there, namely, Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 3:9-11)  We are collectively and each individually “God’s building”.  We are the Church – more so than any building, even more than magnificent buildings like St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s or the Shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico – we are the Church, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit in our world.  But if we listen to Paul’s words and we take them to heart we realize that we also are “builders”.  We are not the foundation – that is Christ our Lord, but we are builders and Paul advises that each of us “must be careful” in how we build upon this foundation.  Our lives matter, how we live our lives of faith matter and not just for us but also for others.  
I have shared that both of my parents are deceased and now looking back in hindsight some of the fondest memories and, I think, most formative moments for me were when my parents demonstrated their faith.  Nothing earth-shattering rather these were daily things like prayer before a meal, saying the rosary, making the sign of a cross when we drove by a church.  To this day I remember how every so often on a Saturday morning my Dad would gather my three brothers and I in our car and drive us to church to go to confession and God knows we needed it!  But standing in line as a young boy with my father, who was not a perfect man, left a strong and lifelong impression on me.  Whether he knew it or not my father was building upon the foundation he had received both for himself and for me.  Without saying a word he was witnessing the need for forgiveness and mercy in our lives.  Our lives matter.  How we live our lives and our faith matter.
On this Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran and Stewardship Sunday it is good to reflect on what it means to be Church, on what we have received and the call for each of us to be wise builders.  St. Paul knew this.  The ability to give and to support is a reflection of our own growing maturity as disciples, of how the gospel has taken root in our lives.  How we live our lives of faith matter, not just for us but for others – especially those who come after us.       

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.                                

Mom’s illness and finding God

22 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Church, comfort, God's presence, illness, Jesus Prayer, prayer, touch

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For four years now I have been the primary caregiver for my mom.  I have worked to get her settled into her independent living apartment.  I have taken her to appointments with her doctors and I have run to the pharmacy for her medicine and to Wal-Mart for the finch socks she likes to hang outside on her porch.  I have sat with her many Saturday nights watching Lawrence Welk and the British comedies that she loves.  I have also made many trips to the emergency room in the middle of the night when she has struggled for breathe or has fallen.  I have watched as her health has continued to ebb away bit by bit.

My mother suffers from COPD brought on by a lifetime of smoking as well as severe arthritis in her back and a scarred artery attached to her heart.  I do not fully understand all the complexities of her health situation but I know that all this together is something she can never really recover from and will only get worse over time.

In the past two weeks things have gotten worse. 

It began with her falling.  One such fall landed her in the ER with a cut on her head and the need to get staples.  Not a week later she was back in the hospital due to severe pain.  That hospital kept her for a few days and discharged her to a long-term health care facility.  Not two days later, mom was back in the emergency room of a different hospital due to extreme pain.  It is a hard thing to hear your eighty-four year old mother scream out in pain while powerless to do anything.  After a series of tests it was determined that mom had some stones causing blockage in her bile duct.  Due to the frailty of her health the doctors decided on a two-step process.  For the first step they went in her side and inserted a valve in order to drain out the backed-up fluid.  Today, for the second step they went in and dislodged the stones.  This second procedure seems to have worked.  Hopefully, mom will now begin to improve.

As I reflect on these recent occurrences I have realized that there are some spiritual lessons to be found within the journey of these past two weeks.   

1.  The beauty of the Jesus Prayer.  A number of nights my mother was in severe pain.  She had taken some medicine but the pain remained.  As a way to ease the pain and also help her breathing we began to say the Jesus Prayer together.  Breathing in we would say, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God…” and breathing out we would say, “…have mercy on me a sinner.”  This prayer helped to ease her pain and her fear while also helping to ease her into slumber.  The prayer helped to ease my own heart also.  One night I continued the prayer for her in her dark room for a good while after she had drifted off.  Later when the pain had intensified mom shifted the prayer to, “Thank you Jesus.  I love you.”  I found this shift to be very meaningful.    

2.  The beauty of human touch.  In the moments of mom’s intense pain one thing that seemed to help ease her was human touch.  Whether it was holding hands, rubbing her back or stroking her hair these simple acts brought some needed ease to mom.  In the midst of her pain I noticed that mom kept reaching out to grasp the hands of others.  There is a comforting power and grace in human touch.     

