Homily Notes for Trinity Sunday, June 3, 2007

(Actually, we will have a visiting speaker to talk about Cristo Rey High School. Below are reflectionsthat would have been developed into a homily for Trinity Sunday.)
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity. Each year, there is the same cycle of feasts after Easter: Pentecost, The Feast of the Holy Trinity and the Feast of Corpus Christi (The Body and Blood of Christ). I often find these feasts difficult to speak about.
The Trinity is about relationships, the relationship of Jesus to the Father and the relationship of the Spirit who comes from them and our sharing in that relationship.
Appropriately, I picked up a new book by Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. It is titled Jesus of Nazareth. It is written in his own name and in the introduction he says it is not a magisterial act but an expression of his own personal search for the face of the Lord. He says everyone is free to contradict him and asks only the initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding. I’ve can’t recall a Pope writing in such a personal and humble way.
The book is academic – he’s a real scholar – but readable. Even if you aren’t familiar with all the academic issues, you could still gain a lot from it. So I would recommend it. (Big of me!)
I like his emphasis, which I quote from the book jacket. “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. … He has brought God, and now we know his face, we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope and love.”
In my lifetime people have portrayed Jesus as many things. I’ve learned from all of them. But I like the simplicity of the Pope’s language. Jesus didn’t come to serve any of our ideologies. He came to reveal God. With God all of these other things have meaning. Without God, they are meaningless. I’m looking forward to getting more deeply into the book.

Homily for May 27, 2007 Pentecost Sunday

A doctor who comes to me for spiritual direction gave me a book this past week that I wish I would have had about 5 years ago. It's a story about a professional storyteller, Joel ben Izzy who lost his voice in surgery. The Book is the Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness. This storyteller, after months of depression, ran into his old teacher who challenged him and insulted him a lot, too.
In the course of their dialogue he asked him what happened, and, when he told him the teacher said, "So what's the point? Every story, if it's a good story, has a moral. What's the point?"
And Joel ben Izzy said, "I don't know." And he challenged him to finish the story, and he said, "But I don't know how it ends."
And he said, "Well, keep talking and the ending will find you." Well, that story meant a lot to me for obvious reasons, but also it became a way for me of thinking of the feast of Pentecost that we celebrate today.
Pentecost is one moment in an ongoing story. It's a feast day in the life of the Jewish people. It was originally an agricultural feast, and it's a moment in the life of the early church. The Acts of the Apostles is the continuation of Pentecost.
One of our inquirers who is looking into the Catholic Church has been reading that book recently, and he told me what an inspiration it's been to him. If anybody wants to begin reading the Scriptures I would suggest you begin with that book. It's volume two in a two-volume work. The first volume is the Gospel of Luke. The second volume is the Acts of the Apostles. And there's probably a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth volume and so on.
And I don't know what volume we're in, but I think what I would like to suggest is we're in the middle of a continuing story. It's the continuing story of the church; the continuing story of God's Spirit coming into our hearts; the continuing story of the incarnation, of God becoming flesh and blood in human life; of all of us becoming little Christs to the world. And we don't know how that story is unfolding.
Oftentimes, you know, if you're in the middle of a story and you only know the story from within, all you know is your own feelings and your own perceptions, and you know little pieces that come to you piecemeal. And we don't know the overall pattern.
Sometimes if you're in the middle of the story, all you know is that you want out of that story. And this particular storyteller's teacher told him that and he said, "What would you do if you were in the middle of telling a story and one of your characters wanted out?"
And he said, "My characters never want out of my stories." But, can you relate to that? Sometimes you feel like you're in a story that you'd like to get out of, and you don't have a choice but to keep on talking, keep on acting, keep on telling the story, and the ending will find you. Maybe we don't know the ending yet.
Anyway, that's where Pentecost comes home to me now. You and I are all in the middle of an ongoing story. Maybe all we know is our own feelings and perceptions, but the promise of God is there, and we know that if we just keep on talking the ending will find us, and it will be a beautiful ending because it's being written by God's Spirit of love.
I want to end, too, just by making a comment on the second reading. I wish they'd have continued that reading when they put the lectionary together, because at the end of that chapter, the eighth chapter, of Paul's letter to the Romans there's a passage that I find very beautiful, where he says, "The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness, because even when we don't know how to pray, God's Spirit makes intercessions for us with sighs that are too deep for words, and God who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit means."
So think for a moment of those times in your life when all you could do was sigh. God's Spirit was within that sigh, and God knew and knows what the Spirit means, and God hears that prayer.

