Jan 1, 2012

The great Dominican theologian MeisterEckhart preached that “we are all meant to be mothers of God” for “God is always waiting to be born.” God seeks to be born in our own loveless stables and forgotten caves; God waits to come to life in Bethlehems of anger, estrangement and hopelessness; God makes a dwelling place for himself in the Nazareths of our homes, schools and workplaces.

On this first day of 2012, we honor Mary, the Mother of God, under her most ancient title, that of Theotokos, the Greek word for “bearer of God.” In baptism into the life of Mary’s child, we are called to be “bearers of God” - to give birth to God in every life He comes to enter and transform in His light and love.

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Dec 25, 2011

“Silent Night..”

Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is right... A holy night to be sure. But hardly silent and anything but calm.

That night in Bethlehem we remember this night was anything but silent. In a cold dark cave a young, frightened woman gave birth to her child, while her carpenter husband stood by helplessly.Finally, amid the bleating of the sheep and the braying of the animals surrounding the little family, the sound of the newborn’s first cry of life broke the stillness.

There was no ‘silence’ this night in crowded, chaotic Bethlehem, a little hamlet bursting at the seams with visitors and travelers who had come for the great census. There was, in fact, no ’calm’ in all of Israel - only tension and conflict between the Jewish people and their Roman occupiers. Ancient Palestine was hardly a place of ’heavenly peace’ - it was a land torn apart by oppression, persecution, and terror.

‘Silent night?’ Listen again. ’All is calm?’ Madness reigned. And yet on this noisy, chaotic anxious night, Christ was born. Hidden in a dark cave, the light of Christ dawned. Amid the pain and anguish of a devastated people, Christ came with new hope and transforming joy.

In the middle of our own dark nights of pain and anguish, God comes and transforms them into ‘holy’ nights of His peace. Amid the noise and clamor that consume us, the voice of God speaks to us in the ‘silence’ of our hearts. May we have hearts to embrace the ‘silence’ of God in our midst and spirits to welcome the ‘holiness’ of Christ, who is the very peace and compassion of God. May this night transform all of our nights and days in the ‘brightness’ of ‘heavenly peace.’

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Nov 13, 2011

Life in the Garden

They had lived a good life together these thirty-nine years. But it would soon end. The doctors said his esophageal cancer was inoperable - nine months, maybe a year. So what would he like to do with the time that’s left? “I’d like to have a garden.” “That would be nice,” she said vaguely surprised, since he had never shown the slightest interest in growing anything. Maybe a few tomato plants in a bucket on the deck, she assumed. But she came home a few days later to find their yard filled with workers, dirt and a Bobcat - and a 20-by-30 foot raised garden. He was sitting in a chair, watching, talking and laughing. He had told some friends what he wanted to do and they happily signed on to make it happen. He tried paying for the materials, but the guys wouldn't hear of it. She kept thanking them and telling them they were amazing. When they left, she turned to him and said, “Have we met? You don’t garden. I don't garden. This thing is gigantic - what are we going to do with it?” “I think it will bring people together,” he said. Soon he was too weak to sit by his garden - nine months was now optimistic, doctors said. Their friends, who didn’t want to tire him or ask how he was doing, came and worked in the garden instead. They planted and hoed and watered and weeded. He died a few weeks later, but his garden had already yielded strawberries and lettuce. The first fruits of the garden were shared at the luncheon after his funeral. All summer the garden became the focus of everyone who knew and loved him. It produced more vegetables than anyone knew what to do with. People came to remember him, share stories and memories, and weed. The garden couldn’t cure anything or heal the loss or loneliness, but it gave everyone something to do. His wish for his garden was realized - it brought people together. He had said to his wife just before he died, “I don’t want this to become a memorial garden after I’m gone. Just enjoy it.”

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Nov 6, 2011

The Need to Matter

A rabbi looks back on his ministry to his congregation: “In my forty years as a rabbi, I have tended to many people in the last moments of their lives. Most of them were not afraid of dying. Some were old and felt they had lived long, satisfying lives. Others were so sick and in such pain that only death would release them. The people who had the most trouble with death were those who felt that they had never done anything worthwhile in their lives, and if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right. It was not death that frightened them - it was significance, the fear that they would die and leave no mark on the world. The need to know that we are making a difference motivates doctors and medical researchers to spend hours looking through microscopes in the hope of finding cures for diseases. It drives inventors and entrepreneurs to stay up nights trying to find a better way of providing people with something they need. It causes artists, novelists, and composers to try to add to the store of beauty in the world by finding just the right color, the right word, the right note. And it leads ordinary people to buy six copies of the local paper because it has their name or picture in it.” [From Living a Life that Matters by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner]

In these final Sundays of the liturgical year Jesus speaks to us of “last things,” of the transition from life as we know it to the life of God in eternity. The parable of the ten bridesmaids illustrates the precariousness and the preciousness of the time we are given to live lives that “matter.” There is so much we want to do with our lives, but the demands on our time to make a living derail us from making a life - a life that is centered in the love of family and friends, a life that is lived in the constant awareness of God’s loving presence, a life that finds its fulfillment in contributing to the greater good of all. Christ warns us not to fall into the trap of the five “foolish” bridesmaids who squander their time before the bridegroom’s arrival, but to embrace the wisdom of the five “wise” bridesmaids, trimming our “lamps” with the “oil” of compassion, generosity and forgiveness in the precious time we have until His coming.

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Oct 30, 2011

“Do and observe all things whatsoever (the scribes and the Pharisees) tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but do not practice…” “The greatest among you must be your servant.” Matthew 23: 1-12

Christ-like service begins with a sense of gratitude for the blessings we have received and integrity to live lives worthy of those blessings. Jesus, who welcomed to His side the rejected and scorned of society, who washed the feet of His friends and taught them to do the same, leaves the legacy of such “greatness” to us, His Church. In the Gospel scheme of things, authority is not a matter of power or wealth but is centered in the realization that our gifts and talents are a sacred trust given to us for the good of all; greatness in the reign of God is to put ourselves and our abilities at the service of the music we can create in concert with one another.

As Jesus says in today’s Gospel, greatness is discovered not in finding ourselves but in “losing” ourselves in the great tasks of life; not in our own wants but in our generosity in helping others find their own reasons to hope and persevere; not in procuring our own satisfaction but finding the enduring joy of happiness found in love and being loved. For those who would be Jesus’ disciples, our purpose in life is realized in the act of doing good itself (not in the recognition or acclaim we receive), in realizing that we imitate Christ in such work, in the assurance that we are bringing the love of God into the lives of others. Jesus, who welcomed to His side the rejected and scorned of society, who washed the feet of His friends and taught them to do the same, leaves the legacy of such “greatness” to us, His Church: to “lose” ourselves in the great “tasks” of discipleship.

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Oct 23, 2011

Rachel’s Last Fundraiser

Rachel Beckwith did a lot of great stuff in her nine years. When she was five, she learned about the organization Locks of Love, which uses hair donations to make wigs for children who have lost their hair because of cancer or other diseases. Rachel asked her parents if she could have her long hair shorn off and sent to Locks of Love. And that’s what she did. Then, when she was eight, her church began raising money to build wells in Africa through the organization Charity: Water. Rachel was stunned to learn that there were children who had not clean water, so she asked her mom and dad if she could skip having a ninth birthday party; instead, she asked her friends to donate $9 each for water projects in Africa. Rachel’s ninth birthday was this past June 20th and she set up a birthday web page with a target of $300. She was able to raise only $220 - which left her just a bit disappointed. Then, on July 20th, the Beckwith’s car was hit by a truck in a 13 vehicle pileup on a Washington interstate. The rest of the family was unhurt, but Rachel was critically injured. Friends and church members showed their support for Rachel by donating to her birthday page, raising almost $50,000. But Rachel would never regain consciousness. She died three days later. Her parents donated her hair a final time to Locks of Love and her organs to other children. But donations continue to pour into Rachel’s page at Charity: Water. To date, 51,000 donors from around the world have donated more than $1 million for Rachel’s work. Next year on her birthday her mom and dad plan to travel to Africa to see some of the wells drilled in Rachel’s name. “It will be overwhelming to see Rachel’s wells,” her mother says, “to see what my 9-year-old daughter has done for people all over the world, to meet the people she touched. In the face of unexplainable pain there is undeniable hope.” From “Rachel’s Last Fundraiser” by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, August 10, 2011.

Rachel Beckwith’s legacy is the manifestation of today’s Gospel. Every word of Jesus’ Gospel comes down to love - love that is simple enough to articulate but so demanding that we shy away from it. The mystery of God’s love is that the Being of Supreme and Omnipotent Power should love His creation so completely and so selflessly - and all God seeks in return is that such love be shared by His people throughout His creation. Rachel, in her visionary generosity, models the great love and compassion of the God who spares nothing to bring us to Him. Let Rachel lead us in following the great commandment of the Gospel: to love with the same selfless compassion, care and completeness of God.

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Oct 16, 2011

For God and Country

A true story: Two countries were at war. During the hostilities, some officers from one army were taken prisoner and kept under guard. When an armistice had been reached, the officers were released to return home. An officer from their captors’ army accompanied them to the border. “That line of trees you see over there marks the frontier between our two countries,” the officer pointed out. “Once you cross it, you will be in your own land. Good luck!” The returning officers were overjoyed when they caught the first glimpse of their land. They ran passed the trees and came to a clearing. Once they were on their native land again, they knelt down and kissed the earth. Tears of joy streamed down their faces as they cried, “O, Mother Land! We love you, we serve you, we venerate you! We have suffered for you, and we would be ready and honored to give up our last drop of blood for your glory. To walk again on your sacred soil fills us with joy, O Mother Land!” While the devout officers were thus venerating their mother land’s soil the officer from the opposition force who supervised their release reappeared. “Excuse me, sirs, for interrupting you, but there seems to be a mistake,” the embarrassed officer said. Then, showing them the map he brought, explained. “According to this latest cartography, the border is not this line of trees, but that line of trees a hundred yards from here to the north. You are still in our country. If you would just move a few yards farther, you will be home. I sincerely apologize for our mistake and the inconvenience.” The officers got up off their knees and quietly walked “home.”

We create states and nations out of a practical need to manage and protect the common interests of those who reside there. But true patriotism is not devotion to the “land” but to one’s people. Jesus’ response to the Pharisees regarding Caesar’s coin underscores the point: that “Caesar” is responsible for ensuring the common good and to lead a people in working together to ensure their life, liberty and happiness. But God, Father Creator and Compassionate Mother of all, sees beyond borders and frontiers, prejudices and national identities, flags and uniforms, to see one humanity, one family of nations, and calls us to embrace that vision, as well.

