Homily for January 25, 2009

The readings were Jonah going to Nineveh and the call of Peter and Andrew and James and John in the Gospel of Mark. James and John left their father in the boat with the hired hands and followed Jesus.

I'm going to be brief today because I want to leave time for Mrs. Tinsley, but I can't resist commenting on two of the readings.
Jonah. What do you know about Jonah? He got swallowed by the whale. God said to Jonah, "Go east by land to Nineveh." By the way, what country is Nineveh in? Iraq. It's near Baghdad. So he said, "Go east by land," and Jonah went west by sea. Jonah preached; they repented.
Jonah got really angry when they repented, and he pouted, and he went into a real snit. And he told God, "I didn't want to go to begin with, because I knew you'd forgive them, and now that's what happened." He's angry at God.
I asked the women at the women's prison one year to comment on this reading, and I said, "What do you think Jonah's problem was?"
And one of the women said, "He had hatred and anger in his heart."
Think of Iraq. The culture there continues today. The last thing Jonah wanted was for those people to repent and be forgiven. He had anger and hatred in his heart toward a foreign nation, and yet God used him to bring them to repentance.
As I think of that, I think how often my heart is too small for what God wants to do. And I wonder how often the hearts of so-called Christians are too full of anger and prejudice and hatred for what God wants to do. Think of it. I'll just leave you with that thought.
Then the Gospel. The way I heard this Gospel growing up is the way I head many Gospels, nice moral examples saying we should be like the disciples. "Peter and Andrew and James and John left everything to follow Jesus, and so should you. Isn't that nice?” Look at it from the perspective of a culture in which family ties were very important, in a culture in which you're not supposed to rise above your upbringing. If you're a fisherman, you're supposed to stay a fisherman; if you're a bricklayer, you stay a bricklayer; if your father's a carpenter, you should be a carpenter.
And you don't leave your family, you stay with your family. So now, here are James and John leaving their father to follow Jesus. From the perspective of that culture, what a shameful thing to do, what a dishonorable thing to do.
I was sharing this with somebody who said, "You know, and they also left their wives and children to be his follower." What do you make of that? There are challenges in the Gospel. I'm not going to resolve that for you. I just want to say sometimes I think we have to learn how to read the Gospels once again and be shocked about what they say, and by what they call us to.
Anyway, with that, I'm going to stop and ask Mrs. Tinsley to come up and talk to you about the school, which is a very important part of our ministry.
Note: We had an expanded discussion of this Gospel story at Mass at the Indiana Women’s Prison. The women there feel a great deal of shame at having children and family at home. They feel shame over not being able to be with their children. They feel shame over broken family relationships. We talked about shame in the Gospels and how often the disciples behaved in ways that their culture would have considered shameful.
We talked about Jesus’ greatest suffering being the shame he endured, not his physical suffering. Oh yes. That was bad. But we all know people who have suffered long, lingering painful deaths. Jesus’ suffering was that he took on our shame. He was disowned by family, by his home town neighbors. He was abandoned by his followers. He died feeling abandoned by God. In Mark’s Gospel, his last words are, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus knows the shame of these women. He came to save them from that shame.