Homily Notes for Pentecost, May 27, 2007

These notes are the same as my bulletin letter but are thoughts that will be developed in the homily on Sunday. As we celebrate Pentecost, we also celebrate Memorial Day and remember those who gave their lives for their country. With the theme of story and continuing story, we honor their stories and also ask, "What is the point?" What is the moral of their story and how do we continue it?
Someone who comes to me for Spiritual Direction recently gave me the gift of a book by Joel ben Izzy, a storyteller who woke from surgery unable to speak. (The title of the book is The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness.) His story, at least in its beginning, was like mine. The nerve to his vocal chord had been permanently damaged. After months of depression, he met his old teacher who asked him to tell his story. When Joel described what had happened his teacher challenged him to finish the story. “What’s the point of the story?” the teacher asked. “There isn’t a story until you have a moral.” What is the gift in your losing your voice? The teacher challenged him to seek the meaning in what had happened to him. The book is a collection of stories intermingled with his own story of searching. I haven‘t finished the book yet. So I can’t tell you how it ends. But that’s Joel’s story. The challenge of the book for me is to continue writing my own story.
The book is meaningful to me for obvious reasons. I think it is also relevant to the feast we celebrate today. Pentecost was a Jewish feast connected with agricultural cycles. It became a Christian feast when the Holy Spirit came down. In one sense, it was a moment in a continuing story. As I mentioned last week, there is a cycle of going out and returning, descending and ascending, finding meaning and returning to share it. Pentecost is a moment in that cycle. Jesus ascended. The disciples waited. The Spirit came upon them. They went out. The Gospel story continued in their lives. The book of Scripture called the Acts of the Apostles is the beginning of that story. It is volume two in a two-volume work. The first volume was the Gospel of Luke. And the story is not ended. Volumes III, IV, V and… are still being written.
What is the point? The story is continuing in our living out the mystery of the Incarnation, of God’s Son becoming flesh and blood. Christ continues to be born in us. We become little Christs. The Spirit continues to be poured out. We continue to go out. Our individual stories are part of a much larger story. As we tell our stories, we realize that they aren’t over. They are moving toward an end, a meaning. What is the ending? The teacher, Lenny, tells Joel to start talking, continue talking and the ending will find you.
Good advice. Continue talking. Continue going out. Continue trying to be a little Christ. Continue telling your story and continue living it. The ending will find you. And it will be a beautiful ending because it is God’s Spirit breathing life into you and your story.

