Tag Archives: Christ

Church, forget not your power! (Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – B)

21 Sunday Jul 2024

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Christ the Saviour by El Greco. Image may be subject to copyright

The Gospel passage for this Sunday (Mk. 6:30-34) has the apostles returning to the Lord after having been sent out on mission to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God, to heal the sick and to aid the weak and the poor.  The evangelist makes note of a “power” being conferred on the apostles in order to accomplish these tasks.  The power mentioned here is not a worldly power because those first disciples had no such power.  They had neither wealth nor influence.  The “power” that the disciples went forth with were obedience to Jesus, the proclamation of his words and repeating the Lord’s gestures of mercy.  Through these simple powers great things happened and the apostles return full of excitement to share their experiences. 

In our Christian tradition there is a famous quote that states, “Christian, forget not your dignity!”  In relation to today’s Gospel, I think we can say, “Church, forget not your power!” 

The power of the Christian community is threefold: 1. obedience to Jesus, 2. the proclamation of his words, 3. repeating the Lord’s gestures of mercy.

Obedience to Jesus.  Jesus is Son of God, Son of Man and Lord of history.  Why do we keep searching for other lords and other messiahs?  Yet, we do.  There are great men and great women throughout history yet none of these people are Son of God and Son of Man.  The witness of the disciples is found both in what they said and in what they did.  They remained with the Lord.  They returned to him (as we see in today’s Gospel).  When they wandered and stumbled, they turned back.  Even when they scattered from the cross; they gathered together again in the locked room.  In times of triumph, times of struggles, and times of uncertainty the disciples remained with the Lord.  There is a power found in obedience to the Lord.

The proclamation of Christ’s words.  There are many great ideas, theories and achievement throughout human history and these amaze and astound us.  We celebrate what is good and true.  But even as the Church can and should learn from these achievements, we must remember that the words that we have to share are authentic, true and needed for every place and age.  They are words that truly bring life.  The words are not of our own making; rather they have been entrusted and given to us.  We are to speak Christ’s words to our world.  Elsewhere in the Gospel our Lord tells us that no one puts a light under a bushel basket yet how often are we tempted to give the Gospel second place in our lives to the latest theory, psychology, philosophy or social fad?  When we do so are we not, in essence, placing a basket over the light of the Gospel?  The words of Christ truly heal because Christ alone is the Lord of life.

The Lord’s gestures of mercy.  Jesus knew the power of gesture: he writes in the sand, he touches the leper, he sits down at the well with the Samaritan woman.  It is interesting to note how our Lord’s gestures were ever directed toward mercy.  The Church is at its best when it lives our Lord’s gestures of mercy – when the person seen as untouchable is touched, when the hungry are fed and when the sinner is forgiven.  These gestures will not make the evening news but they are true and they bring hope and healing to our world.

At the end of today’s gospel passage, we are told that when Jesus saw the crowd his heart was moved with pity.  The people were starving.  They were tired of that which failed to satisfy.  We, also, are tired of that which fails to satisfy.  Salvation does not come through the powers of our world.  Salvation comes through God’s mercy at work in our world, our hearts and our lives.

Christian, forget not your dignity!  Church, forget not your power!

Blessings – a reflection on “Fiducia supplicans”

06 Saturday Jan 2024

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Christ healing woman with a flow of blood. Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter. Rome, 4th century. Image may be subject to copyright. 

There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had.  Yet she was not helped but only grew worse.  She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.  She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”  Immediately her flow of blood dried up.  She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.  Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?”  But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”  And he looked around to see who had done it.  The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling.  She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth.  He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.  Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”  (Mk. 5:25-34)

There has been a lot of talk about blessings in the Catholic Church these past few weeks since the issuance of Fiducia supplicans.  The concern seems to center upon what is the nature of a blessing and is every blessing offered by a member of the clergy a tacit sign of approval of the supplicant’s state of life, in particular couples in irregular situations.    

My reading of the document as well as the recent clarification issued is that no, every blessing offered is not a sign of approval and (this is what I find freeing about the declaration) it does not weigh upon the clergy to determine a person’s precise moral state when offering a “pastoral” blessing as opposed to a blessing given in a liturgical context. 

