Fr. Wayne's Blog

Reflecting the love of God

2012-01-31T10:02:00.001-05:00

In today's first reading they bring David what they believe to be good news, the son who had betrayed him and was trying to overthrow him is dead. Instead of celebrating David goes into mourning, weeping. Here we see a reflection of the love of God.

It is difficult for us to truly grasp the depth of God's love for each and every human being. Even when one chooses true evil, God continues to love and desire the salvation of that person.

Is it at times necessary to kill a person like Bin Laden in order to stop them? Yes. But should we ever be happy about it or celebrate it? Not if we are truly Christian.

As I write this entry from Florida we have spent the week watching candidates for office, all of who claim to be followers of Jesus, attempting not only to defeat one another but destroy one another. What's wrong with this picture?

Why do they do it? Because it works. We the voters will say we don't like the nasty attack ads, but, in truth, we eat them up. We believe them, and we follow them. They work.

We think of ancient times as barbaric. David in the first reading weeps at the death of his enemy. Can we be that civilized in the 21st century?

Getting what we deserve

2012-01-30T07:45:00.001-05:00

Despite his flaws David is still seen as the great king of Israel. Perhaps part of the reason we see in today's first reading. His son is out to kill him, it all seems to be coming apart, and a poor an comes out cursing and throwing rocks at him.

One of David's men wants to lop off his head for insulting the king. David's response: Suppose the LORD has told him to curse David; who then will dare to say, 'Why are you doing this?'"

David knows the sins he has committed. David doesn't play the innocent victim. He is able to look at this a see that perhaps it is all part of God's plan. He is able to see when the situation he is in is of his own making.

There is true wisdom.

To teach with authority

2012-01-29T07:31:00.001-05:00

It has been a decade now since the pedophilia explosion in Boston that rocked the Church around the world. What some then saw as a symptom of the liberal US Catholic Church, was discovered to be a metastasized cancer in countries around the world, even the most traditional Catholic countries. Once more we have seen how the heinous action and inaction of a small number of people can damage the entire body of Christ.

What does this have to do with today's readings? The readings today speak about teaching with authority.

Some would argue that scandal in the church undermines its authority. If that were true then all of Paul's letters would need to be stripped from the new testament. Was he not a murderer? Or go back through the Old Testament. How many of the great figures were fatally flawed people?

The authority of the Church to teach does not come from the holiness of the individuals, but from the Holy Spirit. We speak of the human writers of the scriptures as being inspired. It was the Spirit in them that gave authority to what they wrote, and that same Spirit guides us still. Throughout the bible God often chose the most flawed and least capable to make that very point.

It is always better when a leader of the church is holy, and practices what they teach, giving good example. But let us not delude ourselves. Every member of the church from the pope down to the most recently baptized is a fragile imperfect human being, including you and I.

For me this does not however undermine the ability of the church to teach with authority, because my faith rests not in the spokesperson but in the one who inspires, God. I believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well and continues to guides the Church, and will continue to do so until the end of time.

No plastic bubble

2012-01-28T07:39:00.001-05:00

Many of us remember the 1976 John Travolta made for TV movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, about a boy whose lack of proper immune system made it necessary for him to live separated from the rest of the world.

The first reading today brought that movie to mind because too many people seem to think that if God is a just God, we would all be the boy in the plastic bubble. If I do good, I alone reap the reward. If I choose to do wrong, I alone suffer the consequences– my moral plastic bubble. Anything else is deemed unfair.

This simplistic notion of fair denying a law of the way God made the world that is as real as the law of gravity, the interconnectedness of human beings.

While we as 21st century Christians would not use language of punishment used in Old Testament, we know that children often suffer because of the actions of their parents. Adults and children will starve today because of the actions and inactions of people thousands of miles away.

We cannot deny our interconnectedness any more than we can deny gravity. We cannot live in isolation, even if we want to. Today the ripple effect is bigger than ever. In the time of David the ripple might touch his family, his tribe, his people. Now our choices ripple around the world.

Think of the number of countries and people whose lives were impacted by my choice to buy the iPad on which I write this. The fact that this posting can be read around the world. How we use the world's resources effects the entire world.

The morality of our choices matters more broadly than ever.

The good news is that just as others suffer the effects of our bad choices so others can reap the benefits of good and wise choices. We can save and improve lives thousands of miles away when we as individuals and as a nation make better choices.

It's not mine

2012-01-27T07:20:00.001-05:00

In the Gospel today Jesus shows that perfect balance of what is our work and what is not. He describes the kingdom of god with:

it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.

Are we to work for the building up of the kingdom? Yes, but ultimately it's not our creation or even mostly our work. We use phrases like "my church" or "my parish". The truth is that the neither the parish nor the church is mine nor ours. It's God's. We caretake for a few years of decades for some parishioners, but the church is never ours.

The same is true of life in general. My very soul was God's creation.

We collaborate in His project.

How often in our prayer do we get it backwards? We decide what we want and ask him to collaborate in our project. Then we get upset when it doesn't work out.

Perhaps the simple prayer each day is a question to God: What are we going to do today?

Leadership in Place

2012-01-27T06:56:00.001-05:00

Today we celebrate Timothy and Titus. It is, I think, difficult for us to understand how Paul with the help of these men transformed the Christian faith. We can easily forget that Christianity had begun as a minority within a minority, a subset of the Jews within a world that, at best, saw the Jews as a whole as a bothersome little sect of little importance.

Yesterday we celebrated Paul and today we celebrate his co-workers Timothy and Titus who truly transformed Christianity into a catholic faith, open to all.

The first reading today from the opening of the letter to Titus also reminds us that with their generation the fundamental structure of the church was firmly in place. Titus spent the rest of his life as Bishop of Crete and in the reading was instructed to name priests (presbyters) for the towns. In short, a diocese as we now know it.

These leaders did two things simultaneously. They opened the doors to new people and cultures and at the same time held to the truths of the faith and held the church together. This is never an easy balancing act.

As we remember them today, we can look around and ask who are the people today who feel excluded and need to be welcomed more fully into the church. We also must ask, how we can show the world that we really are the ONE faith that we proclaim the Christian faith to be.

The true truth

2012-01-24T07:29:00.001-05:00

Not that many years ago I remember hearing an interesting distinction. There was something being true and then there was "the true truth" as the expression went. While the expression seems redundant, in a sense Jesus uses the concept in today's Gospel when answering the difficult question: What makes us children of God?
From the Christian point of view all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, and so are deserving of respect. Through baptism we are incorporated into the Body of Christ and become sons and daughters of God.
Today, however, Jesus in some sense raises the stakes. "For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

It is true that baptism makes us children of God but the true truth comes down to what we DO –The choices we may all day every day,the dozens of choices we will make today. In these choices we hold onto or reject the gift of adoption that we received.

The question of each of us today and every day is: Today will I be a brother/sister of Jesus?

That's unforgivable!

2012-01-23T07:18:00.001-05:00

Today's gospel ends with Matt. Chapter 3 "But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an everlasting sin."

Taken out of the larger context of the gospels, this is one of the best examples of a bible verse that can easily be misinterpreted.

One could look at this single verse and walk away with the notion that there is some kind of utterance against the Holy Spirit, that once said could never be revoked. Once you utter this blasphemy, you are condemned to hell.

Here we need the 2000 years of tradition to help us. Here we need the magisterium of the Church to guide us in understanding the scriptures.

Regarding this sin the Catechism says, "There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit. Such hardness of heart can lead to final impenitence and eternal loss."

There is no unforgivable sin. There is only the freedom to reject God's mercy. If we reject God's mercy, if we reject the salvation offered by God, what is God to do? Force Us. The gift- mercy, eternal life, the Holy Spirit is constantly being offered by God to all, but it is precisely that, a gift that we choose to accept or reject.

The good news is, short of that, there is nothing we can say or do that is unforgivable. Think of the most heinous crimes you can imagine. They are all forgivable. That is the God of Christianity.

Can we treat each other with the same mercy we receive from God?

Acknowledging the end

2012-01-20T11:03:00.001-05:00

In the first reading today Saul comes to grips with the fact that his reign will come to an end and David will one day have what was his.
While we all on some level know that our time on this planet is limited, we can at times behave as if we will live on earth forever. We hold on to power and possessions, and even our own opinions and point of view as if our life depended on it. In fact the gospel teaches us the opposite our life depends not on holding on but letting go, the virtue of detachment.

In the first reading today there might have been a literal battle but Saul's humility enabled them to avoid it. While we may not deal with battles and armies, we can all too easily be drawn into battles of a different kind.

Are there times when we must stand our ground? Most certainly. But are there also times when we like Saul need to step back?

Perhaps today we may need to take time to look at ourselves and ask where we need to let go,

The Silent Killer

2012-01-19T06:49:00.001-05:00

No I am not talking about heart attacks. I'm talking about envy.

In the first reading today, we see David has killed the Philistine, and returned home with King Saul from the battle. The Problem– people are in the streets singing sings about David. Saul's very natural reaction is jealousy, envy.

Why is it that we human beings reflexively view life as a zero sum game in which a win for one must be a lose of another.

I remember when I was first ordained we could never stand up and talk about priesthood as this wonderful, special gift, without someone accusing us of denigrating lay ministry. Any talk of the special character of ordained ministry was labeled "clericalism." Even the Chrism Mass, the one day in the Church's calendar that focuses on the ordained priesthood was re-written so as not to offend anyone.

If Saul had understood our interconnectedness he would have seen David's victory as his victory too. He would have had the wisdom to join the people in celebrating rather than sulking.

The Christian faith teaches us that we are one body in Christ. If I really believe that, then when my brother or sister is honored, I am honored. When my brother or sister succeeds I succeed. And I hate to see anyone fail because when one part of the body fails, we all fail.

Saul had an excuse Jesus had not come. What's our excuse?

Sabbath – Not Optional

2012-01-17T09:23:00.001-05:00

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Sabbath, the day of rest, in the Jewish tradition runs from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. For Christians, we mark the resurrection of Christ by taking Sunday. Both traditions speak to a fundamental human need, as Jesus identifies it today.

It is not simply about the worship of God. God does not need my worship. I need God. I need the Sabbath.

God did not create the human being to be a perpetual motion machine.

God established the Sabbath knowing how he created his image and likeness, us. We need the rest. We need to stop. We need a day which is not focused on work. We need to focus on God, family,and friends, the traditional practices that took places when we Christians used to observe a Sabbath.

Today the Church celebrates the memorial of St. Anthony a man who spent most of his life living in relative isolation. While none of us may be called to that extreme, we do need time we when stop, when we unplug ourselves. We need Sabbath.

It would be unrealistic to expect that we can roll back the clock to the days when stores were closed on the Sabbath and almost no one was expected to work. Perhaps we can, however, start by rediscovering the concept in our personal lives. When was the last time you even really thought about the concept of Sabbath? When was the last time you seriously look at what you do on Sunday asked how, as a Christian you mark the special quality of the day? Many Catholics now attend Mass on Saturday so even that is not a part of their Sabbath.

Imagine if you chose something as simple as not responding to email on Sunday. Would it mean the end of the world really? I doubt it.

The Sabbath was made for man (and woman). Let us not waste this precious gift from God.

Forever young

2012-01-16T08:14:00.001-05:00

The gospel ends today with the familiar parable of wine and wine skins. New wine cannot be poured into old wine skins. On the surface it seems to reflected the same mentality as the old saying, "You can't teach and old dog new tricks."

I'm 51, not old by modern American standards, but past the midpoint in life for most people. Taken literally this would suggest that for those my age and older, those who have not received the gospel, in name or in fact, are lost. It's just too late.

That, however does not fit with the gospel. Age is the determining factor with wine skins because they cannot think, they cannot reason, and so they have no choice about how they age. Over time they simply become brittle, inflexible, rigid. When you pour in the new wine rather than adapt, they break.

We are human. We reason. We choose. We can also constantly adapt, constantly allowing the new wine that is the gospel to fill us, and even more reshape us.

Jesus uses the image of a wine skin, not a jug or a bottle. Jugs, bottles, jars, are all rigid, their shape fixed. The wine skin even when full of wine was flexible, constantly in motion, adapting to its surroundings. It flexed to fit snugly into whatever space was available. And if properly cared for could remain supple. Allowed to sit empty it would dry out rather quickly.

Despite our best efforts we cannot control most of the world around us. But we can, if we choose, be constantly renewed with the new wine of Christ. We can choose the kind of wineskin we will be. Guided by the Holy Spirit our words and action, like the new wineskin, will always fit the circumstance in which we find ourselves. The shape of a wineskin at any given moment is determined by the combination of its contents, and its context, the outside forces acting on it. So the good Christian filled with the wine of Christ we respond appropriately to whatever this day will bring.

And unlike wineskins which have no choice while our bodies may age, our souls can remain forever new wineskins.

Fleas or disciples

2012-01-14T07:27:00.001-05:00

I remember as a child the warnings from parents about being careful about "the company you keep." The more southern form when parents disapproved of someone was, "You lie down with dogs;you get up with fleas."

Following today's gospel those parents would have made great scribes. When Jesus calls Levi the tax collector, like Abram in Genesis the gospel simply tells us that he went. Without question, without argument, he followed Jesus.

The scene then switches to the house of Levi where Jesus is so surrounded by sinners that some scribes comment on it. It takes little imagination to envision the commentary of the scribes. Jesus' response is simple. "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners." It is worth noting that Jesus is not there to scold them, but to eat with them.

We Christians in the US and Europe have built some of the most beautiful churches one could imagine, but have we lost sight of the primary mission, "Go, therefore, and make disciples."

The command starts with Go. We may say our doors are open to all. We may be welcoming to those who come. But how many of our parishes actually go out personally to evangelize?

I was taken aback by the negative response of some to Jon Huntsman's demonstrating his ability to speak Chinese. My understanding is that his fluency in Chinese come from the same places as Mitt Romney's fluency in French, their time as missionaries. While we may not share their theology, we should admire their dedication to the ancient Christian task of evangelization.

Our grandmothers were in fact wrong. They warned, "Lie down with dogs; get up with fleas." Jesus showed us, "Eat with sinners, get up with disciples." Example, personal contact, relationship are the keys to evangelization. The task cannot be done only with TV commercials, websites, or preaching in churches. Every Christian must look for those simple opportunities to share their faith with others.

You can't fix stupid

2012-01-12T07:29:00.001-05:00

With modern sensibility we can often be shocked at the imagery of battles and death in the old Testament, but today's first reading today reminds us that actions and consequences.

The sons of Eli at the center of today's story have allowed themselves and those who work for them to become greedy. In their minds they are special and therefore entitled. Why they end up in a battle against the philistines? We aren't told. What we are told is that they think that they think because they are the chosen people they can expect God to protect them. Instead, God allows them to suffer the consequences of their actions. They not only lost their lives but lost the Ark of the covenant.

The saddest part is that their choices did not only affect their lives but thousands of others. God is a loving God, but God is also a just God, and a good parent. God allows us to suffer the natural consequences of our own bad choices. God will not protect us from our own stupidity.

