In heaven one year it was decided that on the Feast of the Epiphany they would have a liturgy that recreated the visit of the three stargazers from the East.  The job of the stargazers was given to the founders of three great religious orders in the Church.

                So, everyone gathered to see St. Francis of Assisi come forward at the appropriate time and lay clay doves before the crib of Jesus.  As one, as if on cue, the entire heavenly choir went, “Aaahhh!”

St. Benedict was next and he processed slowly to the crib holding a magnificent bejeweled Bible.  On the front of it were the words, “This is Your Life.”  Everyone in heaven called out, “Oohhh!”

Finally, St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, limped forward without a gift. He walked straight past the crib, passing up Mary.  Everyone in heaven was aghast and thought this is so typical of the Jesuits – he doesn’t know where he’s going in the liturgy and turns up empty-handed.  They all watched as he went over to Jesus’ foster father, Joseph.  He puts his arm around Joseph’s shoulder and says, “So tell me, Joe, where are you going to send your boy to school?  I have connections with Division 1 Colleges and Universities in America and can get you a special rate!”

When we go to the movies, we have to suspend our critical sensibilities in order to enter into the full power of the story.  When it comes to the story of the Epiphany, a similar concession is necessary in order to embrace the narrative.

Why, after following a star all the way from the East to Jerusalem, did they have to stop and ask directions from Herod?  Why didn’t Herod follow the wise men, or send a spy to learn of their destination instead of slaughtering all those babies in Bethlehem?  Whatever happened to these “wise” men?  They were the first to recognize who Jesus was and then they vanish from his life as quickly as they entered it.

Like Martin Scorsese or Cecil B. DeMille, Matthew plays with history for another purpose and we sit back and enjoy the picture that’s being painted for us.  In his gospel, Matthew is at pains to show how the Jews missed out on Jesus because they were locked in their fears. Pilate is just as fearful as Herod, and the consequence of being threatened by Jesus, results in Pilate’s sentence of crucifixion for Jesus, just like the slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem ordered by Herod.

So often our reactions to Jesus can be like Herod’s.  We can be threatened and frightened.  We want to eliminate the voices that remind us to live out the gospel truth because we’re reminded, at times, of the costs involved.  Matthew tells us that the enemy of the Christian life is fear. It entraps and infects those around us.  It is most effective when we risk losing power, so we lie, are deceitful, we’ll do almost anything to maintain our position.  And like we see in Pilate and Herod, it all ends in death. But when we face down our fears, and name the real threats in our lives, we know the truth of the Scripture for today that says, “Morning star who came back from the dead and shed his peaceful light on all humanity.”

So, this annual story is more than a travelogue of exotic Persian royalty or peculiar, nerdy wizards.  It’s a story of the choices that lie before all Christians everywhere:  Do we want to live out of wonder or fear?

                To follow Jesus’ rule is to keep our eye on the star that lights the path to having the courage to live the gospel message, embrace the cross, see Christ in the neglected and marginalized, all the while trusting that God will remain faithful to us through death to eternal life, where fear will be no more!

Blessed Epiphany!  Fr. Glenn

 

“A light of revelation to the Gentiles, the glory of your people Israel.”

                Most of us like to keep things simple.  In life we draw up a plan and then step-by-step try to put it into action.  Get an education, get a job, start a family, build up savings, then retire.  It sounds easy and straightforward, doesn’t it?  Our plans generally don’t include unforeseen contingencies.  Maybe you train for a career that doesn’t even exist in ten years.  Maybe the family you create unhappily comes apart.  Maybe you build up savings that are wiped out due to investment difficulties.  Maybe you don’t live long enough to retire.

Despite the uncertainty of our plans, we continue to make them.  How many still keep a to-do list?  WE make a plan every day when we rise and hope to carry it out, item by item; hour by hour.  Among the most frustrating episode we face is the encounter with a person who thwarts those plans:  swerving into our lane unannounced, or calling with news that changes everything.

Like most couples Abraham and Sarah had counted on having children.  After long years of disappointment, they faced old age without heirs.  Then God made a promise to miraculously change their fate.  Abraham committed his faith to the bargain, and the child arrived who would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Parenthood in the senior years is not the usual destination, but the word impossible isn’t in God’s dictionary.  A simple plan it wasn’t.  But it fulfilled the divine purposes just fine.