When a couple comes forward to get married in the Catholic Church there is a process of determining the couples’ freedom to enter into marriage as well as their readiness and this is appropriate as that sacramental celebration is tied to our Church’s teaching about the nature of marriage.  Liturgical blessings carry the weight of the Church’s teaching and are public in nature so, yes, it is on the church’s minister to ensure that blessings offered in a liturgical context are not in contradiction to the teaching of the Church. 

But blessings offered in a liturgical context are not the only type of blessing.  This is the key distinction offered by Fiducia supplicans.  Pastoral blessings which, the declaration specifies, are more private in nature and occur in the moment, do not carry the same weight of responsibility upon the clergy.  As I have read the declaration, the recent clarification and differing commentary I have been drawn to the gospel passage shared above.  It was a very public moment – the crowd was pressing in upon Jesus.  Our Lord knew nothing about the lady and her state in life.  Her faith and trust merited the outpouring of blessing and healing and our Lord confirms this, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.  Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

A couple of days before Fiducia supplicans was issued,I was in the neighborhood Lowe’s store in search of bird seed.  At one point, gawking in front of the plethora of Christmas yard art decorations, I was approached by a woman with a small child.  The woman, in broken English, asked for a blessing.  I had never met this woman.  I did not have to ask about her state in life.  I did not have to ask about her marital status nor did I ask if she was in a state of grace.  Standing in the aisle at Lowe’s, I responded to her request and I prayed a simple blessing.  It was certainly a public space but also a very private moment – a simple blessing that I think went unnoticed by the other shoppers milling about.   

The distinction in blessings made by Fiducia supplicans is valid and it is also freeing.  It is not on the clergy, in that moment, to have to carry the weight of judge rather, it is enough to be a humble believer and shepherd.  Might pastoral blessings and their true intent be misused?  Possibly, but any misuse does not necessarily discredit the valid request and the valid giving of a pastoral blessing – a cry for God’s mercy. 

I understand that these thoughts are written in the context of U.S. culture with the freedoms that we enjoy and value and that there are different contexts in different cultures that clergy need to honestly weigh out and consider.  God’s blessings and guidance upon those shepherds as they strive to care for the flock entrusted to their care.

There are moments for the clergy to be judge, safeguarding what the Church treasures.  Fiducia supplicans affirms this but the declaration also teaches that there are moments for the clergy to be fellow believers themselves who are also shepherds trusting in the abundant mercy of a God who works in ways we cannot even imagine. 

Invoke the Holy Spirit!

20 Saturday May 2023

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“Invoke the Holy Spirit!” 

I recently heard these words offered at a symposium on the priesthood and they ring true – not just in the life of the priest but in all of what it means to be Christian and to be Church. 

If there is a “theme” in my own spiritual journey over the past few years it is that of a growing awareness of the Holy Spirit and relationship with the Holy Spirit – trust in the Spirit, awareness of the Spirit, crying out to the Holy Spirit, delight in the Holy Spirit, fear of wounding my relationship with the Holy Spirit, awe and wonder at the movement of the Holy Spirit, learning to rejoice in that which the Spirit rejoices in and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead me into truth. 

I love the Holy Spirit. 

The days between Ascension and Pentecost are a privileged time to receive the Holy Spirit as a welcome guest in our hearts.  The words, “welcome guest,” are key here I believe.  The Holy Spirit is not an automatic in the life of the Christian and should never be thought of in such a manner.  Nor is the Spirit passive.  The Holy Spirit chooses and is active.  Although the Holy Spirit can and does work through very limited means (I use myself in my priesthood as an example here), the Spirit chooses how to move, where to move and where to abide and in what degree of fullness.  The Holy Spirit will not abide in fullness with neither sin nor duplicity. 

In grace we must always strive to make of our hearts a worthy place to receive this “welcome guest”.  How so?  Striving to keep our will and actions sincere, honest, pure and humble.  Remaining focused on Christ as Lord and Savior and showing reverence to the image and likeness of God found in every person. 