3.  The beauty of trusting God.  These family emergencies never arrive at a good time.  When mom entered the hospital for the second time I was scheduled to attend a national campus ministry conference for which I was part of the presenting team.  It worked out that my oldest brother was able to arrange to come home for the week to stay with my mother yet I was still torn in the thought of leaving at such a time.  The comment of a friend helped to ease my heart.  “Your brother needs this time with your mother.” was what she said.  God’s ways are not our ways and God’s Spirit moves as he so chooses.  This comment helped me to realize that God is here in the very uncertainty of this situation for my mother, for me and also for my brother.  It is important to let God be God and also to let God be God for others as he so chooses and as they need.  Sometimes it is just not about me.   

4.  The beauty of Church.  Throughout this experience the beauty and value of Church has been on full display.  Prayers being offered from all over the diocese and around the nation … priest friends calling to offer support and visiting my mother … parishioners offering advise and support … parish nurses providing invaluable service and advice … doctors and health-care professionals who happen to be Catholic taking an extra care for mom.  Church has been present throughout and has been a great witness to my brothers and I.  Church is at its best in moments of pain and comfort and we have seen this.

The journey is not over but it is comforting to know that it is never walked alone and God is present. 

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity: Pentecost and Church revisited

02 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in Church, God, God as Trinity

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“The New Jerusalem” by Gustave Dore
On this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity I am reminded of a principle that I learned during my studies in seminary.  The principle is that the term “mystery” in the Christian sense does not mean a puzzle to be figured out nor a problem to be solved but rather a reality to be lived and it is in the living that we are brought to a greater and more sublime understanding. 
The Trinity is indeed the greatest of all mysteries.  A mystery that we could never arrive at on our own.  It is impossible for us to grasp.  The Trinity is a mystery that could only be unveiled by God himself.  It is the mystery that God is a communion of persons united in an eternal exchange of love.  It is only through the Spirit of adoption that we are brought to this truth. 
How, then, is this mystery to be lived?  Is it found in fleeing the world; in esoteric and ascetic experience and elevated philosophical thought?  There are some branches of Christian spirituality that promote this view and there certainly is a valid path to be found there but I think there is a much more concrete way laid out for us.  It is a way rooted in the incarnation.  Nikos Kazantzakis puts it this way; “Wherever you find husband and wife, that’s where you find God; wherever children and petty cares and cooking and arguments and reconciliation are, that is where God is too.” 
Scripture tells us that God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God.  For love to be authentic it must be concrete.  It must be lived.  It does no one any good for one to say, “I love you.” but then not live according to that love which primarily means sacrificing for the good of the other.  Ronald Rolheiser in his book The Holy Longing writes that the love which is the Trinity, which is God “is not ‘falling in love,’ but (rather) family, shared existence.”  Anyone can “fall in love” (it happens all the time) but it is only the mature person who can live shared existence and, paradoxically, it is living shared existence which matures us.
Here, I want to emphasize that yes, “family” refers to biological family but it even more so refers to the spiritual family of the Church into which we are born through our baptisms.  Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.  To try to achieve an authentic Christian life without the shared existence which is church is a cheap grace that only leads to shallow belief.
Church is not a gathering of like-minded individuals nor a philosophical debate club nor a place where “everyone gets along” nor a wing of any particular political party.  Church is the disparity of peoples, nations, dispositions and temperaments, economic class and languages that are gathered into unity by the Holy Spirit.  What unites us most fundamentally is the Lord in our midst and our being gathered by the Spirit.  This is “catholic” in the truest sense and it is most often and immediately witnessed in that gathering with people that in all honesty we would probably not associate with were it not for our worship in the Sunday Mass.
Yes, the Church is flawed (as is every other institution or government known to humankind) but Christ loves the Church so much so that he has poured out his Spirit upon her.  To reject the Church is to reject that which Christ himself loves.  As he sent those first eleven disciples into the world to baptize in the name of the Trinity our risen Lord said, I am with you always, until the end of the age.  Do we hold this to be true?
It is not from the ground up that the Church is established and grows.  The Church is not the creation of our own effort.  Again, if this were so, Church would be at best just a gathering of like-minded people or a people formed through a common mission or goal.  Rather, the Church comes from on high, from heaven. The Church is born from the community of the Trinity which is God.  In the second verse of the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation we are given this vision, And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband…  Why does the holy city come down out of heaven?  Because the Church is born from God rather than being made by us.
Church, therefore, is also mystery and it also is only understood when it is lived.  Church is the family, the graced shared existence that leads us into the very mystery of God.  God is love and therefore to know God means to love authentically – not just in word but in deed.
So, if we want to know what it means when we say that God is a trinity of persons and if we want to even experience that deepest of realities in our own lives then the best place to start is in loving one another and in embracing the mystery which is Church.