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Oct 9, 2011

“Thrift Store Saints”

Fifteen years ago, Jane Knuth, a math teacher and mom, began volunteering at the St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She approached the work with typical baby-boomer hard-charging determination to “fix-the-world,” but over the years the experience changed her. The poor and desperate she has been able to help have deepened her own faith and brought her to a new understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Jane has collected stories of her experiences at “St. Vinnie's” in a delightful new book Thrift Store Saints: Meeting Jesus 25 cents at a Time. Thrift Store Saints includes some two-dozen stories about the volunteers and patrons of the St. Vincent’s thrift shop. The thrift store sells everything from furniture and clothing to basic household items, but also offers financial assistance, referral services and prayerful and emotional support to the needy and lost. “Our purpose is to help the poor and to change our way of thinking and being. It only looks as though we run a store. The store is just our cover. I still keep looking for the ‘deserving poor’ - the innocent ones who are blatant victims of injustice and hard luck.” Rather than viewing society’s poor as problems to be solved, Jane and her colleagues see them each in a completely different light - as saints who can lead them straight to the heart of Christ.

God’s image of His human family is realized in the kindness and charity extended by a small thrift store. In today’s Gospel, Jesus articulates the Father’s vision for humanity - a “banquet” at which all are respected and honored for who they are and the goodness they bring to the king’s table, be it the “table” of the classroom, the clinic, the playground, the home. If we are to be truly faithful to God’s vision, the compassion of God must transform our heart’s perspective, enabling us to see beyond ethnic stereotypes, economic distinctions, class and celebrity, to recognize every man, woman and child as made in the same image and likeness of God in which we were all created; we must be willing both to give joyfully what we have and to accept humbly what others bring to the table. God’s “banquet” is only realized when we embrace a radically new vision of humanity, a perspective that ignores suspicions, doubts and stereotypes and, instead, recognizes everyone, first, as a child of God, worthy of respect, love and compassion.

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Oct 2, 2011

A Vision for the Vineyard

According to a Native American legend, the chief of a certain tribe lay dying. He called his three sons to him. “My sons, my life is at its end. Soon one of you will succeed me as chief. I want each of you to climb our ancestors’ holy mountain and bring back something beautiful. The one whose gift is most precious will become chief.” Several days later the three returned from their journeys. The first son brought back a flower that was extremely rare and beautiful. The second son brought back a stone of precious gold. But the third son said, “Father, I have brought nothing back. As I stood at the top of the holy mountain, I saw that on the other side was a land of fertile green pastures and crystal waters. I could imagine our people settling there and establishing a better life. I was so taken by what I saw that I had to return here before I could find something to bring back.” The old chief smiled and said to his third son, “ You will be our chief for you have brought us the gift of a vision for a better future.”

God has given us a wonderful “vineyard” that we often take for granted, that we mar and destroy by our ignorance, greed and intolerance. Christ, the Son of the vineyard owner, come with a new vision for the vineyard we only “lease” from his Father: a vision of love rather than desire, of peace rather than hostility, of forgiveness rather than vengeance. May we welcome Christ into our vineyard of ours, aware that he calls us to the demanding conversion of the Gospel but determined nonetheless to sow and reap the blessings of God’s reign.

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Sept 25, 2011

A perfect violin

She was an accomplished musician, as well as a wife and mother. Diagnosed with lung cancer, she was in her final weeks.

She asked a good friend to help her with something. She’d like to have her cherished violin repaired and appraised. She believed it had been handmade by the Hopf family in Germany in the 1700s and so she assumed it was quite valuable. Her friend brought the instrument to an expert violin maker and appraiser.

A week later, the friend brought her to the violin maker’s shop. He welcomed them cordially and seated them on tall stools near his work bench. Then he handed her the violin. It had been beautifully restored. The violin maker pointed to the wood he replaced and the tuning he had done. Then he gave her a magnifying glass and told her to look into the F-shaped hole in the front of the violin and read the label inside: Centralia, Washington, 1914. "That’s the name of the man who sold my father his violin when we lived in Centralia," she said. "The label must mean he repaired it."

"That is the label of the person who made the violin," he said gently. "This instrument is actually a fiddle." The violin-maker showed her her instrument’s smaller bridge, typical of a cheaper fiddle as opposed to a more expensive classical violin.

After taking all of this in, she said, with some puzzlement, "People always commented on the beautiful tone of my violin. I thought I had a fine instrument. And all the time it was just a cheap fiddle!"

The violin-maker corrected her. "But that means your abilities were even greater than anyone knew. It takes an excellent musician to make an inexpensive instrument sound like a fine one. You must have been a superb player."     [From "A Perfect Violin" by Peggy Worst Romanoski, Guideposts, June 1995]

Just as a musician’s skill can produce music from the simplest of instruments, the grace of God can enable even the "tax collector" and "prostitute" to be instruments of God’s compassion and reconciliation in our midst. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus upholds the sacred dignity of all men and women in the eyes of God: the poor, the powerless, the ignored, the forgotten. We are called to uphold that dignity, as well, not letting the contributions and meaning of an individual’s life be dismissed by vague labels and inaccurate stereotypes based on age or appearance, profession or class. Christ calls us to look beyond hasty impressions and incomplete perceptions in order to seek out the holiness and goodness that reside in every person who is, like each one of us, a child of God.

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Sept 18, 2011

From Kite to Thread to Cable to Bridge

In the mid 1980’s, when engineers began work on a suspension bridge across Niagara Falls, the first problem they encountered was how to get the huge iron cables across the soaring chasm. After studying and rejecting countless ideas, they came upon the solution: a kite. Engineers attached a slender thread to a paper kite flown by a ten year old boy who had proven himself a master at kite flying and flew it across the falls to the opposite shore. Once the thread was fastened to a tree, the workers used the thread to draw across a string, and then a cord, and then a rope and, finally, the immense steel cable that was the beginning of the new bridge.

We may be only thread, but perhaps we can soar to heights others cannot; we may be cable weighted to earth, but we can support others on their journeys across life’s most treacherous divides. Jesus’ many lessons on humility, including today’s parable of the generous vineyard owner, challenges us to realize who we are, whether thread or rope or cable, and to accept the threads and cords and cables that are the gifts of others. Christ calls us together as His church to build the bridge from our "side" to the kingdom of God; He summons us into the Father’s "vineyard" for the harvesting of the great bounty of God’s reign for all, working for whatever time we have, employing whatever skills and resources we have been given.

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Sept 11, 2011

A Wedding Dress of Transformed Silk

English writer Margaret Silf recounts this story in America Magazine (April 25, 2011):

During World War II, a German pilot flies a bombing mission over the English countryside. In the predawn darkness, his plane is disabled by hostile fire and he bails out. Struggling to release his parachute, he prays as he falls into enemy territory; as he plummets to earth, the face of his young wife back home flashes before him. Minutes later, he lies unconscious on the ground, his parachute entangled in a tree. At dawn, a young woman passes by. She is lost in thought. Her beloved has just asked her to marry him and she longs to say yes, but how can they afford to celebrate a wedding in these dark days of war? There will not be enough money, or material for a proper wedding dress. Her family and friends tells her to wait until the end of the war, but will the end ever come? Her pondering is suddenly interrupted when she sees the German pilot lying on the grass. Despite the uniform, she knows what she must do. There is still a pulse. She covers him with her coat and places her jersey under his head and goes for help. The enemy pilot is taken to a nearby hospital. The next morning the woman is making her way along the same path. She sees again the parachute in the branches. But she no longer sees a parachute - this morning she sees silk. A gift from God? She gathers up the cloth. For the next few weeks she spends every spare moment transforming the abandoned parachute into a beautiful wedding gown. From his hospital bed, a lonely young German airman, recovering from disaster, sees a bridal couple passing by. For a moment, he feels a sense of hope, perhaps he will one day be home with his own young bride. He has no idea that this English bride is wearing his parachute.

Silk is transformed from a parachute into a wedding gown - all because of an act of reconciling compassion. Jesus’ many parables and stories about forgiveness and reconciliation call us to the work of discovering the "silk" in the midst of our anger and hurt and using it to imagine and create new beginnings from old struggles and estrangements. Such Christ-like reconciliation is not easy; it demands a new mindset and perspective that manages to look beyond ideology to see brother and sister human beings; to move beyond states of war in order to recognize the possibilities for redeeming peace.

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Sept 4, 2011

Small "c" church

On a business trip to South America, he visited a small church in one of the poor barrios. He was deeply moved by what he saw: the joy-filled faith of these families despite the overwhelming poverty of their daily lives. When he returned home, he was telling some friends at Mass about what he had seen. The group wondered what they could do to help, so they contacted the pastor of the barrio parish. The priest expressed gratitude for any help, especially for the parish’s school and small clinic. So the group collected school and medical supplies and shipped them: next they gathered up blankets and clothes: now they are raising money to dig a new well for the community. They see themselves as just a group of friends doing what they are able to do for their South American brothers and sisters. But in truth, they are being church.

It’s known as "the list" - names and telephone numbers of folks in the parish who can be called day or night. An elderly parishioner needs a ride to the doctor? Call Susan. The young couple struggling through her difficult pregnancy? Sheila and Pat will make sure they have supper and groceries this week. The one car of a family whose parents have been out of work for some time breaks down? Neil knows what to do. It is more than a list of numbers. It is church.

When they were in grammar school, they participated in the parish’s vacation religious education program every summer and always had a great time. Now that they are in high school, they return every July to serve as leaders and counselors—and often become big brothers and big sisters to the kids. The adults who are responsible for the week’s program will tell you immediately that these teens make the program go. They are more than a terrific group of generous teenagers. They are church.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the "church" - not the institutional capital "C" Church, but the lowercase "c" church that is you and I, human beings who struggle to follow Jesus. That is the important lesson of today’s Gospel: the ability of individuals who come together as disciples, inspired by the Gospel Jesus, to accomplish great works of compassion, reconciliation, healing and justice. May the grace of God bring us together, even just two or three of us, in Jesus’ name, enabling us to mirror God’s love in our midst.

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Aug 28, 2011

Lost and Found

Best-selling author, Geneen Roth, and her husband were among the thousands of investors who lost their life savings in Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme. As you can imagine, the anger, fear and regret were intense - 30 years of retirement savings thought to be in a "safe" place disappeared in an instant.