A sure way to experience the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit is to try to use another person in any way, shape or form.  This was an abiding sin of the rich man in the parable that our Lord gave us of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus.  Even in the torment of afterlife; the unnamed rich man, rather than rejoicing in seeing the poor beggar Lazarus resting now in the bosom of Abraham, wanted to use the very one whom he had ignored and stepped over during his life to be sent on an errand for him to warn his brothers.  The rich man is denied.  One wonders what would have happened if the rich man had rather said, “I rejoice in seeing Lazarus, whom I now recognize as a brother and who knew such pain in life, now resting in the peace of God’s love.”  Some scholars suggest that the sin of Judas (who believed Jesus was the Messiah but who felt Jesus wasn’t acting swift or sure enough in his view) was to try to force the hand of Jesus to show his messiahship, in other words – use him, by handing him over to the authorities.  In John’s account of the Last Supper, we are told that Satan enters into the heart of Judas and that he departs into the darkness of night.  To use another while neither respecting nor reverencing the image of God in which that person is made is a sin that God will not abide.

In all things, we must continually strive, by avoiding that which grieves the Holy Spirit and doing that which pleases the Holy Spirit, to make of our hearts truly a place of welcome for this most honored of guests! 

I want to end this post by sharing a reflection by Cardinal Cantalamessa given in his book, “The Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus’.  The quote is long but I share it because these words helped to enliven my heart to a deeper awareness of the Holy Spirit.  Cardinal Cantalamessa writes,

But an unbidden question springs to mind: why the long interval between the moments when Jesus received his anointing in the Jordan and when, on the cross and at Pentecost, the outpouring of the Spirit occurred?  And why does St. John the Evangelist say that the Holy Spirit could not be given while Jesus “had not yet been glorified”?  St. Irenaeus gives the answer: the Holy Spirit had first to become accustomed to dwelling among human beings; he had, so to speak, to be humanized and historicized in Jesus, so as to be able, one day, to sanctify all human beings from within their human condition while respecting the times and modes of human behavior and suffering.  “The Holy Spirit,” he writes, “descended upon the Son of God, made the Son of man, becoming accustomed (adsuescens) in him to dwell and rest among the human race, so as to be able to work the Father’s will in them and renew them from their old habits into the newness of Christ.”  Through Jesus, the Spirit is able to make grace “take root” in human nature; in Jesus who has not sinned, the Spirit can “come down and remain” (John 1:33), and get used to staying among us, unlike in the Old Testament where his presence in the world was only occasional.  In a sense, the Holy Spirit becomes incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, even if in the case of “becomes incarnate” means something different, i.e., “comes to dwell in a physical body.”  “Between us and the Spirit of God,” writes Cabasilas, “there was a double wall of separation: that of nature and that of the will corrupted by evil; the former was taken away by the Savior with his incarnation (and, we may add, with his anointing) and the latter with his crucifixion, since the cross destroyed sin.  Both obstacles being removed, nothing further can now impede the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh.”

          The same author explains how the wall of separation constituted by nature, that is, by the fact that God is “spirit” and we are “flesh,” came to be removed.  The Savior’s human nature, he says, was like an alabaster vessel which in one way contained the fullness of the Spirit, but in another way prevented this perfume from spreading abroad.  Only if, by some miracle, the alabaster vessel were itself transformed into perfume would the perfume inside no longer be separated from the outside air and no longer stay shut up in the only vessel to contain it.  Now, this was exactly what took place during Jesus’ life on earth: the alabaster vessel, which was the pure human nature of the Savior, was itself changed into perfume; in other words, by virtue of his full and total assent to the Father’s will, the flesh of Christ gradually became spiritualized, until at the resurrection it became “a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), the “Christ according to the Spirit” (cf. Rom. 1:4).  The cross was the moment when the last barrier fell; the alabaster vessel was then shattered, as at the anointing at Bethany, and the Spirit poured out, filling, “the whole house,” that is to say the entire Church, with perfume.  The Holy Spirit is the trail of perfume Jesus left behind when he walked the earth!  The martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch admirably combines the two moments we have been considering – that of the anointing and that of the outpouring of the Spirit – where he writes: “The Lord received a perfumed (myron) ointment on his head, so that he could breathe incorruptibility on the Church.”

Come, Holy Spirit!  Please be our welcome guest! 