Before we claim that it isn't fair that others suffer because of their choices I would call to mind two things God has told us from the beginning. First, we are created interconnected. No matter who much we worship individual accomplishment, the fact remains. All our actions one way or the other impact others.

Secondly, these men did not come who they were in isolation. They grew up to be the men they were. How many people as they were growing saw them headed down the wrong path and said or did nothing, possibly because they were the sons of someone important? How many people enabled the behavior, even when they were young? How many people around them even benefited from their bad behavior? How many willingly followed them into battle, with dreams of conquest?

People complain about their leaders and yet the leaders like all of us are products of their culture. The results not only of their own choices but of millions of choices and examples of others throughout their lives.

These stories are not easy to read and the lessons are hard but necessary.

The good news is God is always standing by ready to help us put things right.

Can you hear me now?

2012-01-11T07:03:00.001-05:00

Today we get my second favorite call in the Bible, the first being the call of Abram. With Abram, God called and it simply says,"He went." Today we get the polar opposite. Each time God calls Samuel, Samuel knows someone is calling him to do something, but he is repeatedly mistaken about who is calling and why. The good news in the story is that God never gives up on him. God keeps calling until he gets it right. In fact, Samuel never does figure it out on his own. It is Eli who figures out that it is the Lord who is calling. What Samuel does is open is heart to hearing and listening to the advice Eli gives him. Once more we see that faith is not solely a personal/private matter. It's not just me and God, or me and Jesus. Faith is both personal and communal. Even something as intimate as a vocation has both aspects. Left to our own devices, we can miss the call all together, or misunderstand what God is calling us to do. The call of Samuel reminds us that we must open our hearts to listen, not only directly to the voice of God, but also to the many times that God communicates to us indirectly through those around us.

The cry of the Poor

2012-01-10T07:34:00.001-05:00

Today we begin reading the books of Samuel. The reading begins with the story of God hearing and answering the prayer of Hannah. Unfortunately it skips over the backstory. The First Book of Samuel opens by giving us a glimpse in ancient Jewish family dynamics. We can forget that the early Jewish community accepted polygamy. The story tells us that Helkanah has two wives, Penninah and Hannah. When food was distributed, the scriptures tell us, Hannah was given only a single portion, because as the text reads, "the Lord had closed her womb." While Elkanah loved her and would pray with her, in all to human fashion the scriptures tell us that his other wife made her life miserable. It takes very little effort for us to imagine the taunting by Penninah, and Hannah crying, thinking of herself as useless and cursed by God because she has no children. On a very practical level knowing that without children should she outlive Elkanah, she will most likely end up begging on the street, homeless and starving. What hope does she have that Penninah's children will care for her?Penninah is a tragic figure. She seemed to have it all husband, home, and children. Her name means pearl. Yet with everything she has, she lacks compassion. She lacks real love in her heart. Perhaps there is a some connection, an inverse proportion. The more we have the less we love. The less compassion we are able to feel those who have not. Is it a rule? No, but I do think it is a real temptation we face. We may not be as heartless as she but if we take an honest look in our own hearts I bet we can all find some individuals or groups toward whom we lack the compassion we should have.

The ultimate manifestation

2012-01-09T08:37:00.001-05:00

Yesterday in the Solemnity of the Epiphany we celebrated Jesus as King and God in the symbols of God and Frankincense. Today we see the ultimate manifestation of the identity of Jesus, "You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased." This moment marked the beginning of Jesus' public ministry from this moment through the Ascension he not only told us but showed us what it means to be children of God.Today also invites us reflect on the meaning of water. The water not only cleanses us, but also creates for us, as St. John reports, a spring of water in us welling up to eternal life.Today and every day we need to take a moment of quiet and drink from the spring God planted in us with our baptism. Tomorrow we move into weekdays in Ordinary Time, perhaps the most valuable resolution we could have for 2012 is to not let a single day go by without drinking from the spring.Have you had a drink today?

Regifted by Jesus

2012-01-08T07:23:00.001-05:00

Today we celebrate the arrival of the Magi with three great gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. If we compare the gospel text to the prophecy of Isaiah we see that there is a small but important difference. In the prophecy if Isaiah there are only two gifts, gold and frankincense. There is no myrrh. The images of King (gold) and God (incense) made sense in the faith and culture of the people of Israel. Myrrh used in embalming and prophesying the crucifixion would have made no sense. The Messiah die. God die. These would have been completely illogical statements. And we see in the gospel how Jesus is rejected because of them. With Matthew's use of myrrh, he links Christmas and Good Friday, the birth and the crucifixion. What does this have to do with our life today? It turns out Jesus is the great re-gifter. Though baptism we are incorporated into his body. We become one with him and share everything that is his including the gifts received from the Magi. We share in the Kingdom of God. We share in the divinity of God. All well and good. But we also have to share in his death. The gifts it turns out are and unbreakable set. It's all or nothing. This not only means that must pass through death to life in the ordinary sense, but also that there must be the dying of everything in us which is contrary to the gospel. Every aspect of ourself or our life that does not correspond to the gospel must be allowed to pass away. To use an image from scripture, "As gold tested in fire", not only tested but purified. In these last two days of the Christmas season, as we prepare to move into Ordinary Time, we carry with us the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Let us use them wisely.

American Idol

2012-01-07T08:04:00.001-05:00

Today marks the last weekday of the Christmas Season. This year, because of Christmas falling on Sunday, the normal structure of the calendar was disrupted. Normally in most dioceses in the US the sequence of Sundays after Christmas is Holy Family, Epiphany, and finally the Baptism of the Lord which marks the transition from the Christmas Season to Ordinary Time. (Logical-because the Baptism marked the beginning of his public ministry). This year the Holy Family was moved to a Friday and the Baptism of the Lord is moved to this coming Monday.

On this last weekday of the Christmas Season, we get one last admonition from St. John "Children, be on your guard against idols." My gut reaction to readings about idols is the same as most modern people, I suspect. At first, I dismiss them then on deeper reflection I start looking around my life. Are there things that have become idols? For many of us technophiles our smartphones could come close. When we can't go an hour without checking them, perhaps there's a problem? Do we check-in with God as often as we check our email?

But moving a little deeper I was taken back to an expression I heard the other day. One person said of another, "He's a self-made man who worships his creator." There is a real sense in which in modern America we don't have idols, and we reject "organized religion" because we have replaced it all with the idolatry of the self. Individuality has been taken past healthy to the point that we have canonized narcissism.

We see it most clearly in our present economic/political situation where we have lost the concept of self-sacrifice for the common good. When was the last time we even heard anyone talk about SELF-sacrifice or the common good. We hear lots of talk about sacrifice, as long as its someone else's. People decry the two political parties without recognizing that they are what they are because they are both pandering to the selfishness in all of us. How bad will it have to get before we realize that the more inward we turn the more lost we become.

American Idol made be the show that best represents us. It's opening is a series of picture of individuals, all wanting to be the next American Idol. Really?

Children, be on your guard against idols. Even yourself.

Where will I get the energy?

2012-01-06T07:42:00.001-05:00

I write these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life.The final words of today's first reading, but how well do we grasp that reality in the business of daily living? As we move through the course of today will we keep fixed in our minds that we have within us the only power we really need, the eternal life that is a gift from God. Wealth, power, titles, position all those things loose their allure. Greed, envy, jealousy cannot take hold in a person who knows they have eternal life, because they know they have all they need. There are 47 items on my to-do for today,not including emails, and I truly do not worry about it. I will do each of them with God, and with God's help most if not all will get done. I will trust that with God at least those that truly need to be done will be done. John tells us today that he wrote these things so that we might know that we have already, in the present, a share in the divine life. May that life be source of the power behind our every word and action today.

Another place to stay

2012-01-05T07:03:00.002-05:00

As the week began St. John advised us to remain in Jesus. In today's first reading he explains the alternative when he writes, "Whoever does not love remains in death."

On the surface it may sound simple, after all, which of us does not love someone. It becomes much more difficult when we remember who it is that we are expected to love. As Christians we are not given the luxury to love only those who love us, or to love only the ones we think of as good people. We are told that we must love even our enemies.

This is not some crazy, looking at the world through rose colored glasses. I think of the recently deceased Kim Jong il. I pray that at some point before his death he came to see honestly the life he had lived and felt some sense of remorse and so might have opened his heart to the mercy of God.

Christian love does not mean that we must feel for all people what we feel for friends and family, that would be absurd. It does mean that we cannot wish evil on another, we can't take pleasure in another's failure or pain, even if they were evil. We cannot enjoy when someone falls down. We, like God, must wish for the salvation of all.

John presents a stark simple binary choice: remain in Jesus or remain in death. I suspect most of us undulate. Hopefully, most of the time remaining we remain in him, and only occasionally allowing our hearts slip over to the other side. St. John challenges us to be attentive throughout the day, to the unloving remark or action, that tells us that we have split from remaining in Christ so that we can quickly call ourselves back, from the darkness into the light.

The First Native Born Saint

2012-01-04T06:57:00.001-05:00

When we think of saints, all too often think of the think of the roman style statue of beautiful figures draped in flowing fabric. While it may make beautiful art, it can also make us think that sainthood is something far removed from us. It can help us to forget that we are all called to be saints. One of the most important accomplishments, I believe, in the pontificate of John Paul II was the addition of over 200 new saints,many rather ordinary people with families.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton the first saint born in what would become the United State, a wife and mother, one who came to Catholicism later in life, reminds us that saintliness is possible and is indeed what God calls all of us to be.
Today let us not only remember her and honor her. Let us also turn to her for intercession and imitate her. American saint today.

Is is really possible?

2012-01-03T07:28:00.002-05:00

In the first reading today St. John's sets the bar incredibly high when he writes "No one who remains in him sins."

The more I reflected on his statement the more I realize that John here is not saying that the minute you commit a sin you're out, off you go to hell. What he is giving us here is more an instruction for daily living.
How do we avoid sin? "Remain in him." To put it more simply if we keep Christ in our mind always we will not sin. It would be from his point of view effectively impossible to say, "I am keeping Christ in mind, and sinning simultaneously."
Remember, sin requires not just a bad action, but a bad action combined with thought and will. We have to make a choice to sin. St. John is telling us that if we remain in him, if we keep ourselves constantly mindful of his presence then it is possible for us to avoid sin.
We may still make mistakes, we are imperfect creatures; but sin is avoidable.
Several times each day we need to pause and remind ourselves of that presence of God that is always with us, remain in him, don't step out for even a minute and we will find that avoiding sin is less difficult than we think.

Looking for the AntiChrist

2012-01-02T08:01:00.001-05:00

For only the second day of the year, the first reading today smacks you right in the face with the question,"Who's the liar?"
All this week, the last full week of Christmas, we are reading the first letter of John. There John is dealing with a fierce split in the community between those who believe in Jesus and those who deny him, the anti-Christ. Yep, that's right. The anti-Christ is not some all powerful supernatural competitor as portrayed in the movies.
According to John, the Antichrist is precisely that, those who are anti Christ, those who deny the truth about Jesus.
As we start the new year perhaps it would be good for each of us to look inside ourselves and ask if there are ways in which we deny Christ. I don't mean in the narrow sense. After all, if you didn't believe in Jesus you probably wouldn't be reading this blog.
Our ways of denying Jesus are subtle. We reject some part of what he taught. We doubt his love for us. We doubt the power of his grace in our lives. We deny his ability to change things. When we let anxiety take over, when we loose hope about anyone or anything,are we not then in some sense Antichrist. After all what good does it do to say we believe in Jesus, if we do not truly trust him with our lives.
For a real Christian the word hopeless has no meaning. Who or what could possibly be hopeless? People who talk that way are as John would say, the liar.
On this second day of the new year let us watch our words and our actions, may none of them be anti-Christ.

A truly New Year

2012-01-01T14:34:00.001-05:00

How many times do we say "Happy New Year" without thinking. The more I reflect upon it the more I realize that the only way the year can be happy is if we allow it to be truly new.
Since 1967 the Catholic Church has celebrated today not only as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God,but also the World Day of Peace.
The Church means peace not only in the ordinary sense but in the original Hebrew sense, when all is in order, when all things are in the right relationship.
St. Paul reminds us that we have been received the Spirit of his son into our hearts which cries out "abba." It is this spirit of God which we have been given which also brings with it, if we allow it, true peace.
Peace I leave you. My peace I give you, we say each time we celebrate the Eucharist.
Today as we begin 2012 let us dedicate ourselves once more to grounding our every thought word and deed this year in that peace of Christ. Let us hold on only to what is good and holy from the past and allow this to be a truly New Year.

The older we get

2011-11-08T07:35:00.000-05:00

The older I get the more I realize that some of the things my mother that did that made me the most craze were the ones that taught me the most. She would often get angry with us for not doing something around the house and say, “Do I have to tell you to do everything?” As a child, at least in my head, I would respond, “yes.” I thought that she had some unreasonable expectation that we could read her mind. It was only much later in life that I realized that she was teaching us the same message is today's gospel.

The gospel today ends with Jesus saying that when we have done everything we have been commanded to do, we are to call ourselves “useless servants.” The message here is not that human beings are bad, or that Christianity is somehow intended to wreck our self-esteem. The message of the gospel is the same as the central message of the entire Gospel that what should motivate our actions is always love. If we only do the things that we are supposed to do out of a sense of obligation, or worse yet a sense of fear, then we are not truly disciples of Christ. We are still acting as if we were slaves.

like my mother, Jesus wants us to do the right thing not because we're commanded to but because we want to out of love. Once more it seems, mom was right!
A

Back up and running

2011-11-06T08:35:00.001-05:00

With the change to the new apple OS the app I was using for my blog was acting up. Hopefully the problems are resolved and I will be back up tomorrow morning.

Spirit or Flesh

2011-10-24T07:50:00.000-04:00

Today we reach that part of the Letter to the Romans when St. Paul tries to explain the relationship of life in the Spirit and life in the flesh. Despite the number of times we hear the words of St. Paul, how truly do we believe them. He write, "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, 'Abba, Father!'"

Yet, how many Christians still talk and act as if we are slaves. Sayings like, "That's just the way I am" or "You can't teach an old dog new trick," or even "I'm only human," all deny the message of St. Paul. This is the language of slavery. It denies the real power of God's grace and turns sacraments into empty symbols.

For St. Paul, the Holy Spirit that we first receive in Baptism transforms us, or to use his metaphor, it frees us from slavery, and makes us the sons and daughters of God. Even the translation "Father" seems too formal to capture the "Abba" of St. Paul. He reminds us that Jesus teaches us to address God as he addresses God.

As Christians we must embrace the freedom God gives us, embrace the full meaning of our new identity. Can we do it all at once? Not usually. For most of us what it means each day making steps forward, acknowledging those aspects of our life that do not correspond to the gospel, and turning to God to help us eliminate those words and actions which are not in the image of Christ.

The war within

2011-10-21T07:24:00.001-04:00

St. Paul in today's first reading deals with the perennial struggle between knowing what is right, and even wanting to do what is right, actually doing it.

In our modern American culture we tend to cast this struggle in purely psychological terms, and behave as if psychology is a science like physics or chemistry and look for formulaic answers that ignore the spiritual.