In her new book, Lost and Found, she recounts her family’s story and those of friends who were ruined in the Madoff fraud. She writes that the experience led her to a whole new way of thinking about the "irrational, destructive ways" we use money and evaluate wealth. In losing everything, the Roths and their friends "also lost their attachment to what they thought they needed to be happy." "Before my husband and I lost our money, I’d been complaining about our house. Built as a vacation home in the 1960’s, it’s drafty, and the plumbing doesn’t always work. After Madoff confessed, I couldn't believe my good fortune to have a house, for that day and the day after." "Before Madoff confessed, I didn’t like the way my husband chewed his cereal, wore ankle socks, and was insistent on focusing on the positive. After Madoff confessed, it seemed miraculous that I ended up married for more than 20 years to a man I adored. I remembered, again, how much I liked his face, his laugh, his walk, the way he rolled his eyes. Before Madoff confessed, I’d peer at my body from the holes in my psyche. After Madoff, I was grateful to have a body, hair, eyes and legs that functioned…." From the perspective of losing everything, having anything seemed like winning the lottery."

Throughout the Gospel, Jesus challenges our often illusory, distorted relationships with such things as money, food, technology, sports - diversions and pursuits that eat up our time and energy at the expense of the important relationships we have with family and friends - and God. Jesus asks his disciples to detach from the ephemeral and shallow in order to attach to the lasting, fulfilling things of God: compassion, reconciliation, justice. If we are true to Jesus’ call to discipleship, we will find ourselves embracing values that run counter to what society honors: taking the first lonely and difficult steps toward reconciliation and peace, putting aside our own needs and wants for what is best for family and community. As disciples, we choose to take up the cross, not out of a sense of self-loathing or pessimism, but out of a sense of conviction and hope that the demands of the cross will result in the life and love of the Easter promise.

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July 17, 2011

Faith is the ability to see the potential in the smallest of things and the courage and perseverance to unlock that potential. Humanity’s dream of peace, community and justice will be realized, first, in the everyday acts of such goodness of each one of us. Such is "mustard seed" faith: that, from the smallest and humblest acts of justice, kindness and compassion, the kingdom of God will take root.

Christ calls us in today’s Gospel to become "yeast" in the lives of others, giving life when all seems dead, bringing healing and joy to those from whom we are estranged and separated, restoring hope when overwhelmed by despair and sorrow. Like yeast that transforms flour and water into bread, may the bread of the Eucharist we receive at this table make us Eucharist for one another, transforming our lives and those we love in the compassion, forgiveness and peace of Christ, the bread of life.

When we hear Jesus’ parable of the wheat and weeds, we immediately think of good people (the wheat) and bad people (the weeds) coexisting in an imperfect world until the coming of God’s kingdom. But every one of us possesses within ourselves something of both the "good" wheat and the "evil" weed. We all possess the ability to do compassionate and good things out of love - but, at the same time, there exists within us an impulse to selfishness and fear that controls our actions and thought processes. We can respond to any situation by taking the moral and ethical high ground - but we can usually find some justification for acting out our own wants and needs or devise some rationalization for taking a less demanding and more profitable approach. Discipleship recognizes that this struggle exists within each one of us and embraces the hope that, in seeking to imitate Christ’s spirit of loving servanthood, we may be "wheat" for a world that is often choking in "weeds."

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July 10, 2011

The Parable of the Little Seed

Once upon a time there was a little seed. Because it was only a seed, nobody seemed to notice or care. The seed didn’t consider himself very important, either. One day, the wind picked up the seed and threw the seed mercilessly into an open field. The sweltering sun beat down on the little seed; rain pounded he helpless seed into the ground; snow and ice trapped the shivering seed for long periods of time. The little seed was broken, confused and lonely. Time went by. Then, one day, a traveler came up and sat beside the seed. "Thank you, God, for this place," the seed heard the traveler say. "Excuse me." The seed spoke up. "What are you talking about?" People had stopped by his little plot of earth before, but no one had ever spoken like this. The seed, thought the traveler, was making fun of him. The traveler was startled. "Who’s speaking to me?’ "Me. The seed." "The seed? You’re no seed. You’re a tree - a goliath of an oak!" "Really?" asked the seed. "Yes! Why else do you think people come here?" "Why?" "To rest under your shade. Don’t you realize how you have grown?" It took a moment for the seed to realize what the traveler was saying. The seed smiled for the first time in his life. The years of restlessness and struggle, of brokenness and loneliness, finally made sense to him. "I am worth something," rejoiced the one-time little seed, now a great oak.

In this charming Indian parable, a simple seed learns the meaning of struggle and discovery. In the first part of Jesus’ parable of the sower, the seed sown is the Word of God - but in the second part of the image, the seed is the individual in whom the Word of God takes root. We become the Word that was planted within our hearts; we are the harvest of God’s justice and compassion. It is a struggle, to be sure - but allowing ourselves to be "planted," to be broken, to grow, is to become the Word that God has planted within us.

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June 26, 2011

Blessed be the turtles that cross here…

A road cuts through a large stream near the center of town. The stream is home to birds, fish and turtles. On a tree where the road intersects with the stream, there hangs a sign: TURTLE CROSSING… Be Careful. A second sign is posted warning drivers coming from the opposite direction, as well. The signs were not posted by the town; they are not the work of an environmental agency or wildlife group. The signs are made of plywood, with letters - and the profile of a turtle - cut out of wood with a jigsaw. The homemade signs - charming in their simplicity and bright colors - took someone a great deal of time and effort. Whoever that someone was possessed the grace of spirit and generosity of heart to realize the plight of the poor turtles trying to make their way across the busy road to their natural habitat. That someone then took it upon himself or herself or themselves to do whatever they could to help - if only by simple signs. That someone’s good deed was not only kind - it was prophetic.

It is in the simplest things we give that we most completely respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship. Authentically committed disciples of Jesus possess the vision of faith and determination of hope to use anything from a cup of cold water to a sign to protect the most helpless of creatures to make God’s reign of compassion and peace a reality in our time and place. God calls every one of us to the work of the prophet - to proclaim God’s presence among His people. Some are called to be witnesses of God’s justice in the midst of profound evil; others are called to be witness of His hope to those in pain and anguish; but most of us do the work of the prophet in our simplest but most selfless acts of kindness that mirror God’s love in our midst. To take up the cross, to receive the prophet’s reward, is to seek out every opportunity, to use every talent with which we have been blessed, to devote every resource at our disposal to make the love of God a living reality in every life we touch - even that of the smallest turtle.

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June 12, 2011

Come About

In sailing, the best condition is to have the wind at your back; the worst is no wind at all. But the most common situation is a headwind coming at your craft from varying angles. So skilled sailors learn how to reach their destination in a headwind by "tacking" into the wind, setting their sails so they can move forward, indirectly, toward their destination in a zigzag fashion. Progress can be slow, but it is steady, and the best sailors are those who have learned to "read" the wind, who know how to make the best forward progress against the wind’s resistance, when to "come about" to make a turn and reset their sails.

The Hebrew word for Spirit, "ruah" means air or wind. The early Christian community experienced God’s spirit as a "wind" propelling the "craft" of the Church; they perceived the Spirit in their midst as the very breath of God filling their community with His life and love and animating them to do the work the Gospel Jesus has called them to do. The challenge of Pentecost is to sense God’s Spirit in our midst. Sometimes the ruah of God requires us to "come about" and move more slowly, more intentionally, than we’d like; often the ruah of God forces us to "tack" in directions that cause us to pause and reconsider our decision to move forward. To be a disciple of the Risen One is to be attuned to the direction of God’s Spirit; the ruah of God that animates us to do the work of the Gospel of the Risen One, the ruah that makes God’s will our will, the ruah of God living in us and transforming us so that we might bring His life and love into our broken world.

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May 22, 2011

The Holy Work of Being Mom and Dad

Scrubbing the pan in which Sunday’s pot roast was roasted...getting your children to and from school, doctor’s appointments, rehearsals and practices...paying the bills and balancing the checkbook are hardly inspiring exhilarating experiences. But they are holy acts. The details of being a parent - cleaning, teaching, driving to and picking up, paying tuition, guiding, counseling, feeding, clothing - take on a spiritual character when they are part of the work of transforming a child into a sacred and thoughtful and engaged adult. For parents, the spiritual is not ethereal or remote; the holy is not abstract and confined to words and images. For Moms and Dads, the spiritual is painfully real; the holy is directly connected to the most ordinary and mundane of human activities. The spiritual transcends the present to envision the future - and who contributes more to the future than a parent raising a child into a responsible, centered, loving adult? As a parent, you are a minister, you are a prophet, you are a priest. You are unfolding the holy work of creation when you gave life to this person with a soul and spirit. You are continuing the work begun by and now entrusted to you by God. And that is the holiest of vocations.

The simple, mundane tasks of being a parent, of being a member of a family, of being a friend, or being a part of a parish, is the very "work" of God. On the night before he died, Jesus asks his disciples to take up "the work that I do" - the work of humble servanthood that places the hurts and pain of others before our own, the work of charity that does not measure the cost, the work of love that transcends limits and conditions. The "work" of God is not measured in effectiveness or efficiency; the hallmark of God’s work is the compassion and love, the justice and healing that inspire and compel that work. The simplest act of kindness and charity, done in God’s spirit of love, is to do the very work of Christ; the most hidden and unseen acts of kindness will be exalted by Christ in the kingdom of his Father.

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May 15, 2011

Christ the Doorway

We pass through a great many doors in our lives. The open door welcomes; it ushers in fresh air and light. Yes, we’re open, come on in, welcome! The open door is the sure sign that we belong, that we have a place, that we are among those who love us. The closed door shelters and protects us from the winter cold, as well as from the intruder, the thief, and evil-doer. Come in out of the cold, you’re safe here, everything’s fine. Behind the closed door we are safe and held close. In any new construction, architects spend a great deal of time and money designing the entry. The size and colors of portals and thresholds convey to the visitor authority, majesty, mystery, stature. Passing through doors can intrigue us, excite us, inspire us, fill us with awe or dread. Locked doors are sure signs of defeat, rejection, desperation. Doors can speak for us, as well. The doors we pass through are transitions from fear to sanctuary, from isolation to community, from struggle to peace. The church door welcomes us into God’s presence. The courthouse door is the entry way for establishing justice and protecting the common good. The university door is the threshold of learning and discovery. Our own front door is the blessed assurance that we are home.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls himself the "gate", the entryway, for us to God, the "door" through which we step from the reality of our imperfect, incomplete world to the reality of the perfect holiness of God. In this Easter season, God invites us to pass through the threshold that is his Risen Christ - to leave behind our sadness and fears and doubts in order to come into the safety and warmth of God’s hearth of peace and compassion. On our journey to the kingdom of God, Jesus is the "gate" of humble justice, selfless compassion and ready forgiveness that leads us to the dwelling place of God.