The circumstances around the birth of Jesus were far from simple as well.  Conception before marriage isn’t the usual plan.  Nor is accepting paternity for a child not your own.  But the most atypical part of this situation was the conception of the virgin and the adoption of a divine Son.  Mary and Joseph were stepping way out of the normal scheme of things to embrace this unique family plan – this Holy Family blueprint.  Simeon, a man who’d spent his life waiting for God’s atypical activity, and Anna, a prophetess used to spotting divine markings whenever she saw them, both blessed and announced the revelation of this child.  As far as they were concerned, their life plan was achieved with the arrival of Jesus.  But then, they were the sort of folks who didn’t mind when God swerved into view without warning, or called in news that changes everything.

Simeon was clear that the great news contained its own share of pain:  for Mary and Joseph, for the child’s bitter enemies, and also for his devoted friends.  AS old Abraham might remind us, you have to commit your faith to the bargain.  Impossible is just not a word God recognizes.

Still writing 2023???  Fr. Glenn

 

Why should I (King David) live in a house of cedar while God dwells in a tent?”

                David wanted to build a new house for God because the king had a more impressive house and address than God’s linen tent.  David meant well.  His heart was in the right place.  But his understanding of God was seriously flawed if he thought the Lord of the universe lived under a tent in his courtyard.  But before we judge David for his simple-mindedness, we ought to examine our own understanding of God.  Into what little compartment of our lives have we been willing to confine the God of all that is?

Early in life, we give ourselves over to wonder.  The world is so big and marvelous, never more so than at this time of year when lights, music and spectacle fill us with expectation.

We approach our first manger scene with awe that is the closest thing to reverence we’ll ever know.  We see the baby who is God and we believe the whole story…star, shepherds, kings, drummer boy, littlest angel…it all fits.  Whatever miracle you want to assign to this scene the story is magnificent enough to accommodate it all.

But it gets more complicated when we grow older.  Our capacity for wonder diminishes.  We stop expecting God to arrive, nor do we expect the arrival of God in our lives and the season of Advent shrinks down to the size of a shopping season.  The Incarnation is just a story; Christmas is simply a religious obligation.  We might as well just put God in a tent in the yard.

One thing David DID understand was that God should never be marginal in our lives.  He wanted to bring God back to the center, which was part of the plan in his mind for a Temple but Nathan, speaking for God, had another plan.  “I will dwell in you and with your heirs for all time,” he said in response to David’s plan.  God would be known in people, not in places; in flesh and not in stone.

Mary was simply a young girl who had never seen a city as splendid as Jerusalem and centuries after David, it had become the place where God dwelt. As a girl/woman, there were places in the Temple she could never walk.  But God was willing to come to her and to knit the divine Spirit into her very person.  Can you imagine that?  This is the very definition of wonder – that God found a home in a teenage girl.  We don’t expect God there.  That’s the wrong address.

We won’t be knocking on that door.  We’d much rather visit God in a building and keep the divine presence in a vessel or a locked box covered in gold.  It’s much more convenient to have a God so small that we’ll always know where he is or what he’s up to.  That sort of God won’t interfere too much in the ways we live our lives.

When David heard Nathan utter God’s words, David half-believed that God would be within him and his people.  But he still went ahead and dreamed up the temple.  Mary on the other hand, gave herself up utterly and confidently to God’s words.  If she started to make anything, it was baby clothes.

We may have lost sight of wonder in our old age; we may have found a nice sized box to put God in so he won’t cause us any trouble.  But the only place God consistently asks to dwell is in us.  God seeks a home in us as a dynamic presence.  If God lived in us, we would know it, and so would everyone around us.  We would be the embodiment of peace.  We would be shelter for the poor.  We would be joy and compassion and love.  We would be like Mary, the willing servant of her Lord, who opened her life to God so intimately.

that God shared her heartbeat and passed into this world through her.                

                May there be willing volunteers among us, as well, so that God’s will may be done some more!

May you and your family be blest with peace!  Fr. Glenn

 

 

Who died and made you the Messiah?