Chinook Winds and Christ

10 Saturday Feb 2018

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chinook windsOn my recent vacation in the Canadian Rocky Mountains I learned about the chinook wind. The chinook wind is a rapid climate phenomenon produced by specific atmospheric conditions interacting with the stark geography of the high mountains. If all the proper conditions line up correctly a chinook wind is produced which is a steady stream of warm air that flows down from the mountain tops into the valley below on the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies. This wind has been known to sometimes melt thirty inches of snow in the course of a single day! The largest temperature shift produced by a chinook wind was recorded in the seventies when the wind moved the temperature from forty degrees below zero to forty-five degrees above zero in a twenty-four hour period. In the frigid cold of a Canadian winter the chinook wind is a promise of spring and an end to winter.

The beginning of Mark’s gospel can almost be read as the movement and power of a chinook wind! Jesus appears on the scene, he is baptized by John in the Jordan, he overcomes the temptations in the desert and he begins his ministry by calling his first disciples. He casts out demons, he cures many people of their illnesses and in today’s gospel we have our Lord healing a leper. “If you wish,” says the leper, “you can make me clean.” All of this within the very first chapter of Mark’s gospel!

Mark wants us to know that in Christ the grace, life and salvation of God has poured forth into our world and into our hearts – so long frozen and locked in sin and death! Something utterly new and unique is occurring within this man called Jesus! Jesus teaches, he heals, he casts out demons, he calls people with his own authority and he neither acts nor speaks like the scribes and the Pharisees.

It is interesting and telling that it is the people in need – the leper, the person who is ill, the one possessed by a demon, the poor, the flock without the shepherd – who first recognize this and realize that something new is occurring. The leper kneels before Jesus and says, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Those persons caught up in their own power and need to control – be that political, religious or social – do not recognize (throughout the gospel story) Christ both for who he, himself, is and for the grace and salvation he brings. They are locked within themselves. The people who are in need, the people who recognize their poverty are the ones who are open to the great wind of mercy, life and hope that Christ brings and who receive that life!

Christ brings life and healing but we, on our part, must recognize that we need life, that we are mortally wounded and that, without Christ, we are lost! We must be honest enough to continually admit our need, our frailty and our weakness. This is not just a recognition for the beginning of our faith journey but rather an honest assessment needed for every day of our faith journey! Christ does not come just to encourage or to applaud our efforts. Christ comes to give us life and salvation and without him we are both lost and we are dead!

Today’s gospel passage ends by saying that Jesus remained outside in the deserted places, yet “people kept coming to him from everywhere.” They recognized and they knew that something utterly unique was occurring in this man named Jesus – the very pouring forth of the mercy and life of God into our world! May we also recognize this.

Knowing who we are and knowing who God is.

22 Saturday Oct 2016

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pharisee-tax-collector-blogThere are two things that the Pharisee in today’s gospel (Lk. 18:9-14) did not know – two things that kept him from entering into true relationship with God.  This man, who prided himself on his religious observance and his fulfillment of his commitments in life, neither knew himself nor did he really know God.  The tax collector, on the other hand,  knew both and he went home justified.

There are two little short stories to share that can draw this out.  The first story is about an elderly, retired priest who was absolutely venerated in his small town for his kindness and holiness.  The priest was a member of the local Rotary club and he never missed a meeting.  Well, one day he did not show for the monthly meeting and he even seemed to disappear for a while.  No one knew where he was.  The next month there he was at the meeting again.  “Father, where have you been?” people asked.  “Well,” the priest responded in an embarrassed way, “I just finished serving a thirty day prison sentence.”  “What?  You wouldn’t hurt a fly!  What happened?”  “The story is complicated but to sum it up; I had bought a train ticket into the city.  I was standing on the platform when this stunningly beautiful woman appeared on the arm of a cop.  The woman looked at me and then turned to the cop and said, “He did it!  I’m certain he is the one who did it!”  Well, to tell the truth, I was so mesmerized and flattered, I pleaded guilty.”

There is a touch of vanity in the holiest men and women and they see no reason to deny it.  When we are honest we must admit that we are indeed a bundle of paradoxes: we believe and we doubt, we hope and are discouraged, we love and we hate, we are honest and we play games.  Honesty requires that we admit the dark as well as the light within ourselves (and the saints teach us how to laugh about what we find).  The Pharisee lacked this depth of honesty.  The tax collector, on the other hand, truly knew who he was – a man who had nothing to fall back on other than God’s mercy.