St. Paul casts the issue in purely spiritual terms with the explanation that there is evil in his members, his body, that leads him to do what he does.

The truth, as always, is found somewhere in the middle. Each day we learn more about neurology and the biochemistry of the brain. As Catholics, we do not deny the advancements science brings us. We also;however, acknowledge that evil is real.Temptation is real, just as real as the biochemical imbalances that cause conditions like depression. The medicine for dealing with this spiritual aspect of our struggle is God's grace.
We human beings are flesh and spirit. and we must tend to both aspects of ourselves if we are to be truly healthy. One would be foolish to simply try and pray away diabetes. One would be equally foolish to look for a pill to cure our spiritual ills.

When was your last checkup, the physical one and the spiritual one?

Antioch Continued

2011-10-18T07:26:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate the Evangelist St. Luke who also lived in the city of Antioch. He is said to have been a physician, and for those who like a "scientific" approach, he is our man. He opens his gospel by explaining his reason for feeling the need to write another gospel. "I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty(asfalia) of the teachings you have received."
The word asfalia means: firmness, stability, certainty, undoubted truth.
Perhaps this feast of St. Luke is a time for us to about the trust with which we believe the good news handed on to us in the gospel. Compare our trust in what our favorite news outlet tells us, and our trust in what the Church teaches, and has taught for two millennia. Which do we trust more? Which should we trust more?
As we celebrate St. Luke today, may we be just a bit firmer in our faith.

Remembering the Second Generation

2011-10-17T07:58:00.000-04:00

When we think of Jesus, it strikes me that we tend to focus on the apostle and the disciples of Jesus without really asking ourselves about what happened next. Once Jesus had ascended, the apostles went out preaching, but we rarely focus on how the church then began to take shape. If fact, we see that there were particular cities that became centers for the Christian faith. Some we know well like Jerusalem and Rome. Other are not so familiar to us.

Among the cities that were the centers for the nascent Christian faith in those early centuries was Antioch. The city was founded by one of the generals of Alexander the Great. During the Roman period it became a kind of eastern capitol for the empire, and there a significant Christian community developed.

Today is the feast day of the third bishop of the city, Ignatius. It is said that Ignatius was a student of the Apostle John, and that Peter himself named Ignatius to be bishop of the city after the death of his predecessor, St. Evodius around the year 67. He was sentenced to be eaten by lions at the Colosseum in Rome.

For us today, what remains are the letter which is wrote while on his way from Antioch to Rome. These letters give us a glimpse at how the early church lived, led by be the successors of the apostles in the strictest use of the phrase lived. We speak of the "one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic church." His letters help us to understand more fully what that meant in daily life. We see in them the importance of church structure and the centrality of the Eucharist. And we also see the use of the word "Catholic" to describe the Church.

Twenty centuries later, we are now the generation entrusted with the faith for which Ignatius and so many others died. As they look down from their place in heaven, I would hope that they are pleased with what they see. May our leaders today show the same courage.

Context is everything

2011-10-13T08:56:00.001-04:00

In today's first reading we arrive at the perennial debate over the relationship of faith and works in salvation. Is faith alone enough? Or is something more required?
Growing up in a non-Catholic context, I remember hearing today's first reading quoted on more that one occasion as evidence to prove that being saved consisted in "professing faith in Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior." Here one would quote from today's first reading, "For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works."

The problem with this is two-fold:
1) it is an incomplete quote. The full sentence reads, "For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law."
Those last words are critical to the text. St. Paul is not referring to any works, but the works of the Jewish law, which brings us to second part of th problem. Context.
2) If one looks at the verse in context one sees immediately that the issue St. Paul is dealing with is the possibility of Gentiles being saved without becoming Jews, at not the 16th century debate of faith or works for salvation.

The Letter of St. James chapter 2 seems to strike the perfect balance on this issue.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?
So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
Indeed someone might say, “You have faith and I have works.” Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.

St. Paul is right and so I had crab cakes last night, bacon this morning, and am wearing clothes of mixed fabrics, in violation of the law, because as a Christian my salvation is not linked to a strict observance of the Mosaic law. St. James is also right, and presents the greater challenge to us, to wake up each morning and repeat his words, "I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works."

Imagine if every Christian in the world just did that today.

2011-10-11T08:00:00.001-04:00

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator,

Harsh words from St. Paul this morning and yet what he is describing is what all sin has in common. We exchange the truth of God for a lie, and we put some created person or thing (mostly ourselves) over God. Usually we don't do it directly, but indirectly. We convince ourself that the lie is the truth. We convince ourselves that we need something, so that having it is not a sin,

We seem to get sucked into the same game in morality we see played in politics. If enough people repeat a lie enough times, it becomes accepted as the truth. We forget that truth is a simple binary state. Something either is true or it is not. Our certainty about the truth admits of degrees but the truth does not.

If we start with the most basic proposition, the creator (to use Paul's term) exists. This either is true or is not.

Can I know it with certainty in this life? I am as certain of that as I am that the earth revolves around the sun. Neither of these truths have I seen with my own eyes. From my point of view on earth, the sun moves across the sky. That's what I can see. But what is true is not limited to what I see or what I feel. The earth rotates at about 1,000 miles per hr. Do I feel it? No. Is it true? Yes. So we know scientifically that our senses and feelings are not the measure of truth. There must be some objective truth outside of ME and how I feel about something.

When St. Paul speaks of us worshiping the creature instead of the creator. He is not speaking of worship in the sense of idols, altars, and sacrifices, like our ancestors. In our modern age our "worship" takes a different form. We set some created reality ahead of the creator, and the truths that this same creator revealed to us.

What lies have we allowed ourselves to believe that are contrary to God's truth? Which of our actions today will put a creature above the creator?

A Willing Slave

2011-10-10T09:56:00.001-04:00

Paul opens his letter to the Romans by calling himself a slave of Jesus Christ. While some writers will try and romanticize the slavery of the Roman Empire (trying to make it look much nicer than American slavery), all will admit that the owner had absolute rights over the slave. They could rent them out, sell them, even kill them. The slave had no rights but only obligations toward the owner. He was property that lived for one purpose, to serve the owner. The slave had nothing that could be called "mine."

In a world where "I have a right to..." and "I expect ..." have become even commonly heard from the mouths of children. It is one of the true paradoxes of the Christian faith, that the only way we can find true freedom is to hand our lives over completely to God, and like Paul accept the title "Slave of Jesus Christ."

What's good?

2011-10-06T07:05:00.000-04:00

In today's gospel we have the famous seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened passage. The part most people don't have memorized is the end. "If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?" Perhaps it's because there is the rub. Who decides what is a "good gift" and how?

When I was small I wore those old heavy metal leg braces. In some ways they actually made walking more difficult but it was the best doctors knew at the time. Like all small children I wanted to do everything the other kids wanted to do. My mother told the story of standing in the kitchen clutching the sink, as I tried to run, tried to climb on the swing set, tried to climb trees, and fell ALOT!

Looking back did the falling hurt? Yes. (There were even a few stitches involved over the years)

But was it good? Was it a "good gift"? I would argue now that one of the greatest gifts she ever gave me was allowing me to fall down and pick myself up. Neither that nor the physical therapy seemed like a gift or good at the time. The falling hurt and the PT seemed like

torture. But that was all from my child's point of view.

Compared to God we are all small children. We can distinguish good from bad in a rudimentary way. God has revealed to us some important distinctions. But for the more complex issues we simply have to trust God.

As St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans, "We know that all things work for good for those who love God"

Can we trust God to decide whats good?

Location, location, location

2011-10-05T07:32:00.001-04:00

If we actually look at the biblical text of the Lord's Prayer, their today's gospel from Luke or its counterpart in Matthew the most striking feature is absence of the final doxology, "For thine is the kingdom..." None of the manuscripts of Luke or the oldest and best of Matthew contain it. Few scholar would try to argue that it is part of the biblical text.

As best we can find, the doxology first appears with the Our Father, in a document known as the didache, late first early second century. There is reads simply "For you have the power and glory forever."

It appears that over time this doxology, being sung after the Lord's prayer, was first copied into biblical manuscripts as a kind of side note, and later migrated in the text itself. This was the great problem of manuscripts. Much depended on the person copying the text, and the person copying the copy, and so on.

This is part of the great challenge for scripture scholars, to take the various manuscripts of each book, and try and discover the most likely original text. In 1979, Pope John Paul II, promulgated the New Vulgate, a new Latin edition of the Bible, based on, St. Jerome's Vulgate, but taking into account our best understanding of the original Greek and Hebrew texts.

It would make life simple if we could say, "Here we have the original text of each book of the bible written by a single author whose name we known for certain." That, alas, is not Christianity. We believe the Bible to be the inspired word of God, and we struggle each to understand it more deeply and live it. We do this in faith, trusting that the Holy Spirit not only guided the original human authors, but continues to guide the church in her understanding and right interpretation of The Books (Τά Βιβλία).

Simplicity

2011-10-04T07:52:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate St. Francis of Assisi, being a "Memorial" ( the third rank of days in our calendar) it does not have its own readings, but we use the readings from the regular cycle. As providence would have it, the gospel is the famous story of Mary and Martha. Mary we are told has chosen the better part, and yet what does she actually do. She sits and listens. Not only does she sit, but she sits "προς" (near).

In some ways we have done a great disservice to St. Francis and the contribution of the Franciscans to the church over the centuries. We have reduced today to an image of St.Francis holding a bird, and a blessing of pets. Cute but not deep.

The gospel today touches something much more profound and necessary for our present age, the ability to sit, be quiet, and listen to the word of the Lord. Can we even do that any more? Luke 10:39 says she sat near the feet of the Lord, and listened to his words.-- a true expression of love, to sit and listen to someone.

Outlawing the Good Samaritan

2011-10-03T08:02:00.001-04:00

Last Thursday the state of Alabama enacted the most sweeping immigration law in the country. The Catholic Archbishop of Mobile and other bishops and christian leaders voiced strong opposition to the law not because they support illegal immigration but as Archbishop Rodi said, "The law attacks our core understanding of what it means to be a church."

Thankfully, in it's final form a church cannot be prosecuted for baptizing a baby, feeding the hungry, or any of our fundamental minisrties. Around the christian world the concept of "good Samaritan" has been enshrined in law for centuries in different ways. In some countries it protects the "good Samaritan" from prosecution, in others it goes so far as to make it a crime not to help a person in distress.

Even as much of our world seems to be moving to push religion from the public square, this parable survives. It stands as further proof of natural law, that certain fundamental moral truths are written in the human heart. Even in times of intense and sometimes vitriolic political debate, those fundamental commands like "love thy neighbor" can shine through.

As we struggle with the many problems that we face, today's gospel reminds us that we must keep ourselves firmly anchored to the two great commandments that Christ gave us.

But...

2011-09-28T07:39:00.001-04:00

What's the difference between an explanation and an excuse? Judging by our behavior, the answer is simple.
If it comes out of my mouth, it's an explanation.
If it comes from someone I don't like, it's an excuse.
We have explanations for what we do. Other people are just making excuses.

Today's reading revolves around the deadly word "but." Each person in the readings says they will follow Jesus, and in the same breathe rescind the offer with a "but.". "I will follow you anywhere, but..." Each of them has a reason why they can't follow Jesus immediately.

Is there a desire to follow Jesus in them? Yes. But what their hesitation reveals is that there are other things they desire more. Human nature is funny in this regard. When we really want to do something, we will find a way. And when we don't want to do something we can always find a reason not to (explanation or excuse).

Today's reading leaves us with a question that forces us to look into the very center of our heart, "How Christian do we really want to be?"

From slavery to compassion

2011-09-27T07:43:00.001-04:00

When we think of St. Vincent de Paul, we think of care for the poor and needy. But where did this great compassion and humility of his come from.

Perhaps the years 1605-7, were among his most formative. Having been ordained in 1600, he was on his way back from a trip to Marseille in 1605, when he was kidnapped by a group of Turkish pirates. They took him, not to Turkey, but across the Mediterranean to the city of Tunis, and sold him as a slave. Being grabbed by foreign kidnappers in the 17th century would have been even more terrifying than today. Once thrown onto that ship he would have no idea where he was going or hope that anyone would be able to track him. The conditions he would have experienced in this time would have been incomprehensible to this young Frenchman. After two years he managed to escape, having converted his owner to Christianity.

While much of Vincent's ministry, after his return, would be among the aristocracy, he kept in his heart a profound concern for those who were most in need. One of his most famous acts was raising the money to free 1200 Christian slaves in North Africa.

The Daughters of Charity grew out of his passion for caring for the poor, as well as his own Congregation of the Mission. One wonders if he would have been the same man without those years of slavery. Once more we see the power of God to make something good grow from sin and evil, crucifixion to resurrection.

Hail to the twins

2011-09-26T07:29:00.001-04:00

On those occasions when your priest uses the first Eucharistic Prayer, there is a rather long list of saints. Among the names are today's saints, Cosmos and Damian, celebrated together because they were twins.

They were also physicians. And during their lifetime they were famous not only for some miraculous cures, but more for their refusal to accept payment and caring for those who would otherwise have no access to a physician.

During the famous persecution of the emperor Diocletian, they were among those who were unmercifully tortured and eventually beheaded,around the year 287. By the next century churches were already being built in their honor.

Being twins, their intercession has often been invoked by women having difficulty conceiving, and in Brazil children will today be given bags of candy with the image of the twins.

Saints Cosmos and Damian, pray for us.

2011-09-24T09:04:00.001-04:00

While they were all amazed at his every deed, Jesus said to his disciples, "Pay attention to what I am telling you.The Son of Man is to be handed over to men." But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

This is the entire gospel for today. The disciples are,as always, amazed at the things he is doing but not really paying attention to or understanding what he is telling them.

The word "obey" comes from two Latin words, ob + audire, to listen while facing someone. When our mothers said, " Look at me when I'm talking to you," they were capturing the original sense of the word obey.

We associate obedience with action, but often find we fall short of the mark in our actions. Perhaps it is because we don't spend enough time being obedient in the original sense, listening, keeping our eyes fixed on Christ.

In today's gospel, the command is "Pay Attention!" How long is your attention span? Perhaps if we spend more time listening, the time we do spend speaking and acting will be closer to what we know we are called to do and say. How do we do it? Practice.

God and dental hygiene

2011-09-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

Today we switch books again in the first reading and reading from the tiny Book of the Prophet Haggai. The entire book is two very short chapters.
The Persian king has issued the decree for the return of the people and the rebuilding of the temple.

Proof that human nature has changed little in 2000 years, they have come back, but the rebuilding of the temple is not high on their list. Instead they have focused on building nice homes for themselves, eating and drinking, and getting rich. There attitude at the opening of the Book of Haggai is "We'll get to it."

It we stop and look at the daily routine of our life, where do God and prayer fall on the list? For many I dare say it's like flossing your teeth: something you know you should do every day, some you tell yourself you''re going to do daily, and you go through short periods of being good about, but somehow it just doesn't turn into a habit.