Homily for May 20, 2007 Feast of the Ascension

Homily May 20, 2007

Today we celebrate the feast of the Ascension. We used to do it on Thursday, but I think they decided that you all wouldn't come to church on Thursday and so you wouldn't celebrate the feast. So a few years ago they moved the Feast of Ascension from Ascension Thursday to Sunday, so Ascension Thursday is no more. It's now Ascension Sunday.
And in talking about it, I first want you to feel a rhythm that's just throughout all of creation, a rhythm of going out and coming back, a rhythm of going down and coming up, or going up and coming down. Think of the ebb and the flow of the sea. Think of the flow of rivers into the sea, and the evaporation of the water back into the sky, and the coming down of the rain and the watering the earth, and it flowing again into the river and back into the sea and back up to the sky, that rhythm which is part of creation. Can you think, before I go on, of other ways in which we experience that rhythm?
[Inaudible response]
Okay, exactly. Today we celebrate the Ascension. Jesus goes up, but the Spirit is going to come down. By the way - I'll say this again next week - but somebody was telling me recently that they read something. You know, we use the dove as the sign of the Spirit, and they were saying the dove is too quiet; we ought to use a goose as the sign of the Spirit, because it comes down with a great deal of noise and flutter. Anyway, that's for next week.
You see, there is that rhythm. I want to quote two Scripture passages to kind of fix that rhythm. In Isaiah, Isaiah says, as God saying, "Just as the rain comes down and waters the earth, and makes the seed sprout and grow, giving food for people, so shall my word be that goes forth. It will not return to me empty but will accomplish the purpose for which I sent it."
John begins his Gospel by saying this: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was in the beginning with God and through Him all things came to be, and apart from Him nothing came to be. And whatever came to be in Him was life for the light of the world. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.
“There was a man sent from God named John, who came as a witness to the light to testify to it. He was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The real light was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Who He was. He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. But to as many as received Him He gave the power to become children of God, who were born, not by carnal desire or by the will of man, but of God. And we have seen His glory.”
A few months ago we celebrated Christmas. The Word came down and was made flesh. Within that we celebrated the cycle of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. He poured out His life and went back to the Father, came back as a risen body. Today we celebrate the Ascension. He ascended again to the Father, but we await the coming of the Spirit. And the Spirit will come and the Spirit will send out the Apostles, and they will return. With each cycle, life in creation and the fullness of God gets richer and richer and richer.
When Jesus descended and He ascended again, He took our mortal flesh with Him so that human nature is now in God, and we ascended with Him. And the Spirit comes and again gathers people and brings them back, and we ascend. That cycle is going on and on, and in all of the great spiritual leader you can find that cycle. …
For example, an image of that cycle is Moses who went up the mountain and came down to instruct us. In every great religion people go out in search of wisdom and enlightenment and life. But what happens when they find it? They come back and they bring it back, and they enlighten the rest of us.
Anyway, those are just some very basic images of our faith. And maybe in each of our lives we can identify those same cycles of emptying and being filled, of going out and coming back, of descending into the depths and being lifted up again, and going down and up. Can you feel that cycle?
And today as we celebrate the liturgy, there is that cycle: The bread and the wine that we have gathered, symbolic of all of the earth that God has watered and made fruitful, and all of the work that we do gathering it is brought here. It's lifted up, and Jesus - I don't know if this is theologically accurate, but I'm going to say it - Jesus comes down and we offer Him to God, and we offer ourselves with Him, and we are lifted up. And at the end of Mass we send you out, and we send you out that you might go out and embrace more and more of the world, and more and more of humanity, and bring it back with you next Sunday. So, let's celebrate that cycle in our life.

Homily Notes for May 20, Feast of the Ascension

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, the Return of Jesus to the Father. Our celebrations of the works of God through the year are a rhythmic cycle of Going Out and Returning.

We have celebrated Christmas. Jesus, the Eternal Word of God through whom all things were made, became Flesh and lived among us.
We have celebrated Good Friday. Jesus poured out his life as an offering.
We have celebrated Easter. Jesus appears with a risen body. He instructs his disciples.
We celebrate Ascension. Jesus returns to the Father. Jesus sends us out.
We look forward to His coming again.

Going out and Returning. In Latin, Exitus-Reditus. Jesus went out from the Father, received our humanity and returns to the Father. He sends us out to gather humanity into one in His love. The disciples wait, are filled with the Spirit and then sent out.

Isaiah says:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55: 10-11)

There is a rhythm of going out and returning in our lives and in God’s revelation. In each going out and returning, the world is made more complete. God’s purpose is achieved.

Jesus returns to the Father with a glorified body. Our humanity returns with him. We are sent out and return with that part of creation we have touched and brought into our lives.

Each week, we go out from Church, encounter our world and come back. Through it all something wonderful is being built up.

In today’s second reading, Paul writes to the Ephesians. He has a prayer.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
 give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation
 resulting in knowledge of him.
 May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,
 that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call,
 what are the riches of glory
 in his inheritance among the holy ones,
 and what is the surpassing greatness of his power
 for us who believe, 
in accord with the exercise of his great might:
 which he worked in Christ. (Ephesians 1: 17-20)

There is another sense of going out and returning in all great religious traditions. The seeker goes out in search of wisdom, enlightement, salvation, love, actualization -- the words with which we describe whatever "it" is can be multiplied. But the one who has found it always returns to share it with others, to teach others. It isn't something to be grasped at or exploited. It is something to be freely and graciously shared.