The second story witnesses to God and our ability to trust.  A two-story home catches on fire.  The father, mother and several children are rushing out when the smallest child becomes separated, gets frightened and rushes back upstairs.  The small child appears in a smoke-filled window crying.  The father shouts, “Jump son!  Jump!  I will catch you!”  The boy responds, “But I cannot see you!”  To which the father answers, “I know.  I know, but I can see you!”  The Pharisee, so focused on his own righteousness could not bring himself to jump.  He returns home not justified.  The tax collector, with head bowed, beating his breast, knowing himself a sinner and trusting in the goodness of God was able to jump into the mercy of God.  The tax collector returns home justified.

Thomas Merton once remarked that a saint is not someone who is good but someone who experiences the goodness of God.  Someone who knows who he or she is and who also knows who God is.

Let us invite one another to wisdom. St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

04 Sunday Sep 2016

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Mother Teresa

St. Teresa of Calcutta

In the first reading (Wisdom 9:13-18b) we are told that wisdom is a gift given from on high.  It is not something we acquire by our own effort and ingenuity but it is a gift from God.  Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from on high?  And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.  Wisdom is the fruit of relationship with God and, as we learned in last Sunday’s gospel, it both comes and is received on our part through the actions of humility and living a generosity toward those who cannot repay us.

But we can invite one another to wisdom.  This is a truth found in today’s second reading (Philemon 9-10, 12-17).  The Letter to Philemon is a short letter written by Paul to Philemon, a member of the Christian community, on behalf of Onesimus – a runaway slave of Philemon’s whom Paul had befriended and converted while they were held together in prison.  According to the law of the day, Philemon had the right to punish Onesimus severely, even having him put to death, but Paul writes and asks Philemon not only to be lenient and receive Onesimus back but to even receive him back as now a brother in Christ.

Paul is inviting (not forcing) Philemon to a new awareness.  He is inviting him to wisdom in Christ.  Things had now changed.  Elsewhere Paul will write …in Christ there is neither slave nor free…  Paul is aware of this new reality, he does not wish to force it on Philemon for that would not be true to the gospel but he does want to invite Philemon to this new awareness.  Paul is also crafty about this invitation though.  He knows that when his letter arrives it will not be read privately by Philemon first; rather it will be read before the whole gathered community with Philemon present.  All eyes will certainly be on Philemon but also, if the members of the community are honest, all eyes will need to be on each of their own hearts as the letter invites all who listen to it to wisdom and a greater awareness even to our own day.  Can we receive the other person as brother and sister in Christ?

Christ continually invites us into the wisdom of the Kingdom of God.  It is a wisdom that asks us to be willing to continually step away from the rigid and constricting thought of “this is the way things are, this is the way things will always be” toward the ever new possibility of the Kingdom.  If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Christ continually invites us to calculate and set our lives by the ever new possibility of the Kingdom of God!  Just like the person building a tower calculates out resources or the king calculates out the cost of a battle we must calculate and set our lives not by our own small and often meager possessions of thought but by the sheer gratuity of God’s Kingdom!  Christ invites us set our lives by this wisdom!

Today, the Church gives us a wonderful witness of a person who set and calculated her life by the sheer gratuity of God’s Kingdom in St. Teresa of Calcutta.  Where the world saw a simple little woman, God saw a great disciple to our age.  Where the world saw lives with no value, St. Teresa saw children of God.  Where the world saw hopelessness, St. Teresa found beauty.  Where the world saw wealth, St. Teresa saw poverty.  Where the world gave up, St. Teresa persevered.

St. Teresa allowed herself to be invited into the wisdom of the Kingdom of God – even in the darkness of it all.  Now, like Paul himself, St. Teresa invites us into the ever new possibility of the wisdom of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people then feed just one.”

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!   