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May 8, 2011

God is simply...there

Six-year-old Andrew came down with bacterial meningitis, an aggressive disease that almost cost the little boy his life. In order to save Andrew, the doctors had to amputate his legs where the disease had destroyed his circulatory system. Andrew was devastated when he discovered what had happened to him; Andrew couldn’t understand why he couldn’t have his "old legs back." His mother, Rebecca, wasn’t doing much better. She tried to keep up a positive disposition for her son, but she wondered how he could handle the next chapter. And she felt betrayed - betrayed by God. After months of agonizing rehabilitation with his new prosthetic legs, Andrew finally went home. Then one night at supper, out of nowhere, Andrew said, "I saw God, Mommy. I was sleeping at the hospital. He put his arms out, and I thought he was going to give me a hug. But instead he just touched me on the shoulder." His mother steeled herself. "Did God say anything?" "No, he was just...there." A chill ran down his mother’s spine. Rebecca writes: "God was just there. What did that mean? I looked at Andrew wolfing down his dinner. For months I had seen a handicapped child fighting as hard as he could, falling more often than succeeding at his rehab. Falling down unable to master his new legs. Yet, unlike me, never turning bitter, never giving up. ‘I’m going to walk, I’m going to ride my bike,’ he’d insist, ‘You just watch.’" She realized Andrew came through this better than she had. He was moving on. She had been stuck in her bitterness and sense of betrayal. "Lord, thank you for being with Andrew. Be with me now, too."

The Risen Christ is here, in our midst, in the love of family and friends, in the care of doctors and nurses, in the support of pastors and ministers, in the wisdom of teachers and counselors. The disciples on the road to Emmaus finally realize his presence in the breaking of the bread; Rebecca finally grasps God’s presence in the unshakable, determined faith of her little boy. Every one of us has traveled the road the two disciples walked on Easter night; many of us have made the journey that Andrew and his mom and dad traveled. It is the road of deep disappointment, sadness, despair, anger. But God assures us, in his Easter promise, that along those roads he will make himself known to us. If our eyes are open, we will meet him in his Christ; in the compassion and generosity of others, in the breaking of bread and the healing touch of the sacraments, in the grace and wisdom of his Spirit in our midst. May our hearts and consciences always be open to behold the presence of Christ, our guest and companion along the many roads we walk to our own Emmauses.

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May 1, 2011

Nail Marks

A relative or friend of yours is going through a difficult time - an illness, the loss of a job, a break-up. You want to pick up the phone and call, you begin to write a card, you think about making something to bring over. But you hesitate. What do I say? What can I do? How can I possibly make this situation better? So you make the call, write the note, bake the casserole. And you somehow find the right thing to say - or you realize, wisely, that nothing needs to be said. Your listening ear, your compassionate shoulder, your concerned presence are more than enough.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples and shows them his hands and his side; later he invites the doubting Thomas to touch the marks made by the nails and the gash from the soldier’s lance. Easter does not deny the effects of Good Friday nor erase the wounds of crucifixion - but Easter is God’s compassion moving us beyond crucifixion to healing and wholeness. We all have scars from our own Good Fridays that remain long after our own experiences of resurrection. We learn from our scars. Our "nail marks" remind us that all pain and grief, all ridicule and suffering are transformed into healing and peace in the love of God we experience from others and that we extend to them. Jesus tells Thomas and his brothers not to be afraid of nail marks and scars and fractured bones and the crushed spirit and the broken heart. Compassion, forgiveness, justice - no matter how clumsily offered - can heal and mend. In light of the unwavering hope, with the assurance of God’s unlimited grace, even the simplest act of kindness and understanding is the realization of Easter in our midst.

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Apr. 24, 2011

Love and Loss Vindicated

We have all lost someone we have loved and cared about. Their absence creates an emptiness in our life that we struggle to fill, a chasm we desperately seek ways to bridge, a darkness that overwhelms us. But what is loss but an experience of love? If you did not love, there would be no loss. Love means that relationships matter. At its core, grief is an expression of love.

In the darkness of Easter morning, the two Marys go to the tomb. Matthew writes that they went to "see the tomb." Who knows what they expected to see - certainly they expected no miracle. In all probability they had spent the Sabbath by themselves, in a hell-fury of anger and grief at what had been done to their beloved teacher. But that unique love we all know - love that is experienced in loss - brings them to the garden on this Sunday morning. The words of the angel fill their emptiness with hope, transforms their bitterness with an awesome excitement (that is not a little terrifying), sets them on a new and unexpected road as witnesses of God’s greatest miracle.

God has vindicated faithful, suffering, stubborn, unrelenting love - love God himself ignited in his creation.

Easter is God’s promise that real love will not disappoint, will not be wasted, will not destroy or be destroyed. The empty tomb vindicates the sacrifice of emptying one’s self for the sake of another, the taking up of one’s cross to bring resurrection to some Calvary, the bringing of myrrh to heal and restore the most lifeless of situations. The emptiness of loss will be filled, the darkness of grief will break - if not in this time of ours then in the time of God to come. Love not only changes the one loved but recreates the lover. What God asks of us is not easy to take on. The loss of a loved one is devastating; the pain of betrayed love is not quickly healed. God knows all too well. But in raising his Son from the tomb that others condemned him to, God promises that love will ultimately triumph, hearts broken will be healed and made stronger, the emptiness we feel will be filled. And if we look, we will discover God walking with us every step of the way, from Calvary to the garden tomb to Easter in Galilee.

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Apr. 17, 2011

The Broken Heart of God

One of the world’s greatest art treasures is Michelangelo's Pieta, created from a single piece of marble in 1498, when Michelangelo was only twenty-three. It shows Mary, the Mother of Jesus, holding the broken body of her son on her lap. One does not have to be Christian to be moved by the image. The combination of love and sorrow on Mary’s face, the sense of longing to take onto herself some of her son’s pain that she might lessen it, speaks to anyone who has ever loved and cared for another.

There is only one problem. The scene probably never happened. Only in John’s Gospel is Mary even present at the Crucifixion. Others, not Mary, are involved in Jesus’ being taken down from the cross and buried.

Yet, in moving us so deeply, the Pieta strikes us as so right and true. Why? Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, in his recent The Lord is My Shepherd, offers this insight into Michelangelo’s creation. He sees in Mary the love and tenderness of "God in his feminine aspect … the God who created life in all of its fragile vulnerability, the way a mother creates life, a God who grieves for His children when they are cruel to one another, when they hurt and kill one another. Every mother, every parent who suffers the loss of a child, is re-enacting God’s grief at the death of one of His own children … God’s was the first heart to break."

In the passion and death of his beloved, God is rejected and humiliated, God suffers and dies - just as every human being experiences. But God allows himself to be broken in order that we might understand the fragile, impermanent nature of this life. As we will see as the Gospel unfolds this Holy Week, the brokenness we both suffer and inflict can be healed in the love of God - love that is humble, love that is sincere, love that is centered in gratitude and selflessness. In the broken body of Jesus, we are reconciled with God; in the broken body of Jesus, our lives are transformed in the perfect love of Christ; in the broken body of Jesus, God’s Spirit of humility and compassion becomes a force of hope and recreation in our hurting and despairing world.

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Apr. 10, 2011

The Eternal Hope of the Gardener

His life was a never-ending winter of depression. His heart had been broken too many times; his last few dreams finally died in defeat and disappointment. He would leave his house only to go teach his classes or see his doctor, but his real life was lived under a blanket in his dark bedroom. Then, one day, he was drawn to his empty yard and felt the urge to dig. He turned over spade after spade of dirt until he had cleaned a small plot. He planted a few seeds and managed to find the energy to water and fertilize and weed. Soon he picked his first small basket of tomatoes and beans. He now had reason to get out of bed. He was a gardener. That was a few years ago. As he looks back, he wonders what he could have done if only he had gotten up out of bed and put on his shoes - he could have built a boat; he could have written a book; he could have planted a garden. Now, each winter, as the snow rages, he spends hours at his kitchen table planning the next year’s garden. On a large piece of paper, he marks the rows: carrots here, potatoes there, beans in that section. He eagerly looks forward to the new seed catalog each year. He devours gardening books and is constantly checking out horticultural websites looking for new ways to make next season’s garden greener and more productive. While the world around him is entombed in winter, he lives in the neverdisappointing hope of spring, looking forward to digging in his garden and gathering the bounty of the harvest.

All of us have experienced some extended spiritual "winter" when we have felt trapped by the feeling that nothing matters much, when we are entombed by disappointment, hurt and grief - or we are so absorbed in work or others’ expectations that distract us from being the kind of spouse, parent, child or friend we want to be. The Christ who calls Lazarus from his tomb calls us out of the tombs we dig for ourselves in order to walk in the light of hope and possibility. He calls us to live life to the fullest, to bring the love of God into our cold, winter world. Jesus calls not only to Lazarus but to all of us: Come out! Go free! Unbind yourselves from the wrappings of death! Live life to the fullest - the life given to you by a loving God. May we hear that same call to life in our darkest and coldest winters, enabling us to drop the bindings of disappointment and anger and embrace the never failing hope of the gardener and the good earth.

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Apr. 3, 2011

Another busy day in the church hall...

On a given morning in the parish hall, the teenagers in the Confirmation class are packing up winter coats they have collected for the homeless. Later that day, the hall kitchen buzzes with volunteers preparing soup and sandwiches for the parish’s regular turn that night at the downtown soup kitchen. In the afternoon, a group of moms take over the space and turn it into an after school center for kids to come to do homework, enjoy a snack, receive tutoring help, and just have a safe place to hang out after school instead of going home to an empty house. After supper, the knitting group will meet to make prayer shawls for the sick and dying in the parish. Their work is a warm, comforting assurance to the suffering and hurting in the parish that they are embraced in the prayers of the community. It seems the lights never go out in this parish hall.