The little Book of Haggai is a reminder. If we are going to say God is a priority, we have to reflect that in our actions. Think of all the little routine things you do in your life, the things you can't imagine not doing. Who of us would leave the house without taking a shower, getting dressed, brushing our teeth and in my case having coffee? A few minutes with God should be in the list. Next time you grab your toothbrush, think about it.

Inspiration Unlimited

2011-09-19T07:36:00.001-04:00

Readings

Today we change books in the first reading and we begin our reading of the book of Ezra. The book traces the return of the people to Jerusalem, the rebuilding of the temple, and the building of the Wall to protect the city.
What is most fascinating is where the book begins, not with a Moses or other Israelite prophetic figure, but with Kurush bozorg, which we translate as Cyrus the Great.

Cyrus was the King of Persia (Iran) and it was this "pagan" that the book of Ezra records as having been inspired by God, after his conquest of Babylon (539 BC), to call the people of Israel back rebuild their temple in gratitude to the "God of Heaven."

Once more the scriptures foil our attempts to draw bright lines separating us and them, and remind us that as Isaiah told us yesterday, God's ways are not our ways. God speaks to, and inspires whomever he will.

On a more pragmatic front, scratch the surface of your average Iranian even today, and underneath you will still find a person who knows and is proud of their Persian history, and their contribution to the worlds of art and science. Many people unfortunately mistakenly think of them as Arabs, and believe that the present post 1979 revolution Iran, is "the way they have always been." Nothing could be further from the truth. The Iran of today is 32 years old, a merely blink in history.

The book of Ezra reminds us that the end of the period known as the Babylonian captivity is thanks to a Persian who listened to the voice of God. It reminds us of a time when Jews and Persians worked together. Let us pray that the cooperation we see in Ezra may be seen once more in the world we call the middle east.

Mothers and Children

2011-09-15T10:45:00.001-04:00

Today we mark the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. While the memorial has a complicated history and has been all over the calendar, the fundamental concept celebrated is one that every mother can well understand, how deeply a mother feels the suffering of her child.

Yesterday we celebrated the Exaltation of the Cross, and so there is a certain logic that today we stop to reflected on how Mary felt the crucifixion of her son, and the events leading to it.

The traditional list of seven sorrows are rooted in scripture. They are

The Prophecy of Simeon. (Luke 2:34-35)
The Flight into Egypt. (Matthew 2:13)
The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple. (Luke 2:43-45)
Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary. (Luke 23:26)
Jesus Dies on the Cross. (John 19:25)
Mary Receives the Body of Jesus in Her Arms. (Matthew 27:57-59)
The Body of Jesus Is Placed in the Tomb. (John 19:40-42)

Any parent who has lost a child will tell you that it is a wound that never heals, not in this life. But today's memorial reminds all those who are suffering that they are not alone.

In our culture so often we feel the need to deny the pain, put on the brave face, and "get over it" as quickly as possible. Today's memorial reminds us that it only in our willingness to acknowledge our suffering and unite it with the suffering of Christ that it and we can find resurrection and new life.

Not a last name

2011-09-13T07:39:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate the memorial of St. John Chrysostom. No it is not his last name, but a title given to him after his death. It means golden-mouth. As Catholics, we tend to think of ancient Christianity and Rome, and we can forget just how important the cities of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople were to the history and development of the Christianity.
He was an ethnic mixture of Greek and Syrian, his father a high ranking military officer.

Because of the status of his family he had the opportunity to study under one of the best Greek orators of the time. Later he would dedicate himself to memorizing the scriptures. Then, combining his knowledge of the scriptures and his oratorical skills become the great preacher that earned him the title Chysostom.

He preaching was not only eloquent but pointed. While as Archbishop he was entitled to all of the lavish excess that went with the royal court. This did not stop him from critiquing both Church and State. His preaching was beautiful and eloquent, but hard when it needed to be. The truth is not easily heard.

Today we pray for the pope, bishops, priests, and deacons, who are in a particular way charged with preaching the gospel. St. John's unceasing dedication to the study of the scriptures as we as honing his oratorical skills should be a model for us all.

Let us pray also for our international priests who have been sent by their bishops and are struggling to preach the gospel here in a foreign culture, often in a foreign language. Few Americans know how daunting it is to stand up in front of a room full of people in a foreign country and give a talk in a language that is not your own. It takes real courage.

St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Beyond Parties

2011-09-12T08:47:00.001-04:00

It struck me this weekend how much we needed the 9/11 anniversary now. On 9/11/01 at least for a brief time, as we do in times of crisis, we came together as one nation under God.
In the first reading today we hear in the letter to Timothy

First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers,petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,for kings and for all in authority

This is carried forward in the General Instruction to the missal in paragraph 70 where it includes in the list of those who should be included in the petitions at mass, "those in public authority."

The letter makes no distinction. It doesn't offer us the option to only pray for the leaders we like, or who agree with us. At the time of its writing the people did not have the luxury of electing their leaders, something we all too often take for granted. And yet, Timothy is told that they are to offer not just prayers but thanksgivings.

Let us pray that the spirit of national unity we saw yesterday, remain with us. Perhaps today is the day to call to mind your least favorite politician, and pray for his/her well-being. If we act like we have the virtue of Christian charity, perhaps it may be given to us.

Timothy

2011-09-09T07:35:00.001-04:00

Day the first reading for daily mass changes, and we begin to read the first Letter of Paul to Timothy. I left off the St. in front of their names because I think it is sometimes important for us remember them as they were at the time, not marble statues in togas, but flesh and blood men, imperfect but struggling to spread the gospel as best they could.

Timothy's name means honoring God or honored by God. His mother was Jewish but father was a Greek. Under Mosaic law he was considered a Jew, but interestingly enough was not circumcised. This was done later, as an adult Christian, so that he would not be offensive to Jews.

It was Paul who spotted something special about this young man, and refers to him as his true child in faith. He traveled with Paul, and eventually it was Paul, who ordained him a bishop (episcopos) for the church in Ephesus.

As we will see, it is in this letter to Timothy that Paul will lay out the foundations for ordained ministry in the Church that we have kept until this day.

Us and Them

2011-09-06T07:57:00.001-04:00

As September 11 draws near we may find some who take advantage of the opportunity to stir up general anti-Islamic sentiment. today's first reading helps us to clarify the church's real teaching.

The center of the uniqueness of our Christian faith is found in one verse in today's first reading.

For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily, (Col 2:9)

We believe that Jesus is both truly human and truly the fullness of God. God spoken to humanity through signs, dreams, prophets, etc, but in Jesus we see the fullness of God revealed bodily.

Has this belief at times made us arrogant? Yes. Have members of the church used this to condemn other religions entirely? Yes. But this is not what the church teaches.

Our instructions are clear in the document Nostra Aetate we read:

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

And we are also reminded that

The Church reproves, as foreign to the mind of Christ, any discrimination against men or harassment of them because of their race, color, condition of life, or religion.

While we continue to proclaim the fulness of God found in Jesus, we recognize, preserve, and promote the parts of other faiths that are true and good, the values we share.

I have an Arabic Bible given to me by a Palestinian Christian. In Arabic, Allah is simply the word for God. The word is used in Bible and Quran. Madrasah is simply the word for school. Our news has tried to paint the word to mean terrorist school.

There is enough real evil in the world, we do not have to go looking for it, trying to find it where it isn't. As Christian let us look for the good, the true, the holy wherever it is found.

30th anniversary

2011-09-05T08:19:00.001-04:00

It is hard to believe that the 14th of this month will mark the 30th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's encyclical Laborem Exercens, On Human Labor. His Holiness begins this letter by addressing the fundamental relationship between work and the human person. He returns to the command God have us from the beginning to go forth and subdue the earth, and reminds us that work is not merely something we must do to earn a living, but is essential for us as human beings. "Work is a good thing for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes 'more a human being'."
He calls to mind the link between work and the dignity of the human person.

As we continue our struggle with the present economy it seems to me that now is a good time for us to return to the teaching of John Paul II, and his predecessors. At times we need to be reminded that the human being must remain the central focus not only of our prayer but of our policy. Business, profits, the economy as a whole exist not as ends in themselves but must always be viewed with an eye toward the human being. Otherwise we risk falling into what he calls " the violation of the dignity of human work: either because the opportunities for human work are limited as a result of the scourge of unemployment, or because a low value is put on work and the rights that flow from it, especially the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family."

"The word of God's revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator...."

As we rest from our labor this day,
may those of us have work be truly grateful,
may those without work soon find work,
and may those charged with oversight keep always in mind
the basic human need to work and the fundamental god-given rights of those workers.

Virtue

2011-09-04T08:26:00.001-04:00

All three readings today are focused not on what we shouldn't do, but what we should. In the Letter to the Romans Paul reduces the entire law to a single word, agape, love. For Christians love is understood to be the greatest of the theological virtue, the others being faith and hope.

Perhaps here we need to back up and look at the word virtue. Women reading this may find it's etymology offensive, because it comes from the Latin word vir, man as distinct from the Latin word homo which has no gender. The word originally meant simply manliness or courage. It later grew mean, as St. Augustine would say, "a habit consonant with our nature," as God intended us to be.

We call the aforementioned three theological because they come as gift from God. The rest we refer to as moral virtues. They are all, in short, habits, and like all habits must be practiced to be maintained and deepened, until they become our almost reflexive response.

The first reading and the gospel today invite us to examine our response to sin. What is our habitual, reflexive response when someone sins, particularly if the sin is against us?

I dare say there are very few of us whose response is the command given in today's gospel: go and talk to the person alone, and keep it just between the two of you. The command is clear and simple. So why don't we do it?

The gospel gives us some clues. First, it doesn't say "someone." The gospel uses the word adelphos, brother. One of the reasons we don't respond properly is that we forget that this person is my brother or sister.

Second, we forget that as the end of the gospel reminds us, Christ is present there. When the gospel speaks of two or three gathered, it doesn't only mean in church. I remained convinced that if we could keep ourselves constantly aware of the presence of Christ we would not say or do many of the things we say and do.

Thirdly, we have not sufficiently developed the theological virtue of agape, love/charity. We respond to pain. We respond with anger, but not with love. There are many kinds of love but the real test for Christian agape is precisely in those moments when we are hurt.

Lastly though, it strikes me that a large part of the reason we talk about people, rather than to them is that we lack virtue in the original sense of the word.We lack courage. The truth we don't want to admit is that every time we talk about someone behind their back, we are not just unchristian, we are cowards. It take no courage to talk about someone, it takes real courage to talk to someone.

Jesus's command in the gospel today is simple and clear. When our brother or sister sins, our first words about it must be not to a friend, colleague, or relative, but to the person themslef. If we cannot do that because we lack the virtues needed, then we best take the old nun's advice, and "offer it up," keep our mouthes shut and pray. Pray for God to deepen within us first the virtue of love. Pray then for God grant us a spirit of courage and right-judgement.

True virtues only come over time. They require intentionality, practice, and collaboration between us and God. The next time someone says does something that offends us, see it as an opportunity.

Too much fun

2011-09-02T21:45:00.001-04:00

Come with Joy... (today's responsorial psalm)

In the gospel the scribes and the Pharisees are condemning Jesus' disciples because the appear to be having too much fun, eating and drinking, etc.
Unfortunately we seem to have cured that problem. Find a Christian church anywhere of any denomination where the people appear to be having too much fun, are too filled with Joy. Apart from the all too common bickering and hunger for power in churches, it seems that we have confused the words "solemn" and "somber." We act as though joy and reverence can't coexist.

It strikes me that part of this may stem from what I believe is a misreading of the next part of the passage, when Jesus speaks of the bridegroom being taken away. Some I think believe that we are still living in that time, where the bridegroom is away and we therefore should be sad until his return.

I for one do not believe that the bridegroom is away. He was taken away, yes. He was crucified, yes. But he rose from the dead. He ascended but did not abandon us.

All I have to do is walk into a church or chapel anywhere and there it is, the sanctuary lamp that reminds me of the presence of Christ. Last night as I sat in St. Patrick's for our monthly holy hour, I know Christ was there. The bridegroom was with me. In the Eucharist is Christ less present to us than he was with those first disciples? I think not.

Today's response is Come with joy into the presence of the Lord. In fact it is the presence of the Lord that is the source of the joy. We can search for joy in other persons and things, but we will not find it, at least not real joy.

We can all lament the number of people who have fallen away from church. We can blame "the world" and "the media" all we want. But I truly believe that the only way we can really turn things around is for us to show that we actually believe that Christ is alive and present, by our lives, by the joy and love we show to the people around us.

Epaphras

2011-08-31T07:40:00.001-04:00

Not really a name you hear anymore, and in some ways that may be the point. A somewhat cynical priest was known to have said, "The pastor is like the family dog. They cry when they loose one, then they go out and get another one." While he said it with a sense of hurt, there is a sense in which it is true and indeed should be true, not only for priests, but for most of us human beings. We are born in this life, we do our best to carry out our mission, and we pass from this world.

All we know of Epaphras is his name, and my guess is he's OK with that. I am a fan of the Internet and social media for their ability to keep people connected. There is the temptation though for these things to encourage a certain narcissism in us. It turns out that Andy Warhol was right in 1968 when he uttered the now famous quote, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Now we can be, our every thought can be broadcasted around the world instantaneously.

Toddy's reading invites us to recalled not Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, or Martin Luther King, Jr, but the thousands who spent their life toiling in the vineyard of the Lord, lost to history, but saints nonetheless, those who truly understood that the only reward we should work for is the fullness of the kingdom of God.

Here's to St. Epaphas and his successors!

Seemingly Harsh God

2011-08-27T09:34:00.001-04:00

Today we continue our series of gospels that seem to paint and picture of a harsh and fear inspiring God. In fact the gospel teaches us precisely the opposite.

In today's gospel the master condemns only the servant who allows himself to be paralyzed by fear, and does nothing with the talent he is given. Each of the others were given different numbers of talents and each did they best they could with what they had and were praised for that accomplishment.

So it is in our life. God has a plan for each of us, and we are given talents we need to accomplish our tasks. We are however also given free will. We can choose to think that what we have is of little value compared to others. We can choose to allow our fear of failure to paralyze us. Or we can take what we have been given, and with the grace that comes from God, seek each day to carry out God's will for us.

In the end we will be judged not on how much we have made or how much we have accomplished but on how we have tried to do God's will. Some days we will succeed and yes, some days we will fail. Ultimately however it's not about me. It's about God's will, God's grace, God's loving plan.

Seeming lack of charity

2011-08-26T07:28:00.001-04:00

In the gospel today we have the parable of the ten virgins. I must admit that for long time I used to think there was something wrong with the five who refused to help the other five by sharing their oil. It seemed crass to tell them to go buy some for themselves.
But as I mature I see the wisdom of it.

My mother later in life told me the stories of how she used to stand in the kitchen and clutch the sink, as I went outside in those clunky metal braces they used on kids with CP in the sixties. She would be clutching the sink, because everything in her wanted to run outside and help me up every time
I fell, and I fell a lot. She knew I had to learn, I had to find my strength.