Going to the Heart and Pope Francis at Auschwitz

30 Saturday Jul 2016

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Pope Francis at auschwitz2You may be aware that World Youth Day is occurring in Krakow, Poland.  World Youth Day is a gathering of the Church’s youth and young adults for days of catechesis, worship and prayer.  The event culminates on Sunday with a Papal Mass.  Pope Francis is in Krakow with the world’s young people.  I have been viewing different images via social media from the gathering but what has struck me most is a six minute video of Pope Francis visiting the concentration camp at Auschwitz and taking some private moments of prayer in the cell which housed St. Maximillian Kolbe before his death.  St. Maximillian Kolbe was a Catholic priest who volunteered his own life in order to let another prisoner live who was a husband and father.  The video, which is all in silence, is almost surreal.  (I have posted the video on our parish Facebook page.)

pope francis at auschwitzPope Francis arrives simply at the cell as is his wont.  He first peers into the darkened cell then steps in.  A chair is brought in and the Holy Father sits and we are given this amazing image of the successor to St. Peter clad in white sitting in a darkened cell with his head bowed in prayer in this place of unimaginable horror.

In visiting this cell and the concentration camp, Pope Francis has once again gone to the wounded heart of our world.  He has visited this place before.  He went there when he first visited the small island of Lampedusa to pray for migrants who had died trying to cross the Mediterranean and he goes there whenever he visits with the poor and forgotten and those who live on the periphery of our world.  In all of his travels, Pope Francis is intent on going to the heart of our world.

He goes there because that is where our Lord went.  In today’s gospel (Lk. 12:13-21) a man approaches Jesus and asks him to arbitrate between he and his brother about an inheritance.  Our Lord brushes the request aside because he knows that is not the real heart of the matter.  The heart of the matter is the wound of greed and pride which lies within every human heart.  It is from this wound that unimaginable horrors can spring.  Our Lord will ultimately answer this wound as only he can – from the cross and the empty tomb.

“Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”  Life is not found nor is it gained through things.  Life is found and life is gained through relationships and friendship, especially those based in humility and honest care.

The first relationship is ours with God.  The man in the parable is thinking about many things and some of those may be very good such as providing for his family and loved ones but in the parable we see that he really gives no attention to God.  God says to the man, “You fool, your life will be demanded of you and to whom will go all these things (your worries, your plans) that you have prepared?”  God has no concern for our worries or our plans.  God only has concern for us.  God only wants relationship with us – not friendship with our plans or our imaginings.  Living in that honest relationship with God is where true life is found and gained.

The second relationship is ours with all of our brothers and sisters.  Pope Francis knows this.  Whenever he visits the wounded heart of our world he is visiting his brothers and sisters and there he encounters Christ.  It seems to me that outside of the Blessed Sacrament itself, the place where we most find and encounter our Lord is within our wounded brothers and sisters.  They are the presence of God to us and we, in our own woundedness, are the very same presence to them.  Do we live this truth in the way we interact with one another or will God also call us fools for missing what was right in front of us for so long?

Christ always goes to the true heart of the matter because that is where life is found.

He invites us to do the same.

“Who do you say I am?”: Orlando and silos of thought

18 Saturday Jun 2016

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Jesus - way, truth, life“Who do the crowds say that I am?” “Who do you say that I am?”  These questions of our Lord have continued down through history ever since he first asked them to that small group of followers.  Every age has to pick up the question and find the answer.  Every disciple has to answer the question and, I think, even in the life of disciple the answer shifts as we come to know more and more who Jesus is.  (I know that it has for me.)

Like all of us, I am sure, my thoughts and prayers this last week have been on the tragedy that occurred in Orlando and the victims.  The violent attack that killed forty-nine people, this time of the LGBT community, and wounded many more was simply evil.  It was a perfect storm of terror, hate and mental illness and it touches on so many hot-button issues in our society today – sexual orientation and identification, terrorism and Muslim extremism, access to weapons, even immigration and the growing Latino community.

As many know, I make use of social media and Facebook. I think social media is a good thing that has many positives but there are also downsides and one of those is the temptation to fall into one’s own particular “silo of thought”.  Social commentaries, in a variety of forms, have been noting this.  One of the unexpected consequences of the massive amount of information available to the average person in our modern day is the temptation to fall back into one’s own silo of thought and remain there with like-minded individuals and become even more extreme in one’s own thought and viewpoint.  Radicalization can occur over the internet and it does not just affect terrorists.

Not twenty-four hours after this tragedy; social media, at least on my feed, shifted from shock, grief, prayers and support to people (on all sides) staking out their positions on the hot-button issues of the day.