The many works and ministries that take place in the always busy parish hall are the real lights reflecting the compassion of God dwelling in the church community. As Jesus heals the blind man "so that the works of God might be made visible through him," he opens our eyes to see and our hearts to make God’s work of justice and reconciliation "visible" in our own time and place. In Baptism, we are entrusted with those "works." Our least remarkable offerings of charity and extensions of the Eucharist we offer together at the Lord’s table; our unheralded, unseen efforts to bring healing and hope to others illuminate the unseen presence of God in our midst. May our own water and clay - the time and talent we give in imitation of Christ’s healing compassion, make the love and grace of God visible in our homes and communities, our workplaces and classrooms, our parishes and gatherings.

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Mar. 27, 2011

Five Times Five Times Five...

It seems a little harsh, don’t you think, for Jesus to point out to the woman at Jacob’s well that she has had five husbands? We immediately think that the woman simply isn’t good at marriage. We don’t know the circumstances of her marriage history. Some Scripture scholars point out that women didn’t choose to whom they would be married. Given the Levitical marriage system practiced by the Samaritans, this woman may have simply outlived the men who had to marry her after her first husband died. The sixth kinsman could have been afraid for his life if he made her respectable again. Could be, but it really doesn’t matter. The point is that no woman plans on being married five times. The system isn’t working for her. It’s easy for us who heard this Gospel to take some comfort in the fact that at least we haven’t been married five times. But most of us have had our five "do-overs," five "false starts," five "second chances"- five weight reduction plans, five jobs, five degree programs, five churches. Things don’t always work out as we hope, despite our best efforts. The second, third, fourth or fifth time may not be the charm. Sometimes the system just doesn’t work for us, either.

Without anger or rancor, Jesus prods the woman he meets at Jacob’s well to face the reality of her life: the missteps and stumbles she has taken, the messes she has made of her relationship, the sins that have estranged her from her own people. The water that Jesus speaks of is not success or well-being in our lives but for meaning and satisfaction in our relationships, in our work, in our spiritual life. The grace to start over again is ours if we are honest enough to confront our limitations and culpability and wise enough to realize God’s constant presence and his never rescinded invitation to return to him. In so many ordinary ways we can bring forth new life and hope in Christ if we focus on healing rather than rending, in teaching rather than punishing, in rebuilding rather than vanquishing.

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A desert story for this First Sunday of Lent:

The Sahel is the 3,000 mile stretch of grasslands dividing the Sahara Desert and Africa’s tropical forests. Over the years, the Sahel has become more and more of a desert - the water is precious, the dry earth bakes in temperatures reaching 120 degrees. The few crops that manage to grow are no match for the perpetual state of famine in the region. Life is precarious for the poor farmers and their families struggling to survive there. But ecologists may have found a way for the Sahel to bloom again - the acacia tree. The trees were once prevalent in the region until farmers began cutting them down to increase the available land to cultivate. The acacia tree stores water and nitrogen; its leaves produce mulch; its seeds are high in protein. So international agricultural and relief organizations are helping farmers in the Sahel to plant rows of acacia trees on their land, then planting their crops between the rows. The trees act as a living fence, protecting the plantings from the dry desert winds and preventing erosion. Over the past two decades, villages in the Sahel have seen their crop production double and triple. Degraded land is healing; fertility is increasing. Farmers are able to feed themselves in both good years and drought years. The people of the Sahel have rediscovered the wisdom of an old African proverb: "The one who cares for trees will not go hungry."

Each year, our Lenten experience begins in the desert. With Jesus, we come to that "wilderness" place in the heart where all artifice is stripped away and we see our lives as they are. So let this Lent be a time for "planting acacia trees" in our lives - trees that store the water of compassion, trees that grow the leaves of justice, trees that yield the seeds of peace that can make our desert lives bloom, that can heal the broken earth of our hearts and enable us to realize a harvest of fulfillment and hope despite the harsh winds that blow through our lives and the famines of despair and fear that emaciate our spirits. This spring, as we make our way with Jesus to his Easter Passover, may we plant trees of grateful prayer and selfless charity that our lives may realize the harvest prophesied by the prophet Isaiah (58: 10-11): "If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail."

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Mar. 6, 2011

The Dignity of Generosity

This happened in a small Virginia church years ago:

A widow with six small children was a longtime member of the congregation. Each month she gave the church $4 - a tithe of her income. Members of the church council were moved by her generosity, but concerned that her gift added more to her hardship. They urged the pastor to talk to the poor woman and let her know that, given the weight of her responsibilities to her family, she should not feel obligated to give to the church.

The pastor tells the rest of the story:

"I am not wise now; I was less wise then. I went and told her of the concerns of the church council. I told her as graciously and supportively as I knew how that she was relieved of the responsibilities of giving. As I talked with her the tears came into her eyes. ‘I want to tell you,’ she said, ‘that you are taking away the last thing that gives my life dignity and meaning.’"

Though poor and struggling herself, this woman’s life is centered on the "rock" of humility and gratitude that is of God. She understands that the meaning of her life is found in the dignity of Gospel mercy, reconciliation and justice. She realizes that the values of selflessness and compassion that she instills in her children as a parent are as important as the food and clothing she struggles to provide them. Authentic faith is centered in the values of the heart, with an understanding of God’s love for us and the irrepressible longing to respond to that love. The faithful disciple builds his/her "house" on the foundation of God’s love and seeks to bring that love, with conviction, integrity and perseverance, into the lives of all who call that house their home and all who come to that house’s table.

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Feb. 13, 2011

How Come…?

You might think of parenthood as a series of questions, often beginning with the words How come…? How come Bobby gets to play hockey and I can’t? Mom and Dad’s challenge is to make their younger son understand that Bobby is older and has worked hard and assure the younger son that his day will come. How come I have to take out the trash? Because you’re part of this family and we all have to work together to make our home a safe, clean place. How come I have to practice? How come I have so much homework? How come I only get $5 a week allowance? How come Mary Jane gets to stay up later? With patience, those How come’s are easy to answer. But what about: How come that kid keeps hitting me at school? How come we have to move? How come we’re having soup for dinner again? While your own world is falling apart, you find a way to help your daughter or son negotiate the harsh realities of the world. All these How come’s are prelude to the treacherous How come’s of adulthood - How come he doesn’t love me anymore? How come Dad isn’t getting better? How come we have to die?

As parents and teachers, we are entrusted with our children’s how come’s and why’s and what if’s. Their questions are not easy to answer - especially when we asking those same questions ourselves. But Jesus reminds us that the answers are centered in the eternal verities of God: the love of God for all his sons and daughters, the hope of transforming the darkness and bitterness of our world into the kingdom of God, the peace that enables all men and women to live as brothers and sisters in God’s Christ. By our compassion and caring for others, by our ethical and moral convictions, by our sense of awareness and gratitude for all that God has done for us, we do the great work of passing on the Gospel of reconciliation and justice - and God is with us as we struggle to figure out and explain the how come’s of life to inquiring little minds.

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Feb. 6, 2011

Living Beatitudes

When Rachel was 14, she was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. During her long recovery from very delicate brain surgery, Rachel passed the time making beaded jewelry. Encouraged by family and friends who loved her work, Rachel began to sell her collection of bracelets, necklaces and earrings at fairs and craft shows. To date, Rachel’s jewelry has raised over $10,000 for cancer research.

A group of high school rock bands held a battle-of-the-bands, raising over $20,000 for Children’s Hospital. What made the event so special was the fact that many of the young musicians have had personal experiences with chronic illness, from childhood surgeries for cancer to lifelong treatment for cystic fibrosis. The bands saw the concert as a way of saying thanks for the care and support they received. Kids facing cancer can get their questions answered from kids who have been there. Teens and preteen cancer survivors have put together their own videos about their treatments and hospital experiences, interviewing doctors and nurses, and showing the research being done to discover cures and develop more effective treatments for childhood diseases. The "KidVids" are big hits among new patients. The young video-makers know what these kids are going through and answer their questions with honesty and encouragement.

Rachel’s jewelry, the battle-of-the-bands and KidVids project are all part of a program called Generation Cures - or GenC. GenC is a kid-led, parent-enabled program at Children’s Hospital in Boston, empowering kids who have been treated at the hospital to give back. The idea is to give kids the opportunity to be involved in the work of combating childhood diseases. Through GenC, the kids themselves become caregivers for other kids and take on the diseases that almost killed them by raising money to fund research.

The kids who are part of GenC have become "salt" for other children and their families experiencing the same trauma they experienced and "light" for young patients overwhelmed by their pain and fear. When Jesus tells us that we are to be "salt for the earth," he calls us to bring his compassion and hope into our homes, workplaces, schools and communities; our simplest acts of charity can be a "light" for our world and unmistakable evidence of the presence of God among us. In whatever circumstances, in whatever ways we are able, may we realize our baptismal call to be "salt" for the earth—to make God’s presence and grace realities in our own time and place. May we be "light" for the world, illuminating the dark, desperate corners of society with hope and peace.

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Jam. 30, 2011

Living Beatitudes

This week, if you do something for someone else for no other reason than to bring joy to their lives, blessed are you. If you find yourself feeling the loss of a friend or loved one and, in missing them, you realize that you experienced the love of God in their love for you, blessed are you. This week, if you put yourself second for the needs of another, blessed are you. If you do the "right" thing when the conventional wisdom is to do the "smart" thing, blessed are you. Sometime in the next few days, if you stop, unplug and spend even just a moment thinking about all the good in your life and find yourself embraced by a sense of gratitude, blessed are you. This week, if you forgive someone or if someone forgives you, blessed are you. Sometime in the next few days, if you stop, unplug and spend even just a moment thinking about all the good in your life and find yourself embraced by a sense of gratitude, blessed are you. This week, if you can diffuse someone’s anger, if you can bridge the chasm between you and another, if you bring a positive perspective to an otherwise negative situation, blessed are you. If you risk being laughed at or misunderstood or if you endure a "funny look" from someone because you took a stand based on what was morally and ethically right, blessed are you. You have reason to be glad. In the blessings you give, you have been blessed.

To be a people of the Beatitudes is to embrace the spirit of humility that begins with valuing life as gift from God, a gift we have received only through God’s mysterious love, not through anything we have done to deserve it. Jesus calls us who would be his disciples to live the "blessedness" of the Sermon on the Mount: to embrace a spirit of humble gratitude before the God who gives, nurtures and sustains our lives and to respond to such unfathomable love the only way we can - by returning that love to others, God’s children, as a way of returning it to God.

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Jam. 23, 2011

"Cut It Out"

A hair stylist knew that her client was in danger when their sessions were being interrupted constantly by a barrage of angry phone calls from her angry husband.

At another shop, a stylist received an hysterical call from a long-time customer soon after she had spent three hours knitting extensions into the woman’s hair - her boyfriend hated the look and in a rage cut off, not only the extensions, but all of her hair.