Can we feel the difference between "getting and grabbing and holding" and receiving and returning to share?

This is just a beginning reflection. Some thoughts to play with and let take root in my thoughtsand life.

Can we feel that rhythm in our lives? Can we believe it is filled with the power of God? Something Major League wonderful is being built.

Homily for May 13, 2007

Homily May 13, 2007, Mothers’ Day, Sixth Sunday of Easter.

Since it's Mothers' Day, I hope you'll indulge me a little moment of silliness. I remember it was on Mothers' Day 11 years ago today that I first came here, and I was quoting from a book. I've long since lost the book. The book was Heart Talks with Mother God, and in that book there was a little ditty that I sang. And of course I can't sing now the way I could then, but I'm going to try to teach you that little ditty today, okay? I think it goes like this: “Mother God, Mother God on your lap hold me. I feel secure when your arms enfold me. Mother God, Mother God, how I love you.” Can you sing that?

[All singing]: Mother God, Mother God, on your lap hold me. I feel secure when your arms enfold me. Mother God, Mother God how I love you."

That's a nice little ditty, isn't it? And I just always like to begin on Mothers' Day with the reminder that it is as true to say God is our mother as it is to say God is our father. In fact, there are a lot of mother images of God in the Bible that get buried. I just want to share one of them with you that I think relates very much to motherhood. And I am not a scholar of Hebrew, though I know just a little bit, enough to be dangerous. But somebody told me that in Hebrew there are no abstract words, or there are no words for abstract concepts. So what they do is they take something concrete and make it plural. So for example, we often read about the compassion of God, but there is no Hebrew word for "compassion." So, do you know what they use when they want to speak of God's compassion? The plural of the word "womb." So whenever you read of God's compassion it's really speaking of God's womb and of God's womblike love, because the womb knows how to nurture and how to protect without possessing, and it knows how to nurture and let go into new life. Does that seem an appropriate image of motherhood? That was just kind of something at the beginning of the homily. The other thought I had connecting with the readings and with Mothers' Day is, do you know Jesus left very few detailed instructions for the church? He didn't spell it out for us, what we were supposed to do. Instead He said, "I'll send you my Spirit, and my Spirit will teach you what to do. And so, figure it out." That almost seems appropriate for motherhood, too, doesn't it? I mean, there aren't any detailed manuals that children come with, and there aren't any detailed instructions. God says, "Figure it out, and my Spirit will be with you." And so it's not surprising that in the early church there were a lot of conflicts and a lot of arguments as they tried to figure it out. The first reading today gives us one of those big arguments in the early church, and that was what to do about the Jewish law, especially for Gentile converts to Christ. The issues were: Should they be circumcised? Should they keep the dietary laws? Should they keep the laws of purity? And some said you can't be saved unless you do those things. And others said, "No, you're saved by grace. You're saved by God's love and by faith." Now, those particular issues are long since gone, but that underlying conflict has been with us throughout the centuries, and it surfaces again and again in various ways. Let me just ask you very succinctly, "How are you saved? Are you saved because of your success in living up to the standards of the law? Or are you saved by God's grace?” What do you think? God's grace? How many would agree with me? Okay. We all know that, but deep down isn't there part of us that has that nagging feeling that we have to save ourselves by doing everything right? I mean, don't you? You know - I'm fond of quoting this - that in every relationship, or most relationships, one person wants it more than the other, and one person is always bending over backwards, going the extra mile, taking the first step. And in our relationship with God, who wants it most? God does, but many of us have lived our life as if God was looking for an excuse to break it off, and God isn't. God wants to be related to us far more. Now, if I were to apply that to Mothers' Day, I think of all the beautiful Mothers' Day cards that people send. If I were a mother they would make me feel very guilty. Can you relate to it? I mean, you know, those of you who are mothers, think of your image of the ideal mother. Think of your image of the ideal children. Think of your image of the ideal relationship between mother and child. How many of you live up to that perfectly? [Inaudible response] Kat said, "Can you tell our kids when they get back that we're not supposed to live up to that perfectly?" Do you know where I'm going? If we hold that ideal too much in our mind and measure ourselves against the ideal, we can end up beating ourselves up pretty badly, and we can end up getting beaten up pretty badly. Contrasted to that is grace. One of my heroes as a spiritual writer is Gerald May, and in one of his books he says the ultimate moment of sanity for parents - and I would add, maybe the ultimate moment of grace - is when you walk in to your child's bedroom and the child is asleep, and in that moment you don't have to do anything about the child. You don't have to fix it, you don't have to correct it, you don't have to manage it, and you don't have to do anything about yourself in relation to the child. You can just enjoy the mystery and the wonder of who they are. Can you relate to that? There are moments of grace in our lives, aren't there? I mean, I think often they come in the midst of our striving to do the right thing and to be the right thing. I don't want to be misinterpreted as saying you don't have to do anything. So let go of the ideal. I think we always try to live toward it. But there are moments that come to us in the midst of our striving when we are aware of something wonderful beyond all of our striving, something mysterious that can reach out and envelope us and grab us, and for which we can just simply feel grateful. Think for a moment, can you recall moments of grace in your life? I hope we all can, and I just want to invite you for a minute or two to recall some moments of grace, and maybe savor them and taste them again and hold them before God