Even on my best days I humbly admit, “I am not the Christ.”  Even on that occasion in sixth grade when I won the Religion Bee contest at Holy Family School (I knew what the Immaculate Conception was), I was not quite on the verge of saving the world, although I felt capable at the time.  In the most powerful moments of my life, I was not powerful enough to salvage human history.  In my wisest hour I couldn’t solve the problem of sin or explain why people suffer.  In my kindest hour I couldn’t mend a broken heart much less a torn ACL.  So don’t look to me for miracles, healings, sermons on mountaintops or the reconciliation of heaven and earth.  Heck, I was recently called “woke”, whatever that means.  I have been able to forgive the occasional trespass but I can’t take credit for the forgiveness of sin on any grander scale.

Only God can do these things.  Only through the life, ministry and teaching of the Divine Son can they be revealed to us.  I can dearly wish for miracles, for the healing of a friend or the happiness of a family member or peace in the Middle East.  I can pray for those outcomes, and should, and do.  But I can’t bring so much as a gnat into being on my own.  I know who I am, which includes knowing who I’m not.

Yet it is easy for any of us to get confused on this score.  John the Baptist wasn’t.  Whether he claimed to be the Christ or the local dog catcher probably didn’t matter at this point in his career – he was toast either way!  Still he refused to exalt his position in the scheme of things.  He wouldn’t describe himself as so much as a prophet.  He simply designated himself as the voice.  He cried out.  That was the most he was willing to claim.

And being a voice isn’t bad.  All of us who call ourselves Christian share this fundamental vocation.  We cry out.  We speak against injustice, stand with those who suffer, tell the truth in a season of easy lies.  Most of all we bring glad tidings to the poor, like Isaiah writes.  We also make sure the poor have a reason to rejoice always, as Paul writes.

Most of us won’t lose our heads for embracing this vocation, but it may cost us a fraction of our income, a bit of social influence, the backslapping approval of some neighbors, or a few hours of our time.  Occasionally someone loses a job or lifestyle for crying out – but reaps everlasting benefits, which you have to admit is a pretty cool retirement package.  Without being the Christ, we remain “in Christ,” a state in which all things are possible.

Another way of saying that…

“Who are you, Michael?  That will be the defining question of your life, and I think you already know the answer, and that’s why we’re all here.”

That’s the question sports marketing legend Sonny Vaccaro asks basketball legend Michael Jordan in the movie Air, as Vaccaro is trying to get Jordan to sign a shoe deal with Nike.

“A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it,” says Sonny, or as Jordan’s mother explains it even more precisely, “A shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it.”

Jordan personified greatness.  Vaccaro knew it, Jordan’s mother knew it, and Jordan himself knew it.  “The rest of us just want a chance to touch greatness,” says Vaccaro. “ We need you in these shoes not so you have meaning in your life, but so that we have meaning in ours.  Everyone at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time here is up – except for you.  You’re going to be remembered forever, because some things are eternal.  You’re Michael Jordan, and your story is going to make us want to fly.”

In a similar way, John the Baptist recognized Jesus’ greatness early on.  He saw who Jesus was and would become.  And John knew his role was to point the way to perfection.  Follow John’s lead.

                                Who do you point toward?  Fr. Glenn

 

“The man with the thousand went off and dug a hole in the ground where he buried it.”

A couple years ago, Keri Wiginton’s beloved stepfather was diagnosed with an aggressive and fast moving brain tumor; he died five months later.  During those five months Keri learned how different the day feels when you realize it might be your loved one’s last.  She savored every dad joke, every spoonful of ice cream, every mundane movie night – and when she watched him unwrap Christmas presents for the last time, she realized how much she would miss his tendency to tear up no matter how small the gift.

After her dad died, Keri struggled with her grief – she felt a profound pull to help the dying and the grieving.  Her therapist agreed that volunteering at a hospice might be a good fit.  At first, Keri was overwhelmed at the prospect, but after a few weeks of hedging, she worked up the courage to apply for the hospice’s training program.

Four months later, she received her first assignment:  Keri would provide respite care for caregivers.  While their caregivers took a break, Keri would spend time with their loved ones.  She played Scrabble with them, take them outside on a warm day, listen to Big Band music from the 1940s.  She got used to the twists and turns of conversation with those who had memory challenges.  She learned to explore whatever path they were on and they often had fun doing it.

Keri discovered a sense of joy and purpose in the work.  During the school year, Keri often works with children grieving the loss of a parent.