And one hairdresser could not help but notice the cigarette burns on the neck of a woman whose hair she pulled back for washing.

But, happily, these three hairstylists were able to help these women and their children escape abusive relationships.

The privileged, often therapeutic relationship between hairdressers and their clients has long been the subject of magazine articles and movies. A growing movement across the country is trying to harness that bond in an effort to identify and prevent domestic violence, a pervasive problem that victims are often too ashamed to report to law enforcement officials. The salon is a place where women feel safe and can open up.

Perhaps the best known of these programs is called "Cut It Out." Based in Chicago, "Cut It Out" has trained 40,000 salon workers in 50 states to recognize signs of domestic abuse. For thousands of women, their neighborhood hair salon has provided much more than a chic perm or a stylish cut - it has been a lifeline.

When Jesus began his ministry, he did not go to the ranks of "professional" religious to be co-workers; he entrusted his Gospel to good and just, hardworking fishermen. Jesus underscores that his call to discipleship is extended to everyone of us, whether we are scholars or fishermen or hair stylists. Being a "fisher" of men or women often begins with simple caring of another - the generous and compassionate hair stylists and salon owners who have participated in the "Cut It Out" program are responding to Jesus’ call to be such "fishers." That is the challenge of the disciples’ call to find our life’s fulfillment in using our skills and knowledge for the common good rather than for personal profit or fame; to seek reconciliation and forgiveness when the rest of the world demands vengeance and settling the score; to see Christ in the faces of all.

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Jam. 9, 2011

Jesus came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased." Matthew 3: 13 –17

To know another’s name is the beginning of a relationship of love and trust and responsibility. In today’s Gospel, the "voice" of God is heard identifying this Jesus as "my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." In our own baptisms, we embrace that same identity - we are given not just the name by which we will be addressed, but we are also given the name of Christ. That name is both a dignity and a responsibility. The baptism we received, however many years ago, was not a singular milestone or naming ceremony but an ongoing commitment that continues every day of our journey to the dwelling place of God. On this feast of the Lord’s Baptism, let us celebrate the name of Christ we took on in the waters of our own baptisms and recommit ourselves to the work of being disciples of the Jesus of the Gospel of justice, reconciliation and servanthood.

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Dec. 26, 2010

It is easy to welcome Jesus, the innocent, beautiful child of the Christmas story: far more difficult is it to welcome Jesus, the humble and humiliated Crucified of Holy Week. Matthew’s Gospel of the Holy Family’s fleeing the murderous wrath of Herod reminds us that the Christmas crib is overshadowed by the Holy Week cross, that this holy birth is the beginning of humanity’s rebirth in the resurrection. In the weeks ahead, may we travel with child from Egypt to Nazareth to Jerusalem; may we carry the cross with the Messiah along the road to Calvary; may we then rise with him, body and spirit, on Easter morning.

Christmas celebrates more than a single event, more than just the birth of a child in a Bethlehem cave long ago. Christmas celebrates a presence that continues to this day and for all time. "Emmanuel" - "God is with us."

In Christ’s birth, God touches human history, hope reigns, justice takes root, peace is possible. The challenge to each one of us is to take on the work of "Emmanuel" - to make God’s presence tangible by being his "arms" for the hurting, his "hands" to the needy, his "heart" with the grieving. May we bring God’s presence into every Bethlehem and Nazareth around us.

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Dec. 19, 2010

"Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home...she will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:18-24

In today’s Gospel, Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth, Joseph is asked by God to welcome the Christ child as his own. The whole grand event depends on Joseph, whose life has been turned upside down by the angel’s news. If Joseph believes the angel, the story can go on. Joseph accepts the son as his own, as a matter of love and compassion, of trust and faith. God’s birth in our midst depends on human partners - a Mary, a Joseph, a you, a me - willing to believe the impossible, willing to claim the unwanted, willing to love the helpless and neediest, willing to put aside our fears and dare to hope that God is with us. Every one of us is called to be Joseph - to welcome God in our midst.

Let us embrace the spirit of these final days of Advent, expressed so eloquently in Isaac Watt’s beautiful hymn: "let every heart prepare him room." The reality is that Christmas is a challenge to us and our values and our dreams. Just as Joseph is challenged by God to welcome the child into his home and heart despite the difficult circumstances, God challenges us to welcome His Christ into our lives and allow the child to transform our hearts and homes in His peace and justice.

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Dec. 12, 2010

The Eyes of Kindness

The twelve-week workshop for a group of therapists had not gone particularly well. The group had not "jelled" - it was clear that the participants did not think highly of one another’s skills and abilities; the seminar discussions often bogged down in skepticism and contentiousness.

The workshop leader nonetheless went ahead with the final exercise. A blank sheet of paper was taped to the back of each of the ten participants. Then everyone was asked to write down on the sheet what he or she consider the "wearer’s " best qualities and skills. Despite the antagonisms lurking below the surface, the exercise was a resounding success. It is striking to see how something positive can always be found in any individual if you focus on finding and articulating it; it is even more surprising to realize the effect on the person when he or she becomes aware of it. All of the participants had lumps in their throats as they took leave of the group after they read their sheets.

In this Advent, Christ comes as the light of God that illuminates our vision in new ways, enabling us to see God’s grace and compassion in one another. All three readings today begin with lifeless, depressing pictures that are transformed into life-giving and enriching images - from death to life, from barrenness to harvest, from illness to wholeness. Our challenge as "heralds" of that light is to realize those miracles and resurrections taking place in our midst and reveal and celebrate them, lift them up for all to see, invite all to embrace and be embraced in the joy and hope of God’s work of reconciliation in our time and place.

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Dec. 5, 2010

It was of John that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said, "A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths." Matthew 3: 1-12

In today’s Gospel, John the Baptizer makes his Advent appearance. He calls us to snap out of our stupor and obliviousness to life around us: turn off our television sets and video games, put down our spreadsheets and calendar books, unplug our iPods and laptops and behold the reality of God’s presence in our midst. The same Word that came to John in the desert comes to each of us in the deserts of our own hearts, enabling us to transform the wastelands and straighten the winding roads of our lives in the compassion and justice of God. In this holy season of Advent, may we behold, with humble and grateful joy, the Word of God becoming alive and real for us in the person of Jesus. Let us welcome God’s Word into our own consciousness, calling us, as it called John, to proclaim God’s presence in our midst.

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Nov. 21, 2010

On this last Sunday of the Church year, we honor Christ the King whose kingdom knows neither boundaries nor walls, neither castes nor classes; Christ the King whose rule is one of service; Christ the King whose power is compassion, whose scepter is humility; Christ the King whose court belongs to the poor, the forgotten, the lost, the despairing; Christ the King whose coin is forgiveness and reconciliation. May our own imitation of Christ’s compassionate servanthood and humble generosity to all make us worthy to be citizens of His eternal kingdom. We are all in need of compassion, of forgiveness, of support, of assurance.

All of us, in some way, to some degree, are vulnerable, hurting, despairing. In the shadow of the cross, we are able to finally admit our need for healing, for peace, for God. The "good thief", hanging on the cross with Jesus, is finally able to see what his life has become and recognize his need for God. And Jesus does not disappoint him. The hope of the cross begins with confronting our sinfulness and accepting responsibility for the wrong we do; only then can we begin to realize our potential for the healing and grace that can transform our lives in the love and hope of God.

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Nov. 14, 2010

Today’s Gospel challenges us to consider what drives us, what things we risk our lives for. In the end, what will be found that will define our lives? In his Christ, God calls us to seek much more precious and lasting gifts than this world is capable of offering - treasures like compassion, reconciliation, justice and peace. What is required first, however, is to give up the attitudes and avarices that make possessing the things of God impossible. May our eyes remain open to and our spirits always be aware of the true treasures of this life that are ours for the asking, if we are wise and generous enough to let go of mere things to reach for them. Jesus calls us not to be obsessed with the "stones" that will one day collapse and become dust but to seek instead the lasting things of the soul, the things of God.

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Nov. 7, 2010

Hope Fields

All there is left to do is rake up the dry pine needles and brittle leaves. Our gardens that, only a few weeks ago, bloomed with colorful blossoms are now bare patches of gray earth; the plots that yielded a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and beans and corn for the summer cookout are now graveyards of faded stalks and leavings.

But every gardener and farmer knows that fall is not an end - it is only a pause, a time of rest, a period of renewal and regeneration for the earth. They know that spring will come. For now, the good gardener is busy cleaning up the beds of weeds and debris, pruning dead wood, cleaning and repairing tools, composting, laying protective mulch over the soil, and planting cover crops. Bulbs are buried for the first blooms of spring. Indoors, sprouts are cultivated for next year’s planting. And there is canning to be done and food to put up. And within weeks, the first seed catalogs will arrive in the mail. The earth does not die; the growing season does not end. The work of the harvest continues.

Our November gardens reflect the hope Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel. God is not a god of death or endings, but a God of new beginning and constant recreation. Our God is not a God of condemnation and retribution; God calls us to neither condemn or seek vengeance. Our God is a God of love that redeems and transforms and calls us to love one another in the same way. Resurrection is the promise and hope of our faith as Christians, but resurrection is also an attitude, a perspective for approaching life and sorting out the decisions and complexities of our lives. In our willingness to die to our own worst impulses, disappointments, and the sometimes overwhelming sense of hopelessness, we can rise to the heights of the life and love of God. What the Sadducees do not understand is that God is not about endings, but beginnings. God always calls us to start again, to put aside old behaviors and wants and embrace all that is good and affirming about the time we have been given, to live on in the hope that the struggles we encounter in this life are but a prelude to the fullness of joy in the next.

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Oct. 31, 2010

In the eyes of God, every man, woman and child is a "diamond" of great value - everyone of us possesses a goodness and dignity just by virtue of being created by God. Today’s readings speak of God’s love for all ("You spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things" - Reading I) and God’s unwavering determination to be reconciled with the creation God so lovingly fashioned ("The Son of Man has come to see and to save what was lost" - Gospel). As Jesus affirms the honest Zacchaeus in the eyes of his skeptical neighbors, so we are called to affirm that "imperishable spirit" of God existing in everyone as a child of God.