Homily for May 6, 2007

Homily May 6, 2007 When I looked ahead to this day, I remembered my own First Communion. It was 60 years ago in this same church. And I remember I was sitting right about here, because the pews came all the way up to the communion rail then. And there were about 60 of us, because the school had a lot of kids in it then and there were two second grades. And I'm going to share with you some of my memories and invite you as you listen, maybe to think of your own memories of your First Communion. I remember first of all, we got here very early because our First Communion was at the 7:30 Mass on Sunday morning. There was a reason for that, because in those days you couldn't eat from midnight the night before, so we had it early in the morning. And we got to school, and Sister had signs over all the drinking fountains warning us not to drink, because there was always that fear that some poor little boy or girl would forgot and take a drink of water and not be able to make their First Communion. Thank God those days are gone. But I remember the nuns were fussing over us, and we felt very important. I remember that I felt very much a sense of belonging. My family was proud of me, and afterwards we had a big party at home and I was the center of attention. I was sharing this with somebody last week and they said that hasn't changed much, so I realize as we do this, I'm talking and I hope I'm the center of attention, at least for this little snippet of time. I remember I got lots of presents. I was happy, immensely happy, to be who I was and to belong to the family that I belonged to. I knew that I was a child of God, and I knew that God loved me, and I knew that my family loved me. And do you know, I think those memories have been with me for 60 years or more. Those are my memories. Would any of you want to add your good memories and feelings about your First Communion? [Inaudible response] "Everything was white, white suit, white shirt, white tie, white shoes." We had blue serge suits and white shirts and blue ties, but it was my first suit, and I felt really special all dressed up that way. [Inaudible response] "Blue pants blue tie, white socks." [Inaudible response] Good, so she remembered the white dress and the white veil and the long procession and feeling, for the first time in her life, holy, and the sacredness of it. Yes? [Inaudible response] She remembers she was the first and the tiniest. I was the last because my name began with "V." Yes? [Inaudible response] You were enrolled in the scapular society that afternoon. How many of you remember the scapular, wearing that, and again, those signs of belonging? [Inaudible response] The Archbishop was there and he gave them First Communion at the Cathedral, and it was a long sermon for little kids. By the way, in the theology, first Eucharist is one of the sacraments of initiation. In our school we have a picture of First Communion class in 1911, and it was the whole school, because up to then First Communion had been at the age of 14. And that was the year that Pope Pius X lowered it to the age of seven, because he said you don't have to know that much, and "Let the children come." By the way, as a point of interest, our present Pope is encouraging us to study the age of confirmation with the thought of making it before First Communion again, as it always was, to emphasize that First Communion completes our initiation. Those are big theological terms, but you know, I think it was soul for me, and as I said at the beginning of Mass, think of those images: Belonging, really belonging; being very much loved by your family and by God; people being proud of you. In that sense, being something that lasts through the years forever and ever and ever, and becomes a source of strength that makes us who we are. A lot of poets speak of the child being the parent of the adult. Anyway, that's my prayer today for these children making their First Communion, that it might be a permanent foundation and sense of belonging and being deeply loved, and being immensely happy with who they are and with the family they belong to. And for those of us who maybe can share in that prayer, you know that won't just happen by accident. We have to will it, we have to desire it, and we have to do the nitty-gritty hard work to make it come true in their life. So my prayer for us is that we're willing to embrace the nitty-gritty and the hard work of making that true for them.