In today's gospel the foolish virgins, there is nothing to suggest that the foolish virgins didn't have the money or ability to go and buy oil. They simply didn't do it. We forget that charity is first of all love. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is not help someone.

One of the hardest thing about being a good Christian is discerning when we are facing someone who is truly in need of help, where we have a moral obligation to do what we can. And, on the other hand, discerning when the truly charitable act is to allow them to suffer the consequences of their choices, and pick themselves up.

Emily Dickinson wrote,
We never know how high we are
Til we are called to rise,
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies.

Stay Awake!

2011-08-25T08:57:00.001-04:00

The command that begins today's gospel.
The recent earthquake in Virginia got the attention of all of us on the east coast. It also took me back to 1977 when I first went to Managua Nicaragua. In 1972 a huge earthquake had destroyed the city. Five thousand were killed and approximately 250,000 were displaced.

Five years later the emotional impact was still clear. The earthquake had left the people even the teenagers profoundly aware of the fragility of life. What I found interesting was that it was not a morbid awareness, but an awareness that called to one's attention to live every day as if it might me the last one.

The real question for us is: Why does it take an earthquake, or a hurricane or a terrorist attack? Jesus gives us a very simple straightforward command in the gospel. Christians are to be people who maintain the proper perspective constantly aware that we know neither the day nor the hour, not to fill us with fear, but mindfulness.

It seems for the last few months we've been running around like chicken little. Perhaps we needed a little earthquake to shake some sense into us and get us to sit down, center our heart in God and work through these things one day at a time.

What are hypocrites filled with

2011-08-23T11:55:00.001-04:00

In today's gospel Mt 23:25 the hypocrites Jesus condemns are accused of being filled with 2 things arpages and akrasia.

The second,akrasia, is easier for us to grasp. It is literally lacking in control of oneself, or to act contrary to your own better judgement. If we are completely honest with ourself, most of the time we know in our hearts what we ought to do. Rare is the occasion when we find ourselves facing a problem where we don't know what the morally correct choice is. Most often it is this sin of akrasia, we know the right and for a variety of reasons, do the other.

The first one is more difficult. The Greek word refers to pillaging, a kind of ravenous greed that spoils. What distinguishes pillaging from plain theft it seems to me is the wanton, destructive nature of it. As I write this I am sitting looking out over Lake George in upstate New York. I am struck by the beauty of God's creation, and reminded of how we are called to be stewards of it. How often do we continue to cross the line between the proper use of resources as God intended and the sin in today's gospel? Here it is often difficult to know where the line is. Here also we can make simple changes in our daily living habits that remind us that the earth belongs to God and we are merely stewards.

The two sins in this gospel are different and yet there is a link, choice. How can we exhibit more self-control? How can make choices about the things we buy and use?

Our Lady Queen of Palestine

2011-08-22T07:07:00.001-04:00

For the Knights and Ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcre, today's memorial of the queenship of Mary, goes by the slightly different name above. I write this entry today not only because I am a knight but because I been there and seen the Christians struggling to survive in what we call the Holy Land. There is little Holy about the life they are forced to lead, which is why there are so few Christians left in the place where our faith began. I share with you simply the pray to Our Lady, Queen of Palestine.

O Mary Immaculate,
gracious Queen of Heaven and of Earth,
behold us prostrate before thy exalted throne.
Full of confidence in thy goodness
and in thy boundless power,
we beseech thee to turn a pitying glance upon Palestine,
which more than any other country belongs to thee,
since thou hast graced it with thy birth,
thy virtues and thy sorrows,
and from there hast given the Redeemer to the world.

Remember that there especially
thou wert constituted our tender Mother,
the dispenser of graces.
Watch, therefore, with special protection
over thy native country,
scatter from it the shades of error,
for it was there the Sun of Eternal Justice shone.

Bring about the speedy fulfilment of the promise,
which issued from the lips of Thy Divine Son,
that there should be one fold and one Shepherd.

Obtain for us all that we may serve the Lord
in sanctity and justice during the days of our life,
so that, by the merits of Jesus
and with thy motherly aid,
we may pass at last from this earthly Jerusalem
to the splendours of the heavenly one.

Amen.

P.S. Before anyone over-reacts, remember this predates the State of Israel.

It's not fair

2011-08-17T08:12:00.001-04:00

When we imagine the world of Jesus it is easy for us to fall into a very romanticized image of it, where everyone looks like the shepherds in the Christmas pageant. I dare say issues of poverty, lack of medicine, infant mortality, and unemployment rarely enter our minds. In truth is was a harsh cruel world. For many day labor, as we call it, was the best hope they had. Jesus uses the image because it would have been one that was familiar to the people.

Not unlike the modern version men would go out to a known spot and stand all day in the scorching sun and wait, and pray. As one can imagine, the men who would come by hiring, would choose the strongest and healthiest first, hoping to get the most for their money. The ones who appeared weaker would be left, perhaps never being hired. One more day without work, without food for themselves and their families. In this daily cycle, the strong would get stronger and the weak would get weaker.

The gospel tells us that it is 5 PM when the last group is hired. For any who have been to Israel, imagine standing outside all day. To make sure that we understand that it is not due to laziness that these men have not been hired, the master asks, "‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’"

As we all know those who worked all day, whine the whine of the toddler, "It's not fair." But, in fact, what was unfair? Did not each worker do the best they could with the situation that they were given? Those men could have given up and gone home earlier, but they didn't they stayed, and waited, and hoped.

If I am at all wise, I realize that a huge portion of who I am is not of my own making: my genetics, my parents, where and when I grew up, the opportunities I was given. And yes there were the challenges as well, many of which I did not choose or control.

In order to judge another person, we would have to know all the variables. That's why judgement is left to the master, God.

Each of us are simply called to get up each day, and like the workers in the gospel do the best we can with what that day brings. And doing our best may change from day to day depending on the circumstance. The one constant is that if we ask God will give us the grace to live each day well.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Why blame God?

2011-08-16T07:49:00.001-04:00

Gideon opens today's first reading lamenting, where are the wonders our fathers told us about?

We need some back story Gideon becomes the fifth of the judges in charge of Israel, after Deborah. The people have abandoned their worship of God and fallen into all kinds of idolatry and debauchery. The midianites perceive their weakness and attack.

Gideon like most of us today only sees the immediate problem. He doesn't see that it took years for them to get into their present mess. He doesn't see how the mess they are in is their own fault. Instead he asks, "If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?" As if they and their lifestyle had nothing to do with the mess they are in.

The good news is that despite their idolatry, despite Gideon's testing of God, God loves them so much that he will in effect save them from themselves.
Perhaps there is hope for us.

Democrats want to blame Obama; Republicans blame Bush. Both are short sighted. Our present mess is more complex and older than that. Our parents who survived the depression and world war II wanted to gives us everything they never had, they wanted to shield us from things like pain, suffering, and sacrifice. They spoiled us all. And we boomers in turned raised a generation more spoiled than ourselves.

The credit card and the home equity line of credit made it possible for us to spend what we did not have, and to have virtually anything we wanted. I remember "lay-away" when you didn't get the item until it was paid for.

Even now we want what we do not need. I turned 51 on Sunday. With the present increase in health and life expectancy, what would make me think that I should retire at 65, and start collecting social security. 65 is no longer old.

God helped the people of Gideon's time, but they had to radically change their lives. There are some who suggest there is no solution, I do believe that with God's help we too can arise from the devastation. But like the people of Israel, it is going to require a radical change of thinking, a radical change of living, a radical change of heart.

The Assumption of Mary

2011-08-15T08:13:00.001-04:00

At first glance this can seem to be another example of intellectual Catholic theology that doesn't touch my every day life. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I grew up with the same erroneous theology about the human body, as many Catholics. The idea was that "the outside's not important, it's who we are on the inside that matters." I thought that when I died, the body decayed, my soul, if I was good, went to heaven, end of story. I sure, in part, this error was drilled into me to keep me from feeling bad about my handicap.

The problem is that the deeper truth that links the Incarnation, the "resurrection of the body"(today's second reading) and today's solemnity the Assumption I did not understand, and would not come to understand until much later in life.

The simple truth of Christianity is that the body does matter. It is precisely the unity of body and soul, matter and spirit, that makes us human. And everything we do to or with one impacts the other. Today's solemnity is not about Mary's soul it's about her body, and by extension, it's about our bodies.

Four of the seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, and sloth) are all about the misuse of the body. In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches issues of vesture and postures during prayer are key parts to our liturgy. When I was growing up even the people in the congregation dressed as best they could to come to church, and the way we dressed effected how we behaved. The outside effects the inside; the outside reflects the inside.

It was brought to my attention recently that one of the fads on college campuses now is this retro-hippie-non-bathing phenomenon. My family didn't have money. My father worked in the mill and my mother was a homemaker, but to this day I remember her saying, "You can always afford soap." What few clothes we had were always presentable.

Is it possible for someone to be too concerned with their body? Of course. But most people are as close to that sin as they are to becoming religious fanatics.

Today's solemnity celebrating the assumption of Mary, invite each of us to reconnect our body to our souls. Perhaps we as churches need to go back to basics and consider respect for our bodies as part of our religious education. "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" Perhaps it's time to take a good hard look at temple maintenance.

Marriage isn't for everyone

2011-08-12T07:41:00.001-04:00

As a tribunal judge for marriage cases, I often here the complaints both from inside and outside the Church about the concept of annulment. Some complain we annul too many, and act as the the grounds are made up by the Catholic Church.

In fact in today's reading we hear two of the categories with we we operate in the modern tribunal. First Jesus addresses what he calls, "unlawful" marriage. There was in the Mosaic Law and there is in Canon Law definitions of what constitutes a lawful marriage.

More interesting is the fact that he recognizes as canon law does that there are some people who are incapable of marriage. As today's gospel says, "Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others."

I have often heard, "How can you say they were never married when they had a beautiful mass in a catholic church and 4 children?" Without meaning to, this question reduces marriage to saying "I do" and procreating. Marriage is more than saying some words and making babies.

In the gospel Jesus is trying to get the people to understand the full reality of what marriage is, and to acknowledge that some people are simply incapable of that "partnership of life and love" we call marriage. Modern psychology has simply helped us to understand more clearly the full range of issues that can make person incapable of marriage. They may spend thousands of dollars on wedding, and be capable of procreation, but that does not always mean one is capable of marriage. It is sad but true that there are some who enter marriage with the best of intentions but are simply incapable of forming that bond with another person.

I think most priests and other pastoral ministers would agree that if young couples spent half the time and energy thinking about and planning the marriage that they spend on planning the wedding, we would have fewer weddings, but more of them would end in an actual marriage.

The other hard reality we see is that often enough family members and friends saw the problems before the wedding and, for a variety of reasons, said nothing. The couple themselves are often blinded by being in love, and they need their friends and families to slow them down and get them to take an honest look at themselves and their potential spouse and ask the difficult questions.

Let us pray for all those couples who are engaged or contemplating getting engaged that they truly look beyond the wedding to the life-long marriage.

What's in a name?

2011-08-11T08:03:00.001-04:00

Today we begin to read the story of the Israelites after Moses. For most of us, if we were asked to name who succeeded Moses as leader of Israel,it would be difficult to come up with the name Joshua. Even more remote would be the possibility that we would recognize that Joshua and Jesus are two different English versions of the same name.

While in the Spanish speaking world naming your child Jesus is common, English speakers would never dream of it. To us it would see odd or sacrilegious. We, however, have no problem naming a child Joshua or Josh, unaware that it is the same name.

Today's main character we call Joshua, Son of Nun, to distinguish from Jesus the Christ. He seems, in the book of Joshua, to appear out of no where as leader, but in fact if we go back to Exodus, we see that he went, at least part way, up the mountain with Moses for his encounter with God.

Again we are reminded that the plans of God do not span days or weeks, but years and centuries. Our daily and hourly watching of the stock market and reacting to it can make us even more short-sighted than we naturally are. If we are people of true faith, we should lift our heads, look to the horizon, and trust that, even in times like now when the immediate future looks bleak, ultimately God's plans cannot be foiled.

All things work together for good for those who love God.
Do we believe it or not?

Guardian Angels

2011-08-09T07:36:00.001-04:00

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."

Today we reach the Chapter 18 of Matthew where Jesus uses a child to describe the Kingdom of heaven. We are to be humble like them. We are to be willing to receive them. But it was the sentence above that caught my attention. After all, does any person really despise children?
The Greek verb has the sense not of hatred the way you hate an enemy but to depreciate, devalue, to think little or nothing of. Now let's rephrase the question: Are there those who think little or nothing of children? I think we all know the answer.

From abortion and Human Trafficking (children being sold, sometimes by their own families, and imported into the US for unimaginable purposes) to those whose first choice in budget cutting are those programs that care for children, the signs are all around us of how little we value children. And let's be perfectly honest, the color of the child (asian, white, latino, or black) is part of our valuation as well.

The other phrase that must catch our attention is this gospel, however, is "their angels." Here Jesus puts forth the belief in what we call guardian angels. God so loves each and every human life he creates that their is an angel that is "their angel" that stands in the presence of God always.

Today as we drive past children in good neighborhoods and bad, take note of how we judge them, evaluate them in our minds and hearts. Let us remember that each of them has "their angel" not only watching them, but as Jesus reminds us, watching us in relation to them.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father."

Once more Love or Fear

2011-08-08T08:16:00.001-04:00

In the passage we have from Deuteronomy today, the people are given the instruction, "So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt." I have no intention here of wading into the immigration debate.

My mind is taken back to what started the whole story leading up to this point in the history of the people of Israel, fear. If we go back to the beginning of exodus, the people of Israel, the foreigners in Egypt, were becoming numerous. The Egyptians began to fear that soon they would be outnumbered by the Jews. It was fear that transformed the peaceful co-existence of the Jews and Egyptians, into the ill-treatment and all that would follow.

If there is one thing that is clear and consistent from old testament through new, it is that when we allow our fears to drive our decision-making, whether as individuals or communities, we make bad choices.

Each day it seems some new piece of news comes out which could frighten us. And it doesn't help that it gets spun in the worst possible, most sensational way always.

I never thought I would write this but perhaps it's time to mediate on money.
It still says, "In God we trust," but do we really?

These words first appeared on a coin in 1864, in the midst of our civil war. We emerged from that horrible conflict wounded but not broken. In truth, our present problems are nothing in comparisons to the death and destruction of the civil war. We can emerge from this as well, but we must not allow fear, and its companion anger, to overcome us, to be what drives us. The fears of the Egyptians ultimately drove them into the Red Sea where they drowned.

Perhaps it's time for all sides to spend less time talking, and more time praying. Only in silence can we hear the tiny whispering wind of yesterday's first reading, and allow the love of God to show us the way out.

Christian Physics

2011-08-06T09:15:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate the transfiguration of the Lord, when Jesus appears with Moses and Elijah. This reading invites to reexamine the most basic parts of how we understand the universe, to clarify the distinction between our perception of the universe and the universe itself.

As finite creatures, we can experience only one place at a time. From our perspective we move through time: the past behind us, the future in front of us, the present being what I am experiencing now. We perceive things to exist in three dimensional space. We see it all in reference to ourselves. Up is what is above my head.