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Oct 24, 2010

Because of who we are, what we do, what we own, what we believe, we sometimes find it easy to exalt our own status; we imagine ourselves and our agenda to be superior to that of others; we see ourselves as better than the rabble who are not as blessed as we have been. But if we possess any sense of faith at all, we realize that all we are and will be begins with the life breathed in our souls by God and the constant providence of God over us. Thomas Merton wrote that "humility is absolutely necessary if one is to avoid acting like a baby all one’s life. To grow up, in fact, means to become humble, to throw away the illusion that I am the center of everything and that other people exist to provide me with comfort and pleasure." The Gospel of Jesus challenges us to embrace the humble, God-centered faith of the tax collector, not the self-centered and self-important claims of the Pharisee. We give thanks for God’s love for us by returning that love to one another, by accepting one another as God has accepted us; we honor God as Father of us all by honoring one another as brothers and sisters. Real prayer seeks first and only the grace to be able to do that.

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Oct 10, 2010

The Lesson of the Mango

An American relief worker was visiting an orphanage in El Salvador. One of the girls offered the visitor a mango that she had found on a tree near the orphanage. It was rare to have fruit at the orphanage - the usual fare was very plain and simple, such as beans and tortillas. And so the visitor said, "No, thank you" because he wanted the little girl to enjoy the mango. Later, the visitor’s host, who had grown up at the orphanage herself, explained that in El Salvador, one does not refuse such an offer. The correct response is to receive the gift no matter the condition of the other person or the gift, because it is in receiving the gift that the recipient acknowledges the dignity of the giver.

Gratitude, in the spirit of the Gospel, is not an expression of thanks for a single act of kindness. Gratitude is a perspective of seeing every human being as worthy of respect as a child of God; it is an attitude of simple humility before all men and women, respecting them as our brothers and sisters, regardless of whatever differences in social status, age, or education. Gratitude requires the humility both to give from our poverty and to receive despite our wealth and status. As the Samaritan leper discovers in today’s Gospel, each one of us has been given much by God, and realizing those gifts, such a spirit of gratitude is the beginning of transforming our lives and communities in God’s grace.

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Sept 12, 2010

An Instrument of Grace

As she approached her sixteenth birthday, she already possessed extraordinary musical skill. All of her teachers saw and heard in her playing great potential. With each new piece she learned, she became more excited about her music and devoted hours mastering her technique. Her mom and dad realized that the viola she played did not match her talents or her conductor’s expectations. The family of four lived frugally and responsibly, but as every family knows, every dollar counts. But mom searched and searched and soon found an excellent instrument. She never told her husband the cost, nor did he ask - she did note that it cost more than the 20-year-old Volvo he was driving. But when they gave the viola to their daughter at breakfast on the morning of her birthday, the cost did not matter. Mom and dad knew the joy that only comes from sacrifice; their daughter experienced the joy that comes only from being so loved.

Grace is the realization of God’s love and compassion in our lives. Sometimes we experience grace in the support and love of generous parents who put their entire "flock" at risk for us—and sometimes we are the agents of such grace, giving and doing whatever is necessary for the good of another, refusing to give up our search to find the lost and bring back those from whom we have been separated. In the three parables in today’s Gospel, Jesus reminds us that it is in just such complete and total compassion that we come to know what it means to be fully human, to realize that we have been made in God’s image, embrace and be embraced by the Spirit of God’s love that the Father extends to every one of His sons and daughters. What is striking in the three stories is the joy experienced by the shepherd who finds the lost lamb, the woman who recovers the missing coin, and the father who welcomes home his wayward son. Grace is to be transformed by such joy - whether we are the seeker and healer or the lost and healed.

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Sept 5, 2010

The parables of the tower and the king preparing for war: "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple...Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple."
Luke 14: 25-33

We treat our daily planners and calendar books the way monks and nuns used to treat their prayer books. We keep them close at all times. We clasp them with missionary zeal as we head from meeting to meeting, from appointment to appointment. As canticles in their office books, our days and weeks are marked off with schedules, agenda and never-completed TO DO lists. The cycles of our lives are marked in our planners. Our "time managers" do their job - they keep our lives on track, they keep us focused on our priorities and the job at hand. Our planners announce to the world that our lives are of value, that our time is worth something. But the various sections of today's calendars and planners only show that part of our lives that is found by the clock - our "horizontal" lives. There is another dimension of our lives - call it the "vertical" life - that is not confined by the clock. It is the life of the holy and transcendent, the life of compassion and reconciliation that is seldom reflected in the pages of our planners. But without the hours of God in our lives what really is the point of the other hours? A busy executive used to write in his calendar, 7:30-8, prayer, but in the course of his busy days he would often skip the entry. Then he started writing 7:30-8, God. God, he found, was much harder to skip over.

In the parables of the unfinished tower and the king preparing for war, Jesus reminds us that we do not live the life of God by accident. That to live our baptism demands focused attention and deliberate action. To be a faithful disciple of Christ means to live beyond the pages of our calendars and planning books, to make time in our lives first for the things of God - to marking the passing of our days by building loving, nurturing relationships with family and friends; to realize the fullness of our "vertical" life - the life of God.

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Aug 22, 2010

The "Narrow Gate"

Discipline and sacrifice are the hinges of the "narrow gate" of which Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel. All of the important things of life demand that we struggle through the narrow gate. There are no magic words to loving and being loved, to creating a world of justice and peace, to forgiving and being reconciled with one another. Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the "narrow gate" will come to experience the life of God to the fullest. Our entry into the life of God requires of us an honesty and integrity that we cannot ignore or rationalize in order to justify our passage. The "narrow gate" is what we believe, what we hear God asking of us in the depth of our hearts; the "narrow gate" allows for no acceptable margin of error, no "wiggle room," no path of least resistance. It is the difficult way of limitless love, unconditional forgiveness, sacrificial selflessness - but Jesus promises that anyone willing to struggle through the "narrow gate" will be welcome into the eternal dwelling place of his Father.

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Aug 15, 2010

The Gospel’s first preacher:

The image we have of Mary is usually that of one of her statues or paintings, the flawless representations of her in the Christmas manger, the exquisite vision seen at Fatima and Lourdes, the otherwordly iconography of her holding the Child-God-King.

She is beautiful and holy - and remote.

But for Luke, Mary is a real woman who pays a heavy price for her "yes" to God: the tension with her husband; a dangerous trip to Bethlehem; the pain of giving birth alone, in a cave; the desperate escape to Egypt; the helplessness of watching her innocent son’s death. Mary is not the quiet, diffident bystander she seems to be - she is a real woman who knows all the joys and struggles of parenthood, poverty and life at its messiest.

In today’s Gospel for the Solemnity of the Assumption, Luke portrays Mary in a role we would never imagine for her. For Luke, Mary is the first preacher of the Gospel. The words she says to Elizabeth - the canticle we know as the Magnificat - is the first proclamation of the Gospel. Mary understands and declares what God will do in Jesus Christ. She knows that in the promise she has received from God, history is about to be turned upside down. Furthermore, she knows that she is, herself, the first instance of that upside-down history. She is the lowly one whom God has lifted up, she is the loving daughter on whom God has looked with favor.

Mary embodies the good news she proclaims - the Gospel of forgiveness, compassion and humble service to others, justice and, ultimately, resurrection.

(Inspired by essays by Rev. Raymond E. Brown and Dr. David L. Bartlett.)

Mary’s Magnificat is anything but the pious ode of a plastic saint; it is a prophetic, cutting-edge declaration of faithful conviction in the living, creative presence of God. Today’s Solemnity of the Assumption is Mary’s Easter - the fulfillment of that son’s promise of the Christ in her life. May we make Mary’s song our song - her song of gratitude to God for his loving promise, her song of mercy and forgiveness, her song of humility and compassion - as we struggle to realize its promise in our own lives.

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Aug 1, 2010

The parable of the rich man and his storage barns: "You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?" Luke 12: 13-21

"The secret of life" - love that manages to trump every problem, heal every hurt, bridge every division. In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes clear that our lives are not about amassing fortunes or achieving great celebrity; God has not given this precious time to fill our barns with "more" of the latest, the best, the biggest - things that will be gone in an instant. "The secret of life" is the selfless and affirming love that is and of God that creates and embraces, affirms and consoles, enriches and lifts up. It is that unique, simple but profound love that is centered in gratitude to its Author and seeks to be shared with those with whom we are privileged to experience this life. In Christ, God has revealed to us "the secret of life." Pass it on.

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July 25, 2010

"Thy kingdom come" - Your kingdom come, O God, in our homes, in our offices, in our workplaces, in our classrooms, on our playgrounds, your will be done in every moment and every place of our lives as it is in heaven. That is the prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, a prayer that does not so much ask God to do what we want but prayer that asks that we do what God wants of us - and being ready and willing to make God’s will a reality in our everyday life. Prayer, worthy of God’s ear, seeks the grace to do the work God calls us to do (forgiveness, charity, justice) and to become the people God calls us to become (brothers and sisters under our Father in heaven). May the prayer of St. Thomas More become the heart of our prayer life: "O God, give us the grace to work for the things we pray for."

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July 18, 2010

A psychologist ran every morning in a park near her home before going to her office. She often met a colleague there, a well-known psychiatrist. Without any formal arrangement, they had run together every morning for many years. But after she was diagnosed with cancer, somehow her running companion was never there. A strong and determined woman, she continued to run, despite a difficult course of surgery and chemotherapy. After a few months of running alone, she called the psychiatrist, but he never returned her call. About a year after the completion of her treatment, she took a different path on her run one morning and saw the psychiatrist running up ahead. Being twenty years younger, she caught up with him easily. As they ran side by side, she told her one time running companion that she was hurt by his not calling back.

Everyone in their small professional community knew about her cancer. Surely he had heard. The psychiatrist replied, "I’m sorry. I simply did not know what to say." What would she have wanted to hear? "Oh, something like, ‘I heard it’s been a hard year. How are you doing?’ Some simple human thing like that."

Too often, we hide behind our credentials, our expertise, our work, our designated role or function in order to avoid the awkwardness of simply being human. Like the psychiatrist in the story, we can be experts in the science of hurt but find ourselves too afraid to extend the simplest form of healing; like Martha in the Gospel, we bury ourselves in our work and agendas and calendars to avoid loving and being loved by our "guest." Jesus invites each one of us to make a place in our lives for the "better part", for welcoming the joy and love of family and friends that is the very presence of God.

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June 27, 2010

Christ’s call to discipleship demands our detachment from the "bones" of the past, from the beliefs and rationalizations we cling to, from our "busy-ness" that we use to distract us from the things of God. In calling us to be his disciples, Jesus requires us to let go of our own needs and wants, our fears and doubts, in order to free ourselves to do truly great things for the love of God. In preferring compassion over profit, in operating out of a sense of gratitude rather than regret, in seeking reconciliation before requital, we are able to know the unique joy that can only be experienced by bringing the reign of God to reality in our own time and place.