Homily Notes for May 13. Mothers' Day, Sixth Sunday of Easter

Today, I would like to speak about Mothers’ Day and also about the first reading for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, Acts, Chapter 15.

The reading from Acts describes a conflict in the early church about whether Gentile converts needed to observe the rituals and obligations of the Jewish Law. Though the specific questions of that conflict are long resolved, elements of that conflict have been present throughout religious history. The basic question is how are we saved? Is it through our own efforts, our success in observing the law or a set of practices and rituals? Or is it by God’s grace, God’s unconditional love and our acceptance of that grace?

I often say that, even though we “know” at one level that God is the one who wants the relationship with us; God seeks to saver us; God offers unconditional love, there is another level at which we live our lives as though we were seeking the relationship and God is looking for an excuse to break it off. There are many reasons for this, probably connected with the attitudes we have absorbed from significant people in our lives. Religious leaders often model a God looking for reasons to condemn us.

We are also, regardless of our theology, infected with the need to fix ourselves. We all have some list off of which we work, some set of obligations, some ideal image. We tell ourselves that we will be happy, saved or all right, when we have successfully achieved what is on that list.

Today we celebrate Mothers’ Day. So many Mothers’ Day cards describe the “perfect mother.” They extol the virtues of motherhood. I wonder how many mothers get really depressed when they compare themselves to the ideal mother. We all fall short. It could be our image of the ideal mother, the ideal father, the ideal priest, and the ideal _. That ideal will always condemn us in our own judgment.

Mothers are called not so much to be efficient managers of their children’s growth and development as participants in the wonderful mystery of how their life, which ultimately is a gift of God, unfolds. There are “successes” and “failures,” Above all there is grace.

Thomas Merton quotes someone in one of his journals – I remember but couldn’t find the exact source – as saying something to the effect that, “Only when a priest realizes that he is not up to his ideal as a priest and cannot be but that, despite it all, he must keep faith with it and with himself will any grace for him and his people come from his existential need.” That’s a mouthful!

What I take it to say is that I will never succeed in keeping all the demands of my life perfectly. I will never succeed in fixing myself. I will never live up to the demands of the law. But I must keep faith with my ideals and with myself. And there will be grace in that.

What do I mean by grace? Gerald May wrote a book called "Simply Sane" in which he says the ultimate sanity is when you walk into a child's bedroom and the child is asleep. In that moment, you don't have to do anything to "fix" the child or manage the child. You don't have to "fix" yourself in relation to the child. You can simply appreciate the mystery of it all. That seems like a moment of grace to me.

My prayer for the Mothers who celebrate Mothers’ day and for all of us is to live with the lightness and the freedom and the happiness of grace.

We can all recall or identify moments of sheer grace in our lives. Treasure them. Savor them. Believe that these moments of grace reflect what really is more than all our efforts and our successes and failures.

What are the moments of grace in your life? Make a list. Let gratitude come into your life. Savor them.