In an essay in The Washington Post last August, Keri reflected on her volunteer work:

“My compassion leaves a lasting impression even if my identity doesn’t…I feel a sense of loss when people die, but our time together matters because I know it’s short term.  I also have found myself to be more present and less anxious, both when I’m volunteering and when I’m not….As a hospice volunteer, I expected tears and anger.  What I didn’t expect was laughter and joy.”

A young woman finds a path out of her depression by volunteering her time helping others through their grief.  Keri Wiginton discovers that her experience with her stepfather is the Gospel “talent” – an ability or gift that God entrusts to us for the good of others.  Sometimes what we consider to be a burden turns out to be a blessing for ourselves and others.  As Jesus teaches in today’s Gospel, the true value of our “talent” is not the talent itself but the depth of our love in using it to build the Kingdom of God in our time and place.

So, what has God entrusted to you?  What has God invested in you for the good of the world, of your parish, of your family?  We seldom see the question that way.  In our experience we’re taught to monetize whatever talents or skills we possess, translating our knowledge and abilities into successful careers.  Or we’re overwhelmed with a false sense of humility – we don’t think our gifts are worth all that much to begin with, so we keep them to ourselves for our own diversion or amusement.  Jesus challenges us to see whatever “talents” we possess as a sacred trust, whether it is the vision to manage a big organization or tend to a wounded child.  Try not to minimize God’s investment in you.

Have a blest week!  Fr. Glenn

 

Who died and made you the Messiah?

Even on my best days I humbly admit, “I am not the Christ.”  Even on that occasion in sixth grade when I won the Religion Bee contest at Holy Family School (I knew what the Immaculate Conception was), I was not quite on the verge of saving the world, although I felt capable at the time.  In the most powerful moments of my life, I was not powerful enough to salvage human history.  In my wisest hour I couldn’t solve the problem of sin or explain why people suffer.  In my kindest hour I couldn’t mend a broken heart much less a torn ACL.  So don’t look to me for miracles, healings, sermons on mountaintops or the reconciliation of heaven and earth.  Heck, I was recently called “woke”, whatever that means.  I have been able to forgive the occasional trespass but I can’t take credit for the forgiveness of sin on any grander scale.

Only God can do these things.  Only through the life, ministry and teaching of the Divine Son can they be revealed to us.  I can dearly wish for miracles, for the healing of a friend or the happiness of a family member or peace in the Middle East.  I can pray for those outcomes, and should, and do.  But I can’t bring so much as a gnat into being on my own.  I know who I am, which includes knowing who I’m not.

Yet it is easy for any of us to get confused on this score.  John the Baptist wasn’t.  Whether he claimed to be the Christ or the local dog catcher probably didn’t matter at this point in his career – he was toast either way!  Still he refused to exalt his position in the scheme of things.  He wouldn’t describe himself as so much as a prophet.  He simply designated himself as the voice.  He cried out.  That was the most he was willing to claim.

And being a voice isn’t bad.  All of us who call ourselves Christian share this fundamental vocation.  We cry out.  We speak against injustice, stand with those who suffer, tell the truth in a season of easy lies.  Most of all we bring glad tidings to the poor, like Isaiah writes.  We also make sure the poor have a reason to rejoice always, as Paul writes.

Most of us won’t lose our heads for embracing this vocation, but it may cost us a fraction of our income, a bit of social influence, the backslapping approval of some neighbors, or a few hours of our time.  Occasionally someone loses a job or lifestyle for crying out – but reaps everlasting benefits, which you have to admit is a pretty cool retirement package.  Without being the Christ, we remain “in Christ,” a state in which all things are possible.

Another way of saying that…

“Who are you, Michael?  That will be the defining question of your life, and I think you already know the answer, and that’s why we’re all here.”

That’s the question sports marketing legend Sonny Vaccaro asks basketball legend Michael Jordan in the movie Air, as Vaccaro is trying to get Jordan to sign a shoe deal with Nike.

“A shoe is just a shoe until somebody steps into it,” says Sonny, or as Jordan’s mother explains it even more precisely, “A shoe is just a shoe until my son steps into it.”