All we have to do is imagine looking at the world from the space station and ask, "which way is up?" to realize how these terms are mere conventions we use to describe our experience.

In today's gospel Jesus appears with Moses and Elijah. They are not ghosts. They are the actual persons. How can three people from three different historical periods be in the same place at the same time? Answer: for God there is neither time nor space. For God all time and space is the here and now.

Why does any of this matter? It can seem a great abstraction, but it is critical for our daily lives.

All too often, particularly at difficult times, we confuse what we are experiencing at a particular moment with "my life." When someone says, "My life sucks." what they are really referring to is not their life but what they are experiencing at that moment. Unfortunately because they confuse the two they can make bad, irreversible, sometimes deadly choices.

For christians, the phrase "my life" does not means "what I am experiencing at this moment." "My life" is something created by God, good, and intended to ultimately spend eternity in God's presence, to be one with God. "My life" is a gift more precious than gold. Unfortunately, we can't see our life as a whole. Imagine if we could.

The story of Genesis tells us that when God created the first human life he looked at it and saw that it was very good. And I believe that each time God creates a new human life, his response to his creation is the same.

Imagine we could see what God saw at the moment he created any one of us. If we could, our answer to the question "How's life?" would always be "Amazing!"

Exceptionalism and Humility

2011-08-05T07:50:00.001-04:00

Readings

Perhaps my memory is faulty, but I don't remember when I was growing up ever hearing the phrase "American Exceptionalism." It seems to have entered our lexicon only in the last few years and risen to the status of dogma. Any would be politician who does not profess it is deemed unpatriotic. The irony is that the first use of the phrase seems to date to Joseph Saltin in 1929.

I would not deny that there are many exceptional things about our country. I would ask one question: How many of those things are the creation of this generation of Americans, us? And how much of it is pure gift from God? The sheer quantity of natural resources we have puts us at an advantage over most other countries in the world, but can we boast of those?

Even our freedoms and form of government are not "our" creation. For us to brag about those would be like Silvio Berlusconi bragging about the Coliseum or the aqueducts. I would often hear condescending tourists in Rome look at the great antiquities, then at the modern Romans and say, "Hard to believe these are the same people who built all this." But in fact, they are not the same people. That generation is long pasted.

In today's first reading Moses sees the world from a completely opposite perspective. First, he reminds the people of what God has done for them. Moses goes on to give all the credit and all the praise to God. Even those achievements one might argue were the work of the people Moses credits to God, because he is wise enough to know that whatever strength or ability any individual has comes from God.

Moses understood the sin of pride, and the virtue of humility, its necessity if the people of Israel were to become a truly great nation. Perhaps it is time for us to take a sober look at ourselves through this optic.

Testing

2011-08-03T07:39:00.001-04:00

Readings

In the first reading today Jesus seems harsh to the woman. In fact, he is responding to the potential disciple according to ancient Jewish tradition. He says something to push her away. The goal is discover whether there is real faith or this is a whim.

Once again we are faced with the delicate balance. On the one hand, God wills the salvation of all, and we must constantly be looking for new ways to communicate the message to the next generation. Our liturgy should stir, the mind, the heart, and the soul.

On the other hand, we must remain faithful to the content of the gospel, being conformed to Christ, not conforming Christ to ourselves. We cannot surrender the truth for numbers in the pews, or money.

I remain hopeful because I do believe our anthropology. I believe we are created in the image and likeness of God, and there is in the heart of every person something which yearns for union with God, and yearns for the truth.

Just shoot me

2011-08-01T07:47:00.001-04:00

Perhaps if they had had guns, we could have traced this expression to Moses. In fact, what we do get is, "just kill me now." Num 11:15 in case you want to put it on a bumper sticker.

I joke about it because I think one of the ways we have sucked the life out of the bible and the lives of the saints is that we have, at least in our minds, sterilized them. And in doing so, we rob them of their ability to speak real people.

Moses is absolutely positively fed up. He is at the end of his rope. I would say one more complaint and he's just going to scream, but he's past that point.

And which of us has not been there at some point: as a parent, as a pastor, as a supervisor at work, a leader in your neighborhood association or church group?

Here is where really talking to the saints in prayer can help. We can turn to people like Moses, the ones who have been there,vent to them, ask for their intercession. Moses got through it and so can you.

Business as religion

2011-07-30T08:40:00.001-04:00

To us, the first reading today from Leviticus about calculation of jubilee years and the buying and selling of property can seem confusing, antiquated, and disconnected from our modern world. At its heart, however, it touches something that is critical for us at this moment.

We tend unreflectively to separate our faith from our work and especially from the world of business and finance. How often do we hear someone say, "The CEO's primary obligation is to his shareholders."

Today's first reading reminds us that as far back as the mosaic law, the primary obligation even in the world of buying and selling is to God. God knows his creatures and how easily we can fall into the sin of greed.
And so God from the beginning established a moral framework to remind us that profit was not and is not the highest good.

From the Torah through the Gospels to the latest papal encyclicals it is clear that the welfare and dignity of the human person and our society must take priority of place. Making large profits and being rich are not sins. But sometimes the way we get there is.

From the least paid worker to the CEO this reading reminds us, that in business, ultimately we do not answer to a supervisor or a shareholder but to God.

When was your last real holiday

2011-07-29T07:37:00.001-04:00

Today the first reading shifts to the book of Leviticus where Moses lays out for the people of Israel what Catholics would call the Holy Days of Obligation. Along with the weekly Sabbath, these were the festivals to be celebrated throughout the year, and a list of the days on which they were forbidden to work.

With the new covenant, Christianity would shift the Sabbath to Sunday, and devise a new list of festivals and Holy Days of Obligation that mark the great events in the life and ministry of Christ just as the ones set forth in Leviticus marked the work of God in the life of that people.

Our English word "holiday" comes from this tradition of keeping the Holy Days of the liturgical calendar. It struck me as I read the ancient law given by God that our sense of holiday, even for Christians, has lost almost all of its original meaning.

I'm not talking just about Christmas. I think there is something much more fundamental here.

I have heard some well intentioned souls talk about the health benefits of a day of rest, and the health benefits of fasting in Lent. While these may exist they still miss the point. This approach is still looking at religion from the perspective of, "What do I get out of this?" It is still egocentric, not theocentric, god-centered.

Setting apart Sunday, and other Holy Days throughout the year is not just about us, or even primarily about us. It is about God. It is rooted in a sense of worship, a sense of gratitude, and yes, a sense of deference and obedience.

The present Catholic practice is simple:
Can. 1247 On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are obliged to participate in the Mass.
Moreover, they are to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body.

Worship, Joy, Relaxation of Mind and Body

While not everyone can skip work on Sunday, everyone of us can start by mentally setting Sunday apart, acknowledging it as different, approaching it with a different frame of mind. Then we build out from there in increments: letting go of work in our mind, leaving work at work, focusing our mind on God more that usual, praying more on Sundays and Holy Days. Even if all we do is put at the top of our Sunday to-do list: worship, joy, and relaxation it would be a step in the right direction.

We didn't get where we are overnight, and I don't suspect that any of us are going to completely realign our lives overnight. But I would suggest that the place to start is to ask yourself today, how can I make this coming Sunday more what it is supposed to be?

The Pearl

2011-07-27T07:17:00.001-04:00

Today we get a repeat of the Sunday gospel regarding treasure and the pearl of great price. The more I reflect on it the more fascinating I find the image of the pearl.

The man in the story is willing to sell all that he has to buy this one great pearl, but why? There is no implication that he intends to resell it. Instead it seems that what drives him is a passion for the beauty of the pearl. This lead to another question though, from whence comes its value?

If you think about it objectively what is it that makes a pearl so valuable? Chemically it's mostly calcium carbon and oxygen, not all that different from a kidney stone. It has no special function or purpose. It doesn't do anything.
It is a kind of accident of nature. And yet at some point thousands of years ago someone looked at it and saw an intrinsic beauty, and that beauty gave it a value. As the idea of the beauty spread around the world from culture to culture the value increased.

It strikes me that as our culture becomes more and more utilitarian, the pearl in danger of loosing its value is human life. Like the pearl, the elements that make up the human body are nothing special, mostly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The frightening difference between humans and pearls is that we seem to be loosing sight of the intrinsic beauty and value of the human being. The value of a human life is being measured by what it can do, how it can contribute to society. The very old, the very disabled, and the very young are devalued, even in their own minds because of the messages they have received that their value is tied to their productivity.

Somewhere thousands of years ago, the first person who saw the intrinsic beauty of a pearl was able to convince others of that value, and they were able to spread that belief around the world, and that belief endures to this day.

As people of faith we must see the intrinsic beauty and value in every human life, and work to spread that belief around the world. Even as you read this there are places around the world, and right here in the U.S., where human beings are being sold, and for a lot less than the price of a pearl. And even sadder is the fact that few people seem to notice or care.

What is the value of a human life?

It's not in the Bible

2011-07-26T07:40:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate Sts. Joachim and Anne, held in our tradition to be the parents of Mary. The first response of many will be "That's not in the Bible,"
We forget that the Bible, while being the inspired word of God, does not claim to contain all of human history nor even the entire history of the human life of Jesus. It gives us all that is necessary for salvation.

As followers of Jesus, people who hopefully love Jesus, we should want more than the minimum necessary for salvation. I personally want to know everything I possibly can, and have never understood the minimalist approach. We certainly don't take it in the rest of our lives. Imagine saying, "I only want the food necessary for survival" or "I only want to learn enough to get a minimum wage job and survive."

To this day, biblical archeology seeks to tell us more and more about the world in which Jesus lived. It seems to me we should look to every trustworthy source and always hunger not only to understand the Bible more deeply but everything around it, every person and event that helped shape the life of Jesus.

The other simple fact is regardless of their names, there can be no doubt Jesus had a human set of grandparents. I can only believe that they must have been good parents to have raised the daughter they did.

More often than should be the case, in modern America, it is the grandparents, and particularly grandmothers who are raising the children. And even in families where the parents are taking care of the physical needs, it is still the grandparents who are the only one's handing on the faith, looking after the spiritual welfare of the children.

So today, let us pray for all grandparents, not just our own, but especially those who are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Through the intercession of Sts. Joachim and Anne, may God fill them with the strength they need.

El Camino

2011-07-25T07:52:00.001-04:00

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Apostle St. James, one of the first four to follow Jesus Christ, along with his brother John. This is also the Santiago de Compostela whose relics are at the heart of what may well be the most famous pilgrimage in Christianity.

For more than a thousand years pilgrims have been making there way to the Tomb of St. James. To receive the shell and Compostela the pilgrim must take his/her credential and have it stamped along the way to prove that they have walked 100 km, or bicycled the last 200 km. of the journey. More than 100,000 of these certificates are given out each year.

In terms of historicity, there are many questions about the relics of St. James and how they may have come to Galicia. You can search the internet for every variation on the story. For me, it doesn't matter. If tomorrow it was conclusively proven that the bones were of a later time and could not possibly be the bones of the apostle, it would not detract from the holiness of the way (el Camino) or of the tomb. The fact that millions of people have prayed along that way and in that place for over 1000 years makes them holy.

I can tell you from my time in both Rome and the Holy Land, there are places where one can feel the holiness of the centuries of prayer. We speak of the baptized as the members of the body of Christ. These places remind us that we are bound in one body not only with the person sitting next to us in church, but also across the centuries, with all the faithful followers of Christ, back to John and his brother James who we celebrate today.

St. James, pray for us ! Today.

Too ingenious

2011-07-23T07:32:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if perhaps God did not create us a bit too smart. Then I realize that once again it isn't the intelligence that's the problem, it's how we use it.

In today's first reading they people of Israel respond “We will do everything that the LORD has told us.” One has only to visit the country of Israel to see how far they have strayed from that. Judaism there is more ethnicity than religion.

Our Christian countries have done no better. In the latter half of the 20th century the phrase "Cafeteria Catholic" began to be used by some Catholics to beat up on other Catholics. Truth be told we all have the Cafeteria tendency. The left wants to leave behind the rules on worship and sexuality. The right likes to dismiss the social teaching as the fanciful invention of Vatican II.

When I said that I wonder if God didn't make us a bit too smart what I was referring to was our almost infinite capacity to rationalize. Instead of conforming ourselves to Christ and his gospel,we find it easier to conform the gospel to us.

We tend to read what reinforces what we like and avoid what we disagree with. Today's reading reminds us that we need to do precisely the opposite. We need to read and pray with those pieces of the church's teaching that we are least comfortable with. The more strongly we disagree with some part of church teaching, the more we need to immerse ourselves in it, to sink into until we find the heart of it.

As Catholics we do not believe that Holy Spirit dropped dead when the Bible was finished. We believe that the Holy Spirit was sent to teach and to guide the church. Just as the apostles played a unique role in the first generation, so the bishops have a unique role today in the proper interpretation of that faith.

In the Eucharist Jesus does not give us part of himself; he gives his entire self. In return we are asked to do the same thing, to give our entire self, every thought, word, and deed.

We will do everything that the LORD has told us, said the people of Israel.

Perhaps we will never make this statement fully true in this life, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.

Stop holding on to me

2011-07-22T07:31:00.000-04:00

For any of us who have, as we say, "lost loved one's", today's gospel given for the Memorial of St. Mary Magdalene hold a particular significance. At first, the command of Jesus for her to stop holding on can seem harsh. But he knows what she cannot yet understand. His journey, indeed his work is not complete.
Not until he completes the circle and returns to the Father, opening for each of us the way to heaven, is his mission complete.

When someone dies, it seems to me we have two tendencies that are not truly Christian in the fullest sense. One is to canonize them. To talk at funerals as if the moment they died their soul went straight to heaven, end of story.

To other is closely related to it. We also freeze them like beetles in amber. We attempt to freeze the image in our mind, the good and, let's be honest, the bad as well. Like Mary Magdalene we want to hold on to them just they way they were.

What we forget is that according to our Christian faith death is not the end of life, but more importantly it is not the end of change. In fact, except for those who have completely cut themselves off from God, the change that happens to us after what the world calls death may the the most important part of our journey.

In the gospel Jesus commands us to "be perfect." It seems a ridiculous and impossible command. It is, however, in that time after this earthly life that the possibility becomes reality. I know that there are those who have dismissed the notion of purgatory because the word per se is not in the Bible. But to me it is one of God's best gifts to us. The idea that when each of us completes the earthly part of our journey, God will then do two more things which will bring us to that true perfection.

First, God will cleanse of whatever imperfection remains, purgatory. Lastly, at the end of time when Christ returns he will "raise our moral bodies and make them like his own in glory." Then and only then will our journey be complete.

Many of us have relatives that we may love but who were in their earthly life far from perfect. The phrase "dysfunctional family" is ubiquitous for a reason. We should, however, keep in mind that, unless they were so evil as to warrant hell, they have undergone a great deal of change since their passing. Whether their purgatory is complete or not, they have changed at least some so that they are not exactly as you remember them, but better. And will be even better still. They are on their way to perfection, and in fact may already be far more perfect than you or me.