My Dear People,
I’ve been attending a very good seminar the past few weeks at the Center for Congregations. It is titled, “Faith, Money and Giving,” and is presented by staff from the Lake Family Institute on Faith and Giving that is part of the Center on Philanthropy.
One of the presentations used a sermon on the Parable of the Good Samaritan by St. Augustine.
Robbers have left you half-dead on the road; but you’ve been found lying there by the passing and kindly Samaritan. Wine and oil have been poured into you, you have received the Sacrament of the Only begotten son…lifted onto his mule…brought to the inn, you are being cured in the Church. … This is what, what all of us are doing; we are performing the duties of the innkeeper. (From Sermons of St. Augustine as quoted in the Center’s handout).
They asked us to reflect on what good innkeepers do. In my memory of travels and staying at bed and breakfast places in Germany and Ireland, I recall that innkeepers are sometimes curious in a friendly and good sort of way. They want to know where I am from, what brought me this place, what I have seen, what I hope to see, how I like the place. They really want to know what I want.
Interestingly, the talk about Faith, Money and Giving was not advice on how to get more money from our congregations. It wasn’t about techniques. It was about the need to learn from people – from you – what is precious to you, what matters to you, what are your dreams and hopes. What are the struggles?
Here are two other interesting questions that I want to share with you. Who taught you your first lessons about money? What lesson did they teach?
Affirmation of something we all want for our parish: To be like the Inn to which the Good Samaritan (Christ? Someone else?) has brought us. A place of being cared for.
Love,
Fr. Larry

Homily Notes for Fifth Sunday of Easter, May 6, 2007

We will celebrate First Communion for nine young people in our church today. It brings back memories of when I made my First Communion in the same church 60 years ago.

My memories are of warmth and belonging.

We came to church early in the morning. In those days, there was a requirement that we begin fasting at midnight the night before receiving communion. The water fountains were covered with tape lest some child forget and take a drink and not be able to make first communion. We were fussed over and attended to by the nuns. It was a solemn moment.

Afterwards, there was a breakfast and wonderful party in my home. Uncles, aunts, cousins, family friends. Many good things to eat. Presents. I was the center of attention!

I was happy to be who I was. I was proud to be the age I was. I loved belonging to the family I belonged to. I knew I was loved. I knew God loved me. I belonged! I loved belonging.

Theologically, we say that the Eucharist is one of the Sacraments of Initiation. That was true for me. It was one of the earlier and many rituals of Initiation and Belonging that have been in my life. These rituals are an important part of who I am today. The sense of belonging and being loved continues.

For me, it is associated with this place, this particular church to which I have returned as an adult.

My prayer for these children is that it may be so for them. My prayer for all of us is that we might commit ourselves to the work, the nitty gritty details of work, that need to happen for it to take place in their lives and in the lives of all children.

Amen! May it be so!