It turned that quickly.

I have my own opinion on these issues – some of you may agree with them, some of you may not and I may agree with your opinions or I may not. Let’s all get over it.  Social media may allow people to exist in silos of thought but real life does not and reality (not virtual reality) is where true life is found, lived and where real people meet one another.

The question our Lord asks, “Who do you say I am?” is the question for all of us no matter what side of any hot-button issue we find ourselves on. I have made much of the film “Risen” recently because I think it is an important film for our time and where we find ourselves.  I want to draw one image from the film for use here.

As the Roman tribune Clavius (who is fundamentally a good and honorable man) encounters the risen Lord and follows the disciples there is a scene where he strips off his tribune uniform. It is the desert and it is hot but the action is symbolic and it culminates at the end of the movie when Clavius, asked if he believes all about Christ, takes off his tribune ring and gives it to an inn-keeper and says, “Yes, I do believe.”  As Clavius encountered the risen Lord and as he had to find an answer for that question, “Who do you say I am?” he both had to let go and he was empowered to let go of the false identities he had clothed himself in over a life time.

The same is true for us. Whether we are Republican or Democrat, straight or gay, black, white, brown, yellow or red, male or female, pro-gun legislation or anti-gun legislation, rich or poor – we all have false identities.  No one is exempt!  To truly answer our Lord’s question we each must be willing to let go of that which we carry around within us which is not true.  Christ came to bring about God’s Kingdom, not our own particular silo of thought.

The gospel today, our Lord himself, invites us to turn away from our own silos of thought because true life is not found in virtual reality and to rather turn toward the fullness of the Kingdom of God.

“Who do you say that I am?”

The Humble and Patient King

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Christ, Christ the King, Christian living, Feast of Christ the King, holiness, homily, humility, Uncategorized

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jesus before pilateAt one point in his commentary on this Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps. 93), St. Augustine shares this observation: Humble people are like rock.  Rock is something you look down on, but it is solid.  What about the proud?  They are like smoke; they may be rising high, but they vanish as they rise. 

In the gospel for today’s Feast of Christ the King (Jn. 18:33b-37) we are given the humble and patient God.  Pilate (representative of all the powers of the world but powers that really have no authority of Jesus) questions Christ – a seemingly defeated and isolated man, abandoned by his friends and followers and mocked by his own people.

Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I?  Your own nation and chief priests handed you over to me.  What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews.  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”  So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”  Jesus answered, “You say I am a king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Today, we as Church, proclaim Christ is King yet, like Pilate, our understanding and idea of this title is often limited.  It is interesting to note on this Feast of Christ the King that our Lord, himself, never took on the title of “king”.  Even on this most final and bitter of stages; when the fallen pride of our human condition would eagerly grasp onto a title of assertion to throw back into the face of the powers of this world (how often we see this exalted on our movie screens in the myth of redemptive violence) our Lord chooses a different path.  “You say I am king.  For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Our Lord rejects the title “king” and by so doing he forswears the fallen world and all it has to offer – self-indulgent pride, sad divisions and triumphalism and all forms of violence.  Our Lord chooses a different path – the path of humility.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  

Humility has more in common with truth than does pride and power.  In fact, humility is essential if there is to be any real understanding of truth.  If we would know the truth then any temptation to put ourselves and our way of thinking at the center of creation (and these temptations come in all shapes and sizes: blue and red state, enlightened secularist and righteous religious, male and female, rich and poor, all colors of skin and shades of culture) must be put aside.  Everyone (I repeat “everyone”), needs to accept the purifying light of humility because the only constant, the only necessary is God – all else is contingent upon God’s will.  We are not necessary.  The more we realize this then the more we open ourselves to those moments when we catch a glimmer that God is indeed the “rock”, the only solid basis of all creation.  We also catch a glimpse of the infinite patience of God who submitted Himself to our illusions and misguided hatred.  Gratitude grows in our hearts when we honestly acknowledge and reflect upon the humility and patience of God.

Ours is a different type of king.  All is grace.

Do you want joy and gratitude?  Then look to the one we proclaim “king” yet who never sought that title for himself.  “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”  Cultivate humility.  Humility leads us to truth and truth brings gratitude.