So stop holding on to the images of who our departed bothers and sisters were, let go of the person you remember, and look forward with true Christian hope to one day meeting the purged, perfected person that God intended them to be. And look forward to the hope that when the earthly part of our life is complete, God will then purge us of whatever remains that keeps us from being the person we were created to be. In the meantime we keep trying each day to be a little more like Christ.

Angels do exist

2011-07-20T18:20:00.001-04:00

You will not believe this story. I ran in the house fed the dog and turned around to run out to the hospital to see a parishioner. Car wouldn't start.
Knowing nothing about cars I'm trying to figure out what to do when a woman i don't know. Stops. Listens to the car drives back to her house for cables. Starts my car and tells me to hold on to the cables in case the car stalls on the way to the shop. She will stop by and get the cables some other time. And who says there are no angels.
I'm sitting at Mech Toyota waiting on my car and still amazed!!!

-Fr. Wayne Ball

Location:Walnut Grove Dr,Mechanicsville,United States

Miracles and Death

2011-07-19T07:19:00.001-04:00

Today's first reading with the drowning of the egyptians can be difficult for Christians to reconcile to our notion of God.

First of all, like many stories in the OT we know that it is told as it was perceived not with scientific accuracy. The chance that Pharaoh and ALL his army would have gone after a band of run-away slaves, died, and left no record outside the bible is slim. Of course, to the Israelites it seemed like the whole army.

Regardless of the numbers, it is their death that bothers us. We forget however that from God's perspective death in itself is not a bad thing. There are ways to die that are bad: abortion, homicide, suicide, torture, etc. but passing from this life is inevitable. Every person Jesus cured eventually died. Lazarus whom Jesus raised eventually died. Every human being must eventually pass from this life to their eternal destination. That is in fact the goal.

We should also remember that what makes a miracle a miracle is not that the laws of nature/physics are broken or suspended by that in the event people experience the presence of God. They get a glimpse of hand of God at work in their lives.

When the exodus story tells us that the people of Israel sang and danced, it is not intending to convey the idea that they were dancing over the corpses of their enemies. They sang and danced because they finally got it. After all their whining and complaining to Moses, they finally got at least some understanding of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Today if you look I think you will be surprised my the number of little miracles in your life, those little reminders of God's presence and love.

You have only to keep still

2011-07-18T06:49:00.001-04:00

Today we reach the well-known section of the Exodus story where the people are complaining about being brought out of Egypt. Pharaoh, and his chariots, and charioteers are closing in and Moses give them a simple instruction. You have only to keep still. In the midst of all the drama of the exodus story this simple instruction can go unnoticed. We remember the parting of the sea, the walls of water, but who remembers Moses telling them to keep still. After all, keeping still is hardly good movie material.

For us, to be still is difficult on two levels. First on the simply physical and mental level, meditation of contemplation may the most difficult forms of prayer. To still our bodies and our minds for even 10 mins when we first begin this practice can seem an eternity. We feel compelled to be busy.

The other aspect of the stillness to which Moses calls the people is trust. To keep still and do nothing requires an absolute trust in God. For everything there is a season. In some situations, to be a good Christian is to act, and non-action can be a sin of omission. In other situations, the best thing we can do is nothing.

How do we know which is which? Here we come full circle. Only by stilling ourselves and carefully examining our motives and listening carefully to our conscience, can we hope to know the right course.

Today try to find a few moments of stillness to rest in God. Doing nothing may be the most important thing you do all day.

It's all relative

2011-07-16T08:57:00.001-04:00

The first reading today tells us, "The time the children of Israel had stayed in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years." Imagine!

In our time, when the stop light turns green, how many seconds do we give the person in front of us to move before we start to get impatient. We send an email or text message and we want the answer NOW. And when the sender doesn't get an immediate response they then call.

How often are we really involved in something that is that time sensitive or critical? It seems the faster the technology moves the more we attach a sense of urgency to every aspect of life.

In itself this would not be bad were it not for the side effects. We are now coming to understand medically the impact of stress on not just the mind but the body. Even more importantly basically civility seems to be slipping away. It you simply take a moment and reflect on the transition from the letter, to email, to the text message, we can see how our communication has changed. Now if we manage a pls or thank u, we're doing good.

Old etiquette books would teach that a letter should never begin with the word "I". It was considered too self-centered.

I'm the last person to suggest that we abandon technology and return to writing on dead trees. But perhaps what I am suggesting is that we look for those opportunities in our daily life to slow down just a little, to focus on the other person, add back into our vocabulary the words and phrases that show care and respect, and to truly care about the answer when we ask, "How are you?"

Communication is more that the transmission of information. It is about relationship. It's root is the same as communion, to be one with. The people of Israel waited 430 years, perhaps today we can take 1 extra minute or even 2.

When we think no one is looking

2011-07-12T10:31:00.001-04:00

The first reading today recounts the process of Moses deciding to murder an Egyptian. He sees an Egyptian mistreating one of his people, looks around, thinks no one is around, and kills him. The implication is that if he had seen someone who could see him, he would not have done it for fear of being reported and punished.

While Moses should have decided not to kill, because it was wrong. He was like most of us. He had not reached that level of ethical maturity where one simply does good because it is good and avoids sin because it is sin. Until we reach that ethical perfection , fear can be a helpful tool. Fear is not always a bad thing. Fear can sometimes save us from ourselves.

The Italian language has no word for privacy. When needed it simply borrows the English word. We, on the other hand, at times seem obsessed with it. The harsh truth is that twenty-first century technology has almost made it a moot point for all of us.

Every phone has a camera and most are capable of recording, security cameras are all around, gps chips track our location. Even when you go to the bathroom, that smartphone in your pocket, and the system it is connected to know where you are. The Anthony trial told the world what us geeks have known for ages, search engines like google track your every search.

The more I reflect on this, however, the more I am convinced that it may be the best thing that could happen. In the late 20th century pornography flourished because people no longer had to go into a store. They could sit in the privacy of their home and like Moses think no one saw them. In the 21st century people are becoming aware that their Internet activity is not secret. Almost nothing goes unseen.

H.G Wells actually explored this theme in the Invisible Man. When no one can see him the invisible man looses his moral compass, and believes himself invincible. Fear and a sense of shame are really gifts from God.Like any gift they can be be distorted or misused, but in their proper place are good.

Today before you send that email, remember it's stored on a server, even after you delete it. Keep in mind the thought that would have saved Moses, if you don't want anyone to know about it, don't do it. It's more true today than ever.

People that change the world

2011-07-11T07:09:00.001-04:00

Real change is the world usually happens in what can seem to be a painfully slow pace, giving rise to the French saying, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Today two important things happen in the liturgy. We move from the book of Genesis to Exodus, and we celebrate St. Benedict of Nursia. Both of these mark true turning points.

If you have never read a book of the Bible in its entirety, now might be that time. Exodus is not only filled with great theology but is great story as well. Its opening sentence contains a simple yet ominous phrase, there came a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph. In an instant the lives of an entire people are forever changed.

Similarly, the second figure today, St. Benedict, would forever change the church. When I moved to Rome in 1998, the day I arrived, I was told there was a group there in the city headed the next day to Subiaco, and they needed a priest, and I was asked if I would go. Jet lagged I went, and to this day I consider it one of the great honors of my life to have celebrated mass in the cave.

For three years Benedict lived as a hermit in this cave, and it was here that that Holy Spirit planted in him the seeds that would grow up to shape not only the monastic community that he would found, but through "The Rule of St. Benedict", shape western monasticism as a whole. When Benedict first left the city for the area of Subiaco, he was simply looking to get away from the city, he was not on some great religious quest. God has other ideas.

How do we respond to the unexpected, the sudden change for which we are completely unprepared? These are the moments that test how much we truly trust God. Both of the aforementioned events were ultimately used by God to make an historic positive impact on the world, but at the time, neither was so clear. Each took years to come to fruition.

Patient constant trust in God's loving power.

Judgement Yes and no

2011-07-09T07:55:00.001-04:00

In the first reading we reach the end of the Joseph story, his father has died, and his brothers throw themselves at his feet, fearing that he might still harbor a grudge for what they did to him. He responds with a simple question: Can I take the place of God?

The question of judging others is not as simple as it may first appear. It is easy to say we should not judge others but on some level we must.

Here we need to distinguish between judging the action and judging the imputability of the action. On the surface, we may be able to clearly distinguish right from wrong and make the reasoned judgement that a particular action of a person is wrong. But as we move through the deeper questions it quickly moves beyond our ability to judge with any real certainty.

Our most common error/sin seems to be the speed with which we leap from action to intention. "He did that because..." Almost reflexively we attribute intention to someone's action. We further reveal our own egocentric qualities when we assume the intention has something to do with us. Someone walks past us without speaking, and we, in our narcissism, assume it was an intentional slight. Perhaps the person was simply preoccupied.

Questions of knowledge, intention, negligence, contrition can only be answered with absolute certainly by one who can read the heart. The only one who can do that is God.

Today's reading invites us to take note of the number of times in a single day we find ourselves judging others, and perhaps as we catch ourselves in the act, we can remember our own limitation.

The problem with translation

2011-07-08T07:19:00.001-04:00

The gospel today instructs us to be two two things. The translation I am looking at gives the two adjectives: cunning, and simply. They both seemed a bit odd. Cunning is rarely used in English in a good way, and simple here in the south was often used by my grandmother's generation to describe someone who was lacking in intelligence. Time to go to the original language of Christianity, not Latin but Greek.

The word translated here as cunning is

φρόνιμος it means intelligent, wise, prudent, looking after one's affairs. In our modern american symbology we think of owls not serpents.
The other adjective-
ακεριος does in fact mean simple, but in the sense of chemistry, something which is unmixed, pure, a single element.

Proof once more that translation is as much art as science and that there is rarely a perfect one to one correspondence between words of a different language.

Perhaps today is a time to look at our lives and see how well they reflect these two characteristics.

The problem with translation

2011-07-08T07:18:00.001-04:00

For you and for many

2011-07-07T07:10:00.001-04:00

The gospel today ends with a binary choice, those who accept the word and those who do not. Some people, in a well intentioned attempt to focus on God's love, wish to believe that in the end all will be saved. What they are forgetting is that while God's love is great, like all real love, it respects the dignity and the freedom of the other.

If there is no hell, and heaven is the only possibility for everyone, then there is no real or ultimate freedom. There is no choice about the most important aspect of our lives.

At the center of our understanding of the human person is our belief that one of, if not the most important attributes of being human is that freedom to choose. God loves every human being but for there to be a real relationship, that love must be freely accepted and returned.

While the Latin text of the consecratory prayer has not changed, the English translation is changing. The new text will read:

TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD, THE BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, WHICH WILL BE POURED OUT FOR YOU AND FOR MANY

This phrase "pro multis" (for many) reflects the text in Matthew's gospel. It reminds us that there are those who freely choose not to except God's love. Is it an uncomfortable phrase? Yes, because it reminds us of an uncomfortable truth.

Rather than trying to deny this truth, disguise it, or run away from it, the discomfort should compel us to action. If we accept the truth that there are people who are choosing a path that leads to destruction, even some people who we love, perhaps we will be disturbed enough by that thought that we will be moved to reach out, to offer example, and advice. And even when our advice is not heeded we should continue to pray for those whose lives have gone off the path. While the choice is ultimately theirs, we should never give up hope, or faith in the power of prayer.

From Jacob to Israel

2011-07-05T07:41:00.001-04:00

Today we have what for modern readers can be one of the most hard to understand stories in the Old Testament. One of the key difficulties is the tendency in some stories to interchange God and his messengers.

Today's reading is a story of redemption. Until now his name is Jacob, the usurper. God then sends a supernatural being, capable of defeating any natural being. Jacob defeats the being but only with the help of God, for only the power of God can defeat another supernatural power.

God forgives him. But because God is a just God he doesn't get off scot-free. He is left with a limp, a constant reminder of his dependence on God. As the final sign of his redeemer he is given a new name, Israel, the champion of God.

In our culture we hear lots of stories of people trying to "reinvent themselves." The only correction the Christian faith would make is to say, only God can remake us; we cannot remake ourselves. Thankfully the Bible is full of stories of the divine extreme makeover: Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul. In the last case he went from murderer to apostle. It doesn't get much better than that. It may require wrestling; it may involve pain; and it may leave a scar, but it can be done. By the grace of God.

Omnipresence of God

2011-07-04T07:59:00.001-04:00

In the first reading for today Jacob arrives at a Cannanite shrine located at Luz. He does not arrive there thinking of it as a religious place. For him it is simply a stopping point. He takes one of its stones and places it under his head as a kind of pillow. That night he has the dream in which God makes the great promise to him.

When he awakes he exclaims, "“Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!”

One of the fine lines it seems we have to walk has to do with where we believe God is present. Related to this is the matter of how God is present.
For us as Catholics, it is not simply a matter of saying, God is in this place and God is not in that place. God is present in different ways in different places.

At the center of our faith is the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
There is the presence of God in his word.
There is the presence in each of baptized, and in a special way in those ordained to the priesthood.

When the Catholic Church speaks of these presences we do not do so in an exclusive way, as if to say God is present here and no where else. While at particular moments in history we have failed to live our teaching, the church has consistently held that we cannot limit God.

Today, as we mark 235 years since the U.S. Declaration of Independence which is rooted in a belief in God and natural law, we find ourselves having to interact with non-Christian religions, and particularly Islam more than ever before. What should our attitude toward Muslims, and all non-Christians, especially those who live here as Americans be?

The Church's 1965 Declaration on Non-Christian Religions(Nostra Aetate) gives us some fairly simple guidance:

The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.

Like Jacob we may find signs of the presence of God in places we do not expect.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

2011-07-02T07:58:00.001-04:00

We often use this title for God without thinking very much of the complexity that it signifies. For as much as we may wish the world could simply be divided into good and evil, us and them, these three names from the beginning of our faith reminded us of how complicated the world can be.

Today's first reading reminds us that by all rights it have been Esau instead of Jacob whom we recall. Jacob only received his father's blessing because of a lie, a conspiracy. Some may want to blame his mother, since she is the one who hatches the conspiracy. But we cannot forget that three times Isaac asks Jacob a question. Three times he is given an opportunity. And three times he chooses to lie to his blind, aged, and dying father. With each lie the sin becomes worse, because he has more time to reflect, and another opportunity to repent. He does not instead he steals his brothers blessing.

If the world were as simple as some people want it, God would have struck him dead instantly. I am still amazed at the number of people who think when something bad happens in their life it must be God punishing them. Ours is not a God who watches our every move, blessing and punishing us as we go. Our judgement comes at the end of life.

As we will see Jacob is allowed to keep the stolen blessing to see what he will do with it, more sin or conversion.

No person except Mary was preserved free from sin. We are all a mixed bag. When someone falls why does our culture rush so quickly to let the sin wipe away all the good they have done or perhaps will do. Only God can see the totality of a person's life, and therefore only God can judge.
We all know the scripture "Judge not and you will not be judged"(Lk. 6:37)
Why is it so hard to live it? If we focused our energy on monitoring our own words and actions in the right way, we would not be able to focus so much on others. Perhaps we focus on others to avoid really looking at ourselves.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each is a man both great and flawed, signs to us of a God who is both merciful and just.