Homily from April 29, 2007 4th Sunday of Easter

During these weeks after Easter, our second reading has been from the book of Revelation, and I have to confess, I've never really liked that book. It's hard to understand, isn't it? And it has a lot of scary images. So last week I was giving a lot of thought to it and reflection on it.
One little comment I read about the images that made sense to me is that the images are strange to us, but they weren't strange to the people of their day. They were very common. When you and I see political cartoons with donkeys and elephants fighting with each other, it makes perfect sense to us, doesn't it? A hundred years from now it might not make any sense at all. So it is with those images there.
The word "revelation" and the Greek word for the book of Revelation, really means "lifting a veil" as if what is really happening is hidden from our eyes, and a veil is suddenly lifted and we see it. And I want to comment specifically about an image in today's reading, the great multitude standing before God's throne, of every race and nation and language and people and tongue. Now, close your eyes for a minute, and what is your image of that great multitude?
What did it look like? Anybody want to describe what it looked like to them?
[Inaudible]
“Endless, it went on and on and on.” Okay.
[Inaudible]
“A background filled with dots that were all different shapes and colors.”
[Inaudible]
Eileen said it included familiar faces, people you know.
How many of us are like that? I think most of us would include people we know, right? When I first did it, mine looked remarkably comfortable, like me. So then I began asking myself, "Who wasn't in my picture?" Do you know what I mean? How many of us genuinely had people of different races in that picture? Okay.
How many had people of different cultures? Different tongues?
Great. I think it's a good check. One of the things as I was reading and reflecting on it, too, this image of judgment that runs throughout the book of Revelation. I want to share with you a fact.
The church has declared many people to be saints and to be in heaven. Has it ever declared anybody to be damned? Seriously, what do you think? Has it? Not Martin Luther. I asked a question. The truth is, in our long history the church has never declared anybody to be damned. One of the classics that would come to mind would be Judas, and it's always taught you can't say that he's in hell. Why not?
[Inaudible]
We don't know whether he asked for God's forgiveness. We don't know how God's grace may have entered his life. And so, anyway, as I reflected on it ‑‑ in fact, it would be the greatest of presumption to ever say anybody wasn't in heaven. I'll leave that to the fundamentalists to say they know with certainty that somebody is not in heaven, but the Church has never said that, because it has always held out the possibility of grace.
And anyway, my reading in my reflection on the book of Revelation led me to a short story by a Southern writer, Flannery O'Connor. She wrote a lot of short stories. She was a Catholic writer from the South. She has a wonderful story called Revelation. And the central figure in the story is Mrs. Turpin. Mrs. Turpin is a very pleasant, somewhat heavyset Southern woman who goes to bed every night thanking God that He made her the way he did, thanking God that he didn't make her white trash, thanking God that he didn't make her black, thanking God that he didn't make her...
Well, anyway, as I said that ‑ how many of you have ever thanked God that you were born American? If we were honest, haven't we, if we look at all of the world? “Thank God you made me an American and not somebody that lived in one of those other countries.”
We're all white here. How many of you have you have ever thanked God that you were white? How many of you ‑ I might get on dangerous territory here ‑ how many of you men have ever thanked God that He made you a man?
How many women have ever thanked God that He made you a woman? Good.
Well, I ask those questions to say how much we have in common with Mrs. Turpin, who every night went to bed thanking God that he made her the way she was. Well, anyway, in this short story Mrs. Turpin is in a doctor's office, and she goes on and on with her litany, "Thank God I'm not like white trash" and "Thank God I'm not like blacks," and of course she's using the Southern language of the 50's that I won't use. And "Thank God I'm not like everybody else." And it explodes with a young girl from Wellesley College throwing a psychology book and hitting her in the eye, and throttling her and saying, "Go back to hell where you belong to, you old warthog."
Well, Mrs. Turpin can't let go of this. She sees it as a message from God. Has that ever happened to anybody here? That somebody threw something like that at you and it stung deeply and you couldn't let it go, and you couldn't help but wonder if it was a message from God? I know it's happened to me.
Mrs. Turpin afterwards is angry at God and she yells at God and she says, "Why me? How am I like a warthog? How can I be like a warthog and like me, too?" And she yells at God, and of course, God is silent. And then what she sees is a vision of a great throng of people going up to heaven. And there are freaks and lunatics and white trash, clean for the first time, and blacks, and all of the people that she didn't like. And bringing up the rear are people like herself, the only ones singing on key, and of course walking with great dignity and upholding the order as they always have, but she can see by the shocked look on their faces that even their virtues are being burned away.
Well, anyway, as I thought of that great multitude - and then I thought, what would I see today? I might see the Arab images I see on TV of angry people shouting and yelling "death to America." I might see them leading the procession, and all sorts of freaks and lunatics and people that I don't want, and all sorts of people that I would never imagine, and people like myself bringing up the rear, shocked, and maybe even my sense of righteousness and goodness is being burnt away.
Well, I think as I reflected on the book of Revelation, its story is beneath everything that we see around us, beneath the smallness and the sameness of our little group of people gathered today. What is really happening in the world, if we could pull back the veil and see? God is gathering a people of every race, language, nation, and creed into a great multitude to sing His praises, and there isn't anything on this earth that I can exclude from that new heaven and new earth that God has created. The certainty of judgment is there. I can't presume that our way of life is going to survive; I can't presume that America will survive; I can't presume that our economy will survive. That new heaven and new earth might be quite strange to me, but as surely as I am here today, God is creating that, and nothing can be excluded from God's grace, and nothing can be excluded from God's judgment, and somehow we hold those together.
By the way, I was reading - when I was reading on this - I came across a wonderful quote from Martin Luther, and he said, "The real question isn't whether we are sheep or goats, but whether God is herbivorous or carnivorous. And if God is carnivorous we'll all be devoured." And anyway, I'll just leave you with that interesting quote.