St. Anthony & Our Lady of Fatima

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

In Greek mythology, the Titan god Prometheus is condemned by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans, thus giving the human race the means for their own destruction.

             Kai Bird and Mertin Sherwin titled their 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer American Prometheus – and now Christopher Nolan has based his extraordinary film Oppenheimer on Bird and Sherwin’s work.  The book and film tell a story of genius, hubris and error, chronicling the life of the brilliant theoretical physicist, celebrated in some quarters as the father of the atomic bomb.

In 1942, despite the liberal political and social leanings and his “complicated” personal life, Oppenheimer is recruited by the U. S. government to head up the Manhattan Project.  In the isolated Los Alamos, New Mexico desert, he heads a team of brilliant scientists and engineers to harness nuclear reactions to create a weapon that, they hoped, would end the war in Europe and the Pacific.

At the beginning, the goal of the project was clear: beat Hitler to the punch and save American lives.  But what starts as a desperate military strategy to catch the Nazis becomes a moral quandary for Oppenheimer.   He becomes haunted by the weapon that he is creating.

It is the famed physicist Nils Bohr, Oppenheimer’s one-time teacher and mentor, who articulates clearly what is at stake.  Visiting the top-secret Los Alamos site, Bohn says to his student:

“The power you are about to reveal will forever outlive the Nazis, and the world is not prepared.  We have to make the politicians understand, this isn’t a new weapon, it is a new world…you are an American Prometheus, the man who gave them the power to destroy themselves.  And they’ll respect that.  And your work really begins soon.”

Later, as he watches the first test bomb, Oppenheimer says aloud the infamous words that he said crossed his mind as the mushroom cloud rose over the New Mexican desert:  “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project begins as a battle between warring political and national entities, but Oppenheimer soon realizes his work transcends any battle lines – what he has midwifed is the birth of a new world.  Oppenheimer and Bohr come to understand that the lines we have drawn and the boundaries we have erected in order to make sense of our lives collapse before God.  God calls us to realize his hands in all things, his spirit making all things whole and good, his vision creating a human family united in his peace, justice and mercy.

The confrontation over Caesar’s coin is neither the final answer to any church-versus-state controversy nor an all-purpose formula for dealing with life’s biggest questions.  Jesus appeals to us to look beyond the simplistic politics and black-and-white legalisms represented by Caesar’s coin and realize that we are called to embrace the values centered in a faith that sees the handoff God in all things and every human being as being part of one human family under the providence of God. 

Have a blest week!  Fr. Glenn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The king said to the man, “My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?”  But he was reduced to silence.

She was knitting five baby sweaters, one for each of her grandchild’s future baby when she was suddenly diagnosed with lymphoma.  She did not have much time to live.  As she dealt with the devastating diagnosis, the thing she worried about most was not being able to finish the sweaters.  She worked on them until four days before she died.

That’s when Sarah became the “finisher.”  Sara is one of a thousand volunteers who complete unfinished fiber are projects for grieving loved ones through an organization called “Loose Ends.”  The organization matched Sarah with this grandmother’s family.  Sarah, an 86 year-old lifetime knitter, finished knitting the sweaters: soft, white acrylic wool with little owls on the front.

Sarah took on the project because she understood the importance of it.

“Because of my age, I feel more closely involved in how a family might feel.  I sort of put myself on the other side.  I couldn’t help but think how I would feel if I couldn’t finish a project and someone was willing to take it over.”

“Loose Ends” was started last fall by friends Masey Kaplan and Jen Simonic, avid knitters who know first hand what it’s like to have friends reach out about finishing a pair of mittens or a scarf or some other handmade item left behind by deceased loved ones.  The two friends created a website and put out a call for volunteers and unfinished projects left behind by someone unable to complete the handiwork because of illness or disability.  The projects are completed at no cost, save for postage.

“Making something by hand for someone is an expression of love,” Masey Kaplan explains, “and when I finish things and give them to people, I want them to know that I love them, and I was making this especially for them.

“We’re connecting projects to a stranger who feels the same way, who will complete that gesture of love for another stranger so that the person who is grieving will get to experience that feeling we (crafters) know is important.”

The Washington Post, February 12, 2023)

The work of the volunteer crafters of “Loose Ends” is the “wedding garment” of Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel.  The projects they complete become the very embrace of the deceased knitter or quilter’s love for those for whom these sweaters and quilts and mittens and hats were designed.  Out lives are pieces of the fabric of experiences of love and loss, swatches of kindness, compassion, justice and forgiveness from which, with the thread of God’s grace, we create a proper and fitting garment to wear to God’s wedding feast – a feast that begins in our own homes and workplaces, at our own tables and benches.  And, as the volunteers at “Loose Ends” have discovered, we experience God’s grace when we help others complete their garment, be it a sweater for a beloved grandchild or a scarf for an elderly relative.  God’s invitation to every one of us should inspire us to make our lives a “proper garment” that expresses our love and care in ways that will live on after we’ve taken our place at God’s wedding feast.

Do you see any loose ends you can complete for someone?

Have a blest week!  Fr. Glenn