Jordan personified greatness.  Vaccaro knew it, Jordan’s mother knew it, and Jordan himself knew it.  “The rest of us just want a chance to touch greatness,” says Vaccaro. “ We need you in these shoes not so you have meaning in your life, but so that we have meaning in ours.  Everyone at this table will be forgotten as soon as our time here is up – except for you.  You’re going to be remembered forever, because some things are eternal.  You’re Michael Jordan, and your story is going to make us want to fly.”

 

Time is on our side, as the Rolling Stones once sang.  A new year in the Church begins today after hearing last week about endings and judgment and choosing the reign of Christ the King.  With Advent, the wheel of time turns again.  It’s all about new beginnings and fresh starts.  The season is pregnant with hope and expectation.  We can be born again with Christ; the world gets another chance to make things right.  Each of us is issued the same opportunity to be made new.

So, it’s just a bit formidable to start such a bright season on a note of warning.  Be alert!  Watch!  We might have preferred a word of encouragement, rather than a sharp and sober command.  Something soothing to rock the cradle of a new world, you know, like Isaiah’s “Comfort ye!  Comfort ye my people!”  Not the militant tone of “Stay at your post!  Keep awake!”

Ask an expectant mother what waiting for a birth is like.  She watches what she eats like a king with a royal taster, poised for a hint of treachery or danger.  She carefully monitors her movements, expenditures of energy, money and time.  Her body becomes a guarded fortress, and a temple, and a treasure chest.  She reads voraciously about what’s good for the baby, what’s harmful or ambivalent.  Her eye is on the whole world ready to do battle for this vulnerable new life that depends on her every decision.  No one is more alert than an expectant mother with a universe within her to care for.

So, it’s right to start Advent on a cautious note.  In preparing for new life, every hour matters; every decision important.  The church is pregnant with a mystery about to be revealed.  As usual, Mother Mary leads the way in demonstrating what our discipleship should look like:  careful, responsible, vigilant and patient.

That last item is not to be overlooked.  We live in a rush-rush world of instant gratification.  Click on Amazon for a world of options to be delivered to your doorstep overnight.  But some things take time, and they are often the best things:  baking a cake from scratch, making a friend, learning how to love.  You don’t want to rush these things or they can fall apart.  In a season of waiting, you want to make friends with time.

So, here’s our invitation at the start of a new church year, a new season with a new event horizon – make friends with time in these three weeks and one day of anticipation.  Don’t rush to make all of December a month of Christmas.  Be patient.  Let the new life the church bears in this season of grace grow on you, and in you.  And keep your eyes open for surprises.

Another story of waiting…

As a newly ordained deacon I arrived for my internship at an inner-city parish with a sprawling rectory housing five priests in Erie – St. Patrick’s.  It still is a beautiful church and once it also included a school and a large hall just down the

block.  The pastor, the two associate pastors and one of the residents who taught at Prep told me they were taking off for the Fourth weekend and I’d be alone to watch over the retired hospital chaplain, a Redemptorist priest, Father Dick Wagner who also lived there.  I had no clue what “watching over Father” meant.  But the firecrackers kept me awake.

             At two in the morning, a piercing siren went off.  I ran into the hallway and banged on the Dick’s door.  Fire?  A break-in?  I didn’t know.  Without his hearing aids, he couldn’t hear anything but he led me down the hall and opened a panel that revealed a large fuse box with several colored lights flashing on and off.  He stopped the alarm and said, “It’s the school.  Every year on the Fourth, kids tape M80s on its doors and run, shattering the glass…or somebody has broken in.”

He walked down the hall to a cleaning closet and pulled out a baseball bat behind the vacuum cleaner, handed it to me and said, “Go down the street and sit in the school lobby and wait…they will come automatically.”

I had no idea who “they” were – robbers or kids setting off more firecrackers or the police.  When I got there, I discovered Father was right, the glass doors were shattered.  I stepped through, found a chair and sat, holding the bat waiting for God-knows-who.  An hour later a truck pulled up to board and secure the doors.  The driver told me this happens every year and that it was good that I had waited for him to secure the building.

 Advent…we wait…But thank God we know what for:  Christ the Lord.      ~ Fr. Glenn

 

 

“The wise brought flasks of oil for their lamps.”  The core of this story, the center around which it pivots, the plot itself is all about the oil.  All ten bridesmaids were ready for the reception. All ten had to wait.  All ten became drowsy.  All ten fell asleep.  All of them heard the shout.  All ten of them got up and lit their lamps.  These lamps didn’t hold a lot of oil back in those days, and the length of the burn wouldn’t have been a secret to the people of the first century.