The Eucharist, the “guest room” and twenty years of priesthood

07 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by in Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi, Eucharist, homily

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The_Last_SupperThe teacher says, “Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”

With this question in this kind of clandestine encounter in Mark’s gospel the stage is set for the Last Supper where the Lord enters into his sacrifice for us and where he gives us his very body and blood that we might have life.  It is worthy, I think, to reflect on this question of our Lord, “Where is my guest room?” because it is a question that our Lord continues to ask now throughout history and in each of our lives.  Where, amidst all the distractions of life, might I meet you?  Where might I encounter you?  Where might I be welcomed by you?  Where might I bring you life and share with you my very body and blood?

One way to begin to understand the great mystery we celebrate today as Church – the mystery of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – is to reflect on the different contexts, the different “guest rooms” through which we ourselves have been privileged to encounter and experience that mystery.

On June 3rd I celebrated my twentieth anniversary of ordination.  As a priest – not by merit but by call – one is privileged to serve at the altar and in this “guest room” of our Lord.  Whenever we gather for Mass we are gathered at that Last Supper of our Lord with his disciples.  It is an amazing thing really yet so common that it can be taken for granted.  Praying over the gospel this past week has led me to reflect on all the “guest rooms” that I have been privileged to enter into these past twenty years where our Lord encounters his people in the gift of the Eucharist.

The chapels at the two seminaries I attended – daily encounters along with friends wrestling with the same questions of call and vocation.  The warehouse church of All Saints Church in Knoxville which had no air-conditioning; where you had to turn off the industrial fans in order to hear the readings and the homily.  The chapel at Knoxville Catholic High School celebrating Mass with classes and different sports teams before a game.  The old A-frame church of St. Mary’s in Athens which shook whenever a truck drove by and then the new church that we built with devotion and sacrifice.  The little chapel of the ETSU Catholic Center tucked away in a neighborhood by the university where we would celebrate Mass, move the chairs around and then sit down for dinner together.  The chapel at UTC where we did the same thing … college ministry revolves around food!  The auditorium at Notre Dame High School, up on a stage trying to help high school students encounter Christ as both Lord and friend.  Now here, in this beautiful church and community of St. Dominic’s – at the church and at the school.

But there have been other “guest rooms” I have been privileged to enter these twenty years – the chapel where Bl. Oscar Romero was shoot and killed, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastavere, Rome for the celebration of Pentecost when at the main altar my friend, Fr. Marco Gnavi, tapped me on the shoulder pointing upwards where I looked to see rose petals being dropped from the top of the church’s dome for the feast, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the chapel of an orphanage in El Salvador, an outdoor altar in Assisi, Italy where St. Francis often prayed, at a poor senior center on the outskirts of Rome, on the boat of some friends, at national youth gatherings of twenty-five thousand people and in innumerable small gatherings of two or three, in nursing homes in South Bend, IN and New York City.  In my mother’s room at the Assisted Care facility where she lived her last years with just she and I sitting at a table.

It is worthwhile to reflect on the “guest rooms” we have been privileged to enter in our own individual journeys of discipleship.  On this feast when we reflect on this great mystery of the Eucharist, I encourage us to take the time to do this.  We each have them – our home churches, places of retreat, churches we have stumbled upon while on a trip or vacation, churches we have entered for funerals, baptisms or weddings.  For each of these places and each of these moments sharing in the Body and Blood of our Lord we should give thanks because they are indeed holy places and moments filled with beauty and life – places and moments where we have encountered the Lord and where he has fed, nourished and strengthened us with his Body and Blood and with his Word.  The very contexts of encounter, the “guest rooms” where we have met and received our Lord in the Eucharist themselves lead us into a greater understanding of this most sacred and holy of mysteries.

I think it safe to say that the true “guest room” our Lord most earnestly seeks to be welcomed into and dwell within is each person’s heart.  God wants nothing other than what is best for us.  God wants relationship with us and to give us his very life!  If priests are able to help facilitate this encounter, even in the smallest way, then we are indeed among the most blessed of people – given a richness that the world can never afford.

I give thanks to God for these twenty years and for the “guest rooms” that the Lord has allowed me to enter to encounter Him and to serve his people.