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June 20, 2010

Jesus asked the disciples, "Who do you say I am?" Peter said in reply, "The Christ of God." Then Jesus said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Luke 9: 18-24

Discipleship means to live one’s life with faith. In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls us to let go of those things we hang on to that separate us from the things of God and to free ourselves from those ambitions and pursuits that count for little in the long view of life’s journey; then, freed from life’s clutter and focused on God, we are able to take up the cross of humble servanthood to "deny" our own needs and wants for the sake of others. Only in centering our lives in the compassion, justice and mercy of God will we realize the promise of life in the Risen One.

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June 13, 2010

The Grateful Giver

There is a Japanese folk tale about a very fine school that had outgrown its quarters. The master of the school approached many well-off townsfolk if they might help. A merchant decided to donate five hundred pieces of gold toward the construction of the new school. The merchant presented the bag of gold to the master. The master took the bag, but said nothing. The merchant was a bit put off by the master’s apparent lack of gratitude. "In that bag are five hundred pieces of gold, " hinted the merchant. "Yes, you told me that before," replied the master. "Even though I am a wealthy merchant, five hundred gold pieces is a lot of money," said the merchant. "It is. Do you want me to thank you for it." asked the master. "Well, I think you should," the merchant responded. But the master replied, "Why should I be thankful? It is the giver who should be thankful."

The school master teaches the merchant an important lesson about embracing a spirit of gratitude: that gratitude is the realization of how much we have been given and the understanding that the true blessings of life are found in being able to give from our treasure rather than the possession of our treasure. Gratitude is the first response we can make to the realization of God’s imponderable love for us. May we embrace gratitude as a state of mind and a practice of faith, that we may realize our blessings and share those blessings with others, for by such giving we are blessed.

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May 23, 2010

‘Come About’

In sailing, the best condition is to have the wind at your back; the worst is no wind at all. But the most common situation is a headwind coming at your craft from varying angles. So skilled sailors learn how to reach their destination in a headwind by "tacking" into the wind, setting their sails so they can move forward, indirectly, toward their destination in a zigzag fashion. Progress can be slow, but it is steady, and the best sailors are those who have learned to "read" the wind, who know how to make the best forward progress against the wind’s resistance, when to "come about" to make a turn and reset their sails.

The Hebrew word for Spirit ruah means air or wind. The early Christian community experienced God’s spirit as a "wind" propelling the "craft" of the Church; they perceived the Spirit in their midst as the very breath of God filling their community with his life and love and animating them to do the work the Gospel Jesus has called them to do. The challenge of Pentecost is to sense God’s Spirit in our midst. Sometimes the ruah of God requires us to "come about" and move more slowly, more intentionally, than we’d like; often the ruah of God forces us to "tack" in directions that cause us to pause and reconsider our decision to move forward. To be a disciple of the Risen One is to be attuned to the direction of God’s Spirit; the ruah of God that animates us to do the work of the Gospel of the Risen One, the ruah that makes God’s will our will, the ruah of God living in us and transforming us so that we might bring his life and love into our broken world.

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May 16, 2010

The Spirit of the Risen Christ walks among us, inspiring us, motivating us, compelling us to take on the work of being his witnesses and proclaimers of his Gospel. The Ascension is an ending but it is also a beginning; it makes an absence but also a presence. As Jesus takes leave of the physical world, he calls us to take on the work of proclaiming his Gospel, but he promises to remain in our midst as a living presence as we struggle to understand and carry on the work of being his "witnesses." May our minds and hearts be open to the spirit of the Living Christ in our midst, walking among us, inspiring us, speaking to us of the peace and justice of God. Today, Jesus calls us to carry on his Gospel of compassion, reconciliation and justice. He entrusts to us the work of resurrection. In Baptism, every Christian of every time and place takes on the role of witness to all that Jesus did and taught. We are witnesses not only in our articulating the powerful words of the Gospel but in the quiet, simple, but no less powerful expression of compassion and love that echo the same compassion and love of God - God who is Father and Son and Brother and Sister to us all.

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May, 2, 2010

Our identity as disciples of Christ is centered in the compassion we extend to others - in our willingness to be a place of refuge, a source of peace for others. Our faithfulness in imitating the love of the Risen Jesus is not in having the right answers or in our dogmatic judgments but in our openness of heart and spirit to love selflessly, completely, unconditionally, as God has loved us in Christ.

The faith of our baptism is not a robe we take on and off on Sundays; it is not a slate of adhered-to dogmas and rules. Our faith is a living entity, an approach to living that is centered in the love of God. Our identity as a Church, as disciples of the Risen Christ, is not in a building we frequent an hour or so each week or in the words of prayers we have recited since childhood; our identity as faithful Christians is centered in the joy and optimism of our love for others as God’s children and our brothers and sisters - the same love that unites the Father and the Son and each of us to one another.

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April, 25, 2010

The Song of the First Bird

In her book An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, Barbara Brown Taylor writes about a woman who was not sure she wanted to go on living. "She was old. She lived alone. She was afraid to go to sleep at night for fear that she would not wake up in the morning, so she lay in bed waiting for the sun to come up before she dared to shut her eyes. Then someone who loved her suggested that as long as she was awake, she might as well start listening for the first bird that sang each morning. Before long, the sound of that bird became the bell that woke her heart to life again. She named the bird. She discovered what such birds like to eat and put feeders full of seed in her yard. Other birds came, and she learned their names as well. She began to collect birdhouses, which she hung from the rafters of her porch until she became the mayor of an entire bird village." The woman still does not sleep well, but she found reason to get out of bed every morning. In caring for the birds of the field, she rediscovered love and hope in her life.

Christ speaks to all of us, not in loud, commanding voices but most often in the simplest and smallest of whispers. To hear the Good Shepherd demands that we come out of the self-imposed isolation of our own fears and interest and hear Christ speaking in the light of the poor, the needs of the helpless, the cry of the persecuted. Easter faith calls us to put aside our own crosses when we hear the voice of Jesus in the struggle of those being crushed by the weight of their crosses, to rise above our own pain when we hear the voice of Jesus crying in the pain of others, to give despite our own need when we hear the voice of Jesus in the poverty of others.

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April, 11, 2010

Nail Marks

A relative or friend of yours is going through adifficult time - an illness, the loss of a job, a break-up. You want to pick up the phone and call, you begin to write a card, you think about making something, to bring over. But you hesitate. What do I say? What can I do? How can I possibly make this situation better? So you make the call, write the note, bake the casserole. And you somehow find the right thing to say - or you realize, wisely, that nothing needs to be said. Your listening ear, your compassionate shoulder, your concerned presence are more than enough.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples and shows them his hands and his side; later he invites the doubting Thomas to touch the marks made by the nails and the gash from the soldier’s lance. Easter does not deny the effects of Good Friday nor erases the wounds of crucifixion - but Easter is God’s compassion moving us beyond crucifixion to healing and wholeness. We all have scars from our own Good Fridays that remain long after our own experiences of resurrection. We learn from our scars. Our "nail marks" remind us that all pain and grief, all ridicule and suffering are transformed into healing and peace in the love of God we experience from others and that we extend them. Jesus tells Thomas and his brothers not to be afraid of nail marks and scars and fractured bones and the crushed spirit and the broken heart. Compassion, forgiveness, justice - no matter how clumsily offered - can heal and mend. In light of the unwavering hope, with the assurance of God’s unlimited grace, even the simplest act of kindness and understanding is the realization of Easter in our midst.

Mass Change - Effective May 1, 2010

Over the past months there has been a lot of input into the proposal to change the Saturday 5:15 PM Mass to 4:00 PM. Thank you for that input. There was an overwhelming support for this change. There was also some very important reasons that were presented for the Mass time to stay the same. Thank you for your response.

Effective May 1st, 2010, St. Clement will offer a 4:00 PM Vigil Mass. No longer will there be a 5:15 PM Mass. The main reasons for this change are safety (Mass would start and end in daylight), easier time for the elderly (especially those with health issues), makes an easier transition for families, and there is no other 4:00 PM Vigil Mass in our area.

Effective May 1st, due to the change of Mass time, confession will be offered on Saturday from 3:00 - 3:30 PM. During Advent and Lent other times may be added.

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March, 28, 2010

What Risks Will We Take?

It isn’t easy being a young person. Anxiety about the future is a steady companion as one prepares to make one’s way in the adult world. It is tempting to hold back from taking those tentative first steps toward independence, to shrink from risks and relationships.

Today’s readings offer us a rich view of what it means to risk. The gospel reveals in painful detail the suffering of Jesus. The physical suffering, yes, but also the suffering of being misunderstood and belittled. And yet, through it all, Jesus stands firm, faithful to God to the end. In the process, things shift. A leader becomes a servant, shame turns to honor, mockery becomes praise, fear turns into trust, abandonment becomes love, despair turns into hope and, above all, death blossoms into new life.

Whether we are young, or not so young, as followers of Jesus we must take risks. Loving others, especially people we don’t even like, is always difficult. Giving of ourselves when we feel that we have nothing left to give requires great strength. Having faith when everything points to doubt is a struggle. Feeling hopeful when our lives are in ruins takes all our energy. Yet in risking love and faith and hope, we discover countless blessings, and our ability to love and to believe only increases.

Jesus, remember us - young, old, faithful, doubting, hope-filled, despairing - when you come into your kingdom.

A.L. Mahoney - Living with Christ

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March, 21, 2010

It’s Not All About Me

I know that I’ve said it (or thought it) more than once in my lifetime. "What did they do to deserve that?" Or "Why is she getting all the praise when I’m the one who did all the work?"

As hurt and indignant as we feel in those moments like the older brother in today’s gospel, we are missing the point. It’s not about who is more or less deserving in a given situation. It’s all about our ability to love unconditionally and to believe in the basic dignity and equality of the people.

Every day, in homes and workplaces, in schools and sports venues, in boardrooms and backrooms, in community organizations and faith communities, we are challenged to let go of our sense of self-importance in order to truly appreciate and value the people around us. The prodigal son is welcomed back, not because of what he has done or not done, but because of who he is, a valued member of the family. No wonder his father throws a big celebration in his honor.

Whenever I hear this parable, I wince at the thought of how often I have felt envious because someone else received the attention I thought I deserved . Then I think about the older brother and hope that, realizing he is no less loved, he joins in the festivities.

Susan Eaton - Living with Christ