                The wise ones took some oil with them; not huge Yeti containers, but enough for the wait, for the reception, for the day, for the night.  One scholar wrote, “It’s not about the how much oil you have, it’s about how much you carry with you.”

The oil has been understood as good works, faith, spiritual practices, acts of discipleship, acts of love and mercy.  We shouldn’t be asked to pick one.  What sets the wise apart from the foolish isn’t that they act simply on the teachings of Jesus, because it’s not all about the works.  It’s about the oil.  The wise draw on the resource necessary to live the faith-filled life today, tonite and tomorrow.  The oil?  Is it faith?  Is it spiritual practices?  Is it deeds of discipleship?  Is it acts of love and mercy?  Yes, yes, yes and yes!  All mixed in with a bit of grace, some fellowship and a measure of prayer.  Sure, they had to wait for the bridegroom, but their light had to shine then and there, right now.

A tough part of the story to handle, I’ve thought, is that after the foolish had made the mad dash to the Jerusalem Dollar General at midnight to find oil for their lamps, they returned to the site of the reception and pleaded for someone to admit them.  Not the butler, or the attendant, or even the parents of the bride and groom, but the groom himself says, “I do not know you.”  Being recognized by Christ is critical, but still not as critical as the oil.

A similar story might add to the complexion of this parable.

 One of the saints had a vision of Jesus where Jesus says, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.”

A man knocks on a door.  The voice from inside says, “Who is it?” The man says, “It is your countryman.”  The voice behind the door says, “There is no one hers.”

The man wanders for a year, returns to the door, and knocks a second time.  The voice from inside says, “Who is it?”  The man says, “It is your brother.”  The voice behind the door says, “There is no one here.”

The man wanders for a year, returns to the door, and knocks for a third time.  The voice from inside says, “Who is it?”  The man says, “It is you.”  The door opens.

How does Christ know us?  He knows us when he looks into our face and sees himself.

We can’t ride Christ’s coattails.  We have to receive Christ into ourselves as a person would receive food, put it in our mouths and swallow it.  Then Christ will be building us up from the inside and awakening us into our identity as a child of God, Christ’s very own sister or brother.

It’s all about the oil!   Fr. Glenn

 

Jesus said to his disciples, “The scribes and Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses; therefore do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do for they do not practice what they teach.”

Many people have turned away from the faith, scandalized or disillusioned by the behavior of a Church that in their view is not faithful to the gospel nor acting coherently with what it preaches.  Jesus also forcefully criticized the religious leaders who “do not practice what they teach.”  But Jesus didn’t stop there.  He went on seeking and calling everyone to a life of dignity and responsibility before God.

Through the years, I too have seen, sometimes close at hand, behaviors in the Church that do not fit with the gospel.  Sometimes I was scandalized, sometimes I was harmed by them; they almost always fill me with sorrow.  Yet today I understand more clearly than ever that mediocrity in the Church does not justify the mediocrity of my faith.

The Church needs to change a great deal, the realization of which has led to the Synod process, which is not the work of one person, but an answer to an almost universal call to address what is happening, or not happening, in the life of the Church.  What truly matters for each of us is to renew our faith, to learn to believe in a different way, to stop running away from God, to listen honestly to the voice of our conscience, to change our way of looking at life, to discover the heart of the gospel and discover a way to live it joyfully.

I haven’t read the summary document from the Synod just ended, but from what I did read over the last three weeks it seems the Church will have to overcome its inertia and fears in order to embody the message of Christ in modern society, but each of us needs to discover that today we can follow Christ more faithfully than ever before, without false social fads or a sentimental attachment to “the way things used to be.”

Perhaps we each need to live more “evangelically” as Popes Benedict and Francis suggested over the last 18 years, without letting society shape us and without losing our Christian identity in the midst of modern frivolity like the alternatives that have captivated so many of our younger people.