Homily for January 18, 2009

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

As I prepared for my homily this week, three things were on my mind that I thought I shouldn't ignore, some of which I didn't necessarily want to talk about. But they're there, and I'm going to run the risk of being a little honest about how I really feel about some of these things.
The first is vocation awareness. In the bulletin you will see materials about the Called by Name program; it’s about vocation awareness. Second, you will see the materials about the Freedom of Choice Act and the campaign of the Bishops to urge us to write our legislators. And third, there's the inauguration of President elect Obama, a very historic moment in our country that ought not to go without notice. I'm just going to tell you how I honestly feel and hope I don't get reported or offend anybody.
The first chapter of John's Gospel is all about being called. People come to Jesus in response to different titles that they've heard. They each come for their own reason, and they're each called.
Well, my memory goes back – and I know I've shared this with you – to when I was in the sixth grade in this church and in this grade school and I felt a call to the priesthood. Everybody in the community supported that call. My teachers supported it and encouraged me. The priests and parishioners supported me. In fact, the person least supportive was my mother. I am not one of those you read about in the paper who can say my mother forced me into this. Up to a week before I was ordained, she said to me, "Honey, are you sure this is what you want?"
Well, it's been 42 years later, and yes, I'm sure this is what I want. Today parents don't encourage their young children to enter the priesthood or religious life. In fact, the studies that have been done indicate most parents discourage their sons from becoming priests. The community doesn’t support it. It’s not high on our list of priorities.
There are a number of reasons for that, and they're too complicated to go into in a short period of time, but I realize also that I don't encourage young people, even though I love being a priest. When I ask myself why, part of it is that I don't buy all the rhetoric that's used in the promotion materials.
I really believe that we all share a common call in baptism, that we are all called to ministry, and that the church belongs to all of us. When materials exalt the priest and separate the priest from the people as though we're up here and you're down there, I just don't buy that.
Now, I know there's a difference. If I called in sick today, you would have had a communion service, somebody would have led it, you probably would have read the readings, maybe somebody would have shared a reflection, but you wouldn't have had somebody from the pews come up and say Mass. We all know that we need the ordained person to do that. There is a difference but, fundamentally, all of these ministries are related. But let me share with you why you should pray for vocations and give some thought to it.
When I retire – and that's not something I have on my agenda anytime soon, but I am going to be 69 this summer – when I retire there will not be a full time priest assigned to Holy Cross. There aren't that many. If you look in the directory of the archdiocese, you will not find a single parish this size that isn't sharing a priest with one or more other parishes. So, when I retire, you will be sharing a priest with another parish. So I think we should all be praying for that. I'm not a prophet, but I think you all know that our numbers keep getting smaller and smaller in relation to the number of people in the parishes.
By the way, that's why this strategic planning thing we're talking about is very important to me. It's very important to me that whenever I leave, you know who you are and are not waiting for somebody to come in and tell you who you are. Now, whoever follows me might not appreciate that, but I believe that our relationship should be like a dance in which we are both partners and one of us is not a wet mop, if you follow me.
And then the Freedom of Choice Act. Now, I know and I heard from many of you, during the campaign the complaint that many Bishops and priests (not all, and not even the majority) and many pro life groups engaged in very thinly disguised endorsements of political candidates and made efforts to tell you that you couldn't vote for Obama. And that's just fact. We all know it, and we all know also that 52 percent of Catholics did vote for Obama. And I hear from many of you that you wish the Church would pay more attention to other issues. I share that feeling.
And yet, I also hear from all of you that, whatever your reservations, you will always eventually say, "but I am not in favor of this." You might not be for making abortion illegal, but you will all say, "I am not for it as a form of birth control," or "I'm not for partial birth abortion," or "I am not for" something.
Well, as you read the materials, realize that the agenda of the other side is absolutely unlimited and unrestricted access to abortion as an entitlement and as something that you would pay your tax dollars for; that that would be paid for by tax dollars, but maternal care would not; that the agenda of the other side is indeed very radical.
So I just encourage you, take the materials, read them over, ask yourself about the truth of what they say, and act accordingly. I do not believe that the Church is ever going to move lock stock and lock barrel in a single step. And I know the time is past when complicated issues can be “settled” by authority.
By the way -- I meant to say this at the beginning -- the bias I bring to ministry is spiritual direction. When I'm not here, most of my time in ministry is spent one to one listening to people talk about their journey with God. And I've learned over the years my goal is to help you discover where you are with God and to build that relationship. I'm not at all interested in telling people what it should be. And whatever your ministry, I would love to talk to you about how you find God in that, much more than telling you what it should be.
But I encourage you take the materials, pray over them, read them, check out for yourself what they claim and verify it, and act according to your conscience.
And then lastly, I think I sense there is a mood of hope and optimism in our country with the upcoming inauguration. I know not everybody shares that, but, am I right, is that your sense, that for many there is a mood of hope and optimism? I just want to encourage you to pray again for that.
I was deeply impressed as I watched the press conference with President elect Obama, President Bush, and former Presidents Bush, Clinton and Carter. What I was impressed by was President Bush looking Obama square in the eye and saying, "We want you to succeed." As we inaugurate a new President this week, all of us, regardless of our politics, can make that our prayer, that we want him to succeed.

Homily for January 11, 2009

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Gospel reading from Mark

I don't know exactly what happened at the Jordan, but down through the ages we've always seen it as very significant, not only for Jesus, but significant for us. And we've always believed that that voice, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased," is somehow intended for all of us, that we are meant to hear “You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter; with you I am well pleased.”
You know, when I'm not here in church, when I'm in the office, I spend a lot of time listening to people talk about their spiritual journey. And often people will ask, "Where is God in what is happening to me? Where is God in this?" In my younger days, when I knew more than I know now -- by the way, I read the other day, the original version of the prayer of St. Francis had a line in it that said, "for it is in unlearning that we learn."-- anyway, when I knew more than I know now, I used to think I had to defend God, or I had to make excuses for God, or I had to explain God to people. So in my younger days when people asked, "Where is God in this," I would try to explain to them where God was in what was happening to them.
Now, when they ask me where is God in this, I say, "I don't know. Have you asked him?"
Sometimes it's amazing. Sometimes what I hear back is, "Oh, no, I'm afraid to do that, because I was raised to be a good boy or a good girl, and to be compliant. So I'm afraid that if I ask God where are you in this, God's going to come down and raise Cain with me, or bawl me out, or rebuke me."
Sometimes people do ask God that question. Sometimes I encourage them to get a piece of paper and a pencil and say, "Where are you?" and just write whatever comes to their head.
Sometimes they read it back and I say, "Wow, where did that come from? That's not the way you normally talk. I'll bet you that came from God."
Now, God never sits down with us and says, "Well, Glenn, let me explain to you. This is why I did what I did." But often we have an experience of God and the questions aren't important to us anymore.
Well, here we are today. We're welcoming our new members into our church. By the way, catechumens belong to the Catholic Church. They're considered members of the Church and part of the order of catechumens, so we welcome them. I was thinking this morning that, if I was a TV evangelist, my message today would be "God wants you to be rich and give a lot of money to the church." I would be talking to you about God's blessing and abundance that will be coming your way if you do what we say.
But I can't do that. That doesn't seem to me to be faithful to the Gospel. In fact, all we have to offer you is the sign of the cross that hangs on our wall. That is in our Gospel.
Today in our Gospel we read the story of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. We won't pick up the story line again until March 1, the first Sunday of Lent, and in the