Dying for Christ

2011-06-30T07:19:00.001-04:00

Since the first sin, and Adam's attempt to blame Eve, people have search for scapegoats, others whom they could blame for their mistakes. Such was the case of the emperor Nero, after the great fire in Rome.

We do not know the exact number, or the names, of all the Christians who died during the persecution. We do know that some were set ablaze as human torches, others were crucified, or faced some other equally excruciating death. These are the ones we celebrate today as the First Martyrs (protomartyrs) of Rome.

What Nero could not see was that the deaths of the martyrs, rather than scaring people away from the Christian faith, drew people to it. As only God can do, a horrible event was transformed into one that gave life to the church. If God can transform this, can he not also transform any negative event in our own lives?

What is a Pallium?

2011-06-29T08:02:00.001-04:00

I can still remember well, not long after completing my J.C.L. at the gregorian in Rome in June of 2000, attending the mass at st. Peter's Square when the Holy Father gave each recently named Archbishop his pallium. Each year on this day, June 29, the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, newly named archbishops from around the world gather in heat of the Roman summer to receive the one vestments that distinguishes a bishop from and archbishop.

The modern western Catholic pallium is a simple three-fingers wide band of wool that is worn around the neck with a short piece that hangs down in back and front. Last night they would have been placed at the tomb of Peter under the basilica. They are worn by the archbishops as a sign of unity with the Church the Supreme Pontiff, the Pope. The wool recalls the image of the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep home on his shoulders.

For those who find the structure of the church confusing We start by recalling that God wills the salvation of all, and the command at the end of Matthew's gospel to go and teach all nations. That mission is then shared with smaller groups of the faithful with a particular title for the leader

The universal church has as it's leader the supreme pontiff, the pope.
The world is then divided into provinces, each with an Archbishop. Provinces are made up of two or more dioceses, each with a bishop.
Each diocese is is then divided into parishes, each with a pastor.

For every person on earth their is some person who is their pastor, someone who is their bishop or Archbishop. A person living near me would be said to live in St. Patrick's parish, in the Diocese of Richmond, in the Province of Baltimore. A Pastor or Bishop is charged with the pastoral care of every person living within their parish, even the non-Catholics.

The American Model in which each person chooses their parish family by shopping around and then registering with the one that best suits their taste has no basis in our law or theology. And the idea that a pastor and his parish is only responsible to care for those who are properly registered and contribute ignores our call to evangelization of those who have yet to receive and accept the good news and our mission to retrieve the lost sheep.

Today's mass reminds us of the call to reach out to the ends of the earth with all the means at our disposal and bring all peoples into the one flock of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. As i have told the people of my two parishes, we can sit back and rest when every person living within the bounds of our parish is in some way an active member of that parish, until then we have work to do.

As the archbishops today have that piece of wool placed around their neck, I would ask you to pray for them and for all of us who are called to shepherd, to pastor, our small portion of the people of God, the Church.

Intercession and Infamy

2011-06-27T09:23:00.001-04:00

We continue to read the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis. Today our attention is focused on probably the most infamous town in the Old Testament, Sodom. The reading is, however, only indirectly about their sin.
Instead, it is meant to be another moment when Abraham serves a a model.

As the story goes, Abraham hears what the Lord is about to do and his first response is not to pile on. Instead, his first response is to look for some little bit of good that might be there, and to ensure justice.
He begins by asking for the two cities not to be destroyed if there are 50 just people, a tiny fraction of the population of two cities. And God agrees.

Then Abraham begins the negotiation. Normally, it is not good to negotiate with God but here it is meant to demonstrate Abraham's concern for even a few. Abraham then starts the classic haggle. Being both deferential and persistent, he works he way down to the number 10. And God, being a God of justice, agrees that if there are even 10 innocent people, he will not destroy the city.

On one level Abraham does not yet understand God. He does not understand that God is a just God, and would not punish the innocent. But more important is what Abraham models for us.

First, he looks for the good that is there no matter how small. Are we people how look for the good in every situation or do we focus on the negative?

Secondly, he understands the power of intercessory prayer. Not because it guarantees that we will get what we want, but because even when we don't get what we want we get something we need.

Thirdly, he seeks justice for every single soul. He does not judge people in groups. Nor does he believe in acceptable collateral damage. Already at this earliest phase of the story he models our believe in the dignity of every human person and their right to justice.

Today can we see every individual around us, treat them with the dignity they deserve, and pray for those in need.

Good or just good enough

2011-06-26T07:55:00.001-04:00

How good do we really want to be?

In the office of Readings for today, St. Thomas Aquinas writes, "Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods."

That is his goal to truly transform us, to make us like Christ, to make us part of Christ. Toward that end he gave us the Eucharist, where the Church gathers, and Christ become truly present through simple food of bread and wine. At communion that real presence of Christ goes from the altar to each of us so that "he might make us gods."

But do we really want to be like Christ? To truly be transformed in this way means that we would surrender ourselves, "thy will be done." Our free will would at every moment be directed toward doing the will of the father.

What I suspect most of really want is to hold on to our earthly self, our will, our desires, and have god make us just good enough to get into heaven, not truly and completely good. That way we can still have fun and in the end have eternal life, the best of both worlds. Or so we think.

What our feeble minds fail to grasp is the paradox of Christianity. The only path to real freedom is when I surrender my will to the will of God. The only way I can find my true self is to lose myself in Christ.

After 50 years of Catholics drifting away from faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it seems the tide is turning and younger Catholics are returning to faith in the real presence and expression of that faith such as prayer before the blessed sacrament. That is a good first step.

The next and even more critical question is: Are they, are we, ready on this Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ to take the next step, to truly open our entire being, our entire life, to the transforming power of Christ in the Eucharist?

The Holy Trinty

2011-06-25T07:48:00.001-04:00

If you were to look for an icon of the Holy Trinity, surprisingly the most famous one takes its inspiration from the Old Testament, from today's first reading (Gn. 18). In this reading Abraham gives us the perfect model of Hospitality.

When we think of virtues we think of things like patience, or the three theological virtues of faith, hope and love. In the OT one of the most important virtues is that of hospitality. As a somewhat nomadic culture, they understood that it was necessary for survival. We understand it as an aspect of love.

In the story three men are coming down the road. They do not approach Abraham and ask for help. It is Abraham, as the good host, who goes out and invites them, begs them, to do him the favor of stopping. He then goes on to offer them the best that he has.

After they have eaten they tell him that this time next year he will have a son. And we get the famous moment when Sarah laughes.

Later Christian iconographers, like Andrei Rublev, will use these three men as the image of the Holy Trinity.

It is worth noting that at the time Abraham offered the hospitality to the strangers, he had no idea that they were any thing more than travelers. Abraham saw three men traveling on a hot road and felt compassion. His compassion gave rise to his hospitality.

Most of us would like to think that we are compassionate. The real measure, it would seem, is whether or not our compassion moves us to action. If not, are we truly compassionate, or is our compassion merely an abstract idea in our minds?

Like all virtues, the only way we grow in them is by practice.

The often forgotten Hagar

2011-06-23T07:54:00.001-04:00

Today we turn to what happens when Abram and Sarai become impatient and loose hope in the promise God made them. When they turn from trust in God, sin comes quickly.

While many of our English translations use the word maid, the reality is that Hagar is a slave. Sarai give her to her husband who rapes her and when she discovers she is pregnant, she is rightly angry.

Some commentaries try to justify the slavery and rape by saying that it was accepted custom in the land from which Abram came. This ignores the fact that slavery, adultery, and rape, are all contrary to the law of God, regardless of what human law might accept them. It is important for us to cast this in stark clarity because it was precisely our human capacity to rationalize sin, that lead Abram and Sarai into such sin.

God made a promise. He did not fulfill it in what they saw as a reasonable time, and so they decided to take matters into their own hands. The fundamental dignity of every human person, the fundamental dignity of Hagar, was lost in their desire to have a child, NOW.

This would seem to be a story from the ancient past but for the fact that slavery, or human trafficking as we politely called it, still exists in the world and in the U.S. It doesn't get much attention but is very real. As we remember the tragic story of Hagar, let us pray for the thousands who live in slavery today.

Click here for More information from Catholic Relief Services

Nature, Nurture, or something else

2011-06-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

In today's gospel we hear the famous metaphor of the fruit tree, and how you can judge a tree by it's fruit. For as true as this may be, there is one striking difference between humans and trees. No matter how I raise an apple tree, I cannot get it to bear oranges. I tree cannot change the kind of fruit it bears.

Growing up in the 60's in Danville, my parents were foster parents to an enormous number of children, mostly newborns. Including the three of us whom they adopted, I believe there were more than 100 total. I got an up close look at how human personality takes shape.

In those days there was a great shift occurring. An older generation saw humans much like other animals. For them it was a matter of breeding. You would hear them use expressions like "bad blood", convinced that people were doomed to turn out like their parents. We then shifted to a model that wanted to believe that they all came into the world the same, it was all about how they were raised, the nurture camp.

Happily we seemed to have come to recognize that it is not an either or, but a complex of both. Watching those babies, what science now acknowledges was clear. There are certain aspects that we are born with. There are also other aspects that are the result of how a child is raised.

What the debate seems to forget is the third part of the equation, and for my money the most important part, will. Will is the part that truly sets us apart and makes us human.

More and more we discover that part of who we are is hard-wired into us, it is indeed part of the genetic code. There are other aspects that are clearly the result of the family and culture in which we were raised. But over and above both these is how we choose to respond to both our traits by nature and traits by nurture that distinguishes us. What separates us from the trees is that we can choose how we respond to our inclinations, our urges, our cultural bias. We have the freedom to decide on a daily basis what kind of fruit we will bear. On a minute by minute basis we choose.

Working with mental health patients for a number of years I saw those patients who would choose to take their medicine and those who would not, knowing the results that would follow. Only those with the most extreme forms of mental illness or developmental disability can be said to lack this ability. For the rest of us it is a choice.

It may be that you have a tendency to be short tempered. It may be that you have a tendency to be stubborn, or judgmental. But you can choose whether or not to express that in your words and actions. We are nature, nurture, and free will.

Peaches or persimmons which will you bear today.

The easy road

2011-06-21T11:24:00.001-04:00

One of my favorite books is C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letter. Lewis writes the book from the reverse, as a series of correspondence between a senior level demon, and his nephew who is only a junior tempter. The book gives instructions on how to lure humans away from the enemy, God, and into their Father's House, hell.

In today's first reading we see a similar style in the character of Lot. While in Genesis we can count on Abram to do what is right, we can also count on Lot to do the wrong thing. Lot symbolizes the bad tendencies in us.

It is worth noting that both these men are quite rich. People tend to think of Abram as a man who walked off with nothing but the clothes on his back. This does not square with the story.

In today's reading, the two families are quarreling so much that Abram asked that they separate and give Lot the choice. Lot, of course, chooses the area that looks the best, the land that appears to be most fertile. Abram contents himself with what is left. In Lot part is the city of Sodom.

Lot thinks he is smart, taking what look best, pitching his tents near the city. We of course know what really happens.

Before we judge Lot too quickly perhaps we need to use Lot as the mirror in which we judge ourselves. How often do we like Lot judge by appearance? How often do we keep the best for ourselves and our kinsmen and give what's left to others? How often do we choose what appears at the time to be the easiest path?

How many of us, in a similar situation, would have really followed the example of Abram, and been willing to step down in a fight, been willing to let the other person choose, been willing to content ourselves with the leftovers?

In today's gospel Jesus addresses these choices using the image of two gates, wide gate and the narrow gate. While our natural inclination would be to use the wide gate that is easy to get through, Jesus tells us to choose the narrow gate.

Today let us look for those opportunities to put someone ahead of ourselves, let someone go first, do the thing that makes a little more work for ourselves but in the long run is better for our environment. Have the courage to choose the narrow gate.

The Beginning

2011-06-20T07:32:00.001-04:00

We think of the beginning of the bible as the story of creation. We now know that the creation stories are not the oldest part of Genesis.
Today's first reading really takes us to the beginning of the story of the people of Israel, the call of Abram (not yet Abraham.)

75 years old the story tells us, a sign of dependence on God. Not by his own strength and prowess will he do what he does.

God calls his, tells him to leave his homeland, and does not tell him where he is going, he simply made a list of promises to him.

Abram trusted God's promised, packed up, and left. The German translation captures the Hebrew better than the English. (Da zog Abram weg)The English says merely he left. The German makes clear that this wasn't just leaving one home to move to another, this was leaving like a nomad to wander, with no clear sense of the destination. This was the first great leap of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

No matter how many times I read this passage I am always left with the same question, do I trust God that much? Do I have that much faith?

Faith here is not assent to a list of beliefs. Faith here is an absolute trust, an absolute confidence that the promises made by God will be fulfilled. For us as Christians it's promises like
I am with you always until the end of the earth
the one who lives and believes in me will never die

Do I have the absolute confidence of Abram? Am I willing to follow Jesus even when I don't see the exact destination of a particular journey? Can I simply follow him today, and trust that he will be there to lead me tomorrow?

When do we have enough?

2011-06-18T08:19:00.001-04:00

In today's reading St. Paul continues to boast about his weakness and particularly the famous thorn in the flesh. No one knows what this particular problem was . What we do know fro, St. Paul is that he begged God to take it away and God did not.
God simply tells him, "My grace is sufficient for you."
The word used here carries the sense of someone who has enough, someone who is content. Imagine if we could each say that from the heart.

God's grace is enough for me.

Paul clearly did not come to this understanding in an instant. One has only to read his letters to know the struggle in his own life. In our own moments of discontent can we hear the voice of Jesus speaking to us those same words, "My grace is sufficient for you." Can we meditate on these words as we receive this grace in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, allow the grace to fill us, and be content with what we have received.

Weakness

2011-06-17T08:48:00.001-04:00

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

So ends the first reading today. But how many of us are really willing to follow the example of St. Paul. Instead, we attempt to declare our weakness a medical condition. We feel the need to give every child a prize so that they never know what it feels like to lose. We call our senior groups things like "young at heart" to avoid the reality of aging. And I'm sure each of us can find many other example of how we flee from our own weakness and human frailty.

St. Paul follows Jesus in teaching us that it is only when we can face our weakness head on, name it, and embrace it, that Christ can begin to truly heal. It. Sometimes that healing means taking it away, and some times it does not.

I have Cerebral Palsy. I am disabled. I am handicapped. I have never felt the need to call myself "differently abled." But which of us does not have some handicap in this life. The CP just happens to have been visible from day one. Some could argue that makes it easier. Was I ever angry at God? Did I ever cry "Why me?" Did I ever wish it would go away? Sure.

In the end we learn that Paul is right. The path to happiness lies in embracing our weaknesses, visible and invisibles, and commending them to God so that they may be transformed into sources to strength, as Christ transformed the Cross into a sign of life and hope.