What the Synod documents produced by the continental gatherings have pointed out – which became the fodder for the delegates to discuss in Rome last month – is the need for the Church to continually examine its faithfulness to Christ.  The deeper dive will be for us to assess the quality of our belonging to Jesus.  Our task is to give greater attention to our faith in the God revealed in Jesus.  The sins and failings of the Church do not relieve me of my responsibilities – nor you.  I’m the only one who can decide day by day to open myself up to God or turn away.

From what I understand, for the next year the universal Church, diocese to diocese, parish to parish will be asked to listen, reflect and discuss the document the 2023 Synod Assembly produced last month, to be patient with a process of percolation and discernment, and generate an agenda for Synod 2024 next October.  We didn’t get this way overnight – the process takes time.  One bishop critical of the method said last week, “It’s all been said; it’s just that not everybody has said it yet!”

It seems clear that the Church must build up its self-confidence and free itself from the cowardice and fears that keep it from spreading hope in today’s world.  But remember – each of us is responsible for our own inner joy.  Each of us must nourish our hope by going to the true Source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart…and your neighbor as yourself.”

                The Gates and Mitchell families live next door to each other in suburban Pittsburgh.  They met 14 years ago and quickly bonded.  Each couple has three children, roughly the same ages, who walk to school together and swim in the Mitchell’s backyard pool.  The families share a love for hockey; the boys play on the same team and the dads serve on the high school hockey board.  Their lives are intertwined; they consider each other family.

But during the 2020 Presidential election, the Mitchells, lifelong Democrats, planted a Joe Biden sign in front of their home.  The Gates next door, lifelong Republicans, put up a Donald Trump sign in their front yard.

It was a second sign that each family put up in their respective yards that made an impact, according to The Wall Street Journal 10/21/2020.  Both yards included a handmade sign reading “We (Heart) Them” with an arrow pointing to the other house.  In the middle of each heart were the words “One Nation”.

“There’s so much hate,” says Chris Mitchell who came up with the idea.  “We want to send a message that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum can actually like each other and be civil.”

Although they generally don’t talk politics, Stewart and Chris Mitchell and Bart and Jill Gates know where each household stands.  They don’t argue.  They don’t label each other.  They listen to each other’s perspective, look for common ground and recognize that reasonable and good people can reach different conclusions.

“We don’t see them as Democrats.  They’re the Mitchells,” says Bart Gates.  “We know they are good people who live next door.”

To love as God loves requires us first to see each other as God sees us:  to look beyond labels and brands to recognize the goodness every human being possesses simply be being created in the loving image of God.  The only way we can meaningfully love God is to realize that we are connected to one another by such love.  In these deeply divisive times, the words of Jesus in today’s gospel are especially challenging:  to love with our whole heart and soul and mind requires us to put aside our anger and mistrust of those who see issues from a different perspective and to engage one another in love and compassion as God is engaged with us.

CONSIDER THIS:

It might be hard-wired into our human nature, that we search for guidance for moral actions in our lives.  Some of those directives, like the Ten Commandments, outline our obligations toward God and neighbor, and as we get older and more reflective, those general rules give birth to a thousand detailed behaviors.  Each culture picks apart those guidelines and develops practices that direct ways to pray, how to teach children about God, our responses to violence, theft and the troublesome yearnings of the heart.  We find ourselves at times consulting a book of “right” actions to determine if we’re following the law.  But we can get caught if all we’re worried about is “doing the law” and not taking time to dig down for the reasoning that leads to it.  Here’s an example of that….

One day a certain man hurriedly headed out the door for work.  In his path in the front hall was his three-year-old playing with blocks.  The man patted the boy on the head, stepped over him, opened the door and went outside.  Halfway toward the car, a guilt bomb exploded in his head.

                “What am I doing?” he thought to himself.  “I’m ignoring my son.  I never play with him.  He’ll be old before I know it.”  In the background of his thoughts he hears the melody of Cat’s in the Cradle, a ballad from the 70s about lost fatherhood.  He returns to the house, sits down with his son, and began to build blocks.

After two minutes the boy asked, “Daddy, why are you mad at me?”

It’s not what we do that counts, but where we do it from.  Our actions come from different places inside us.  Playing blocks out of guilt is not the same as playing blocks out of love, and the difference is quickly spotted, even by three-year-olds – especially by three-year-olds.

Heart, soul, mind and strength.  Be blest this week.  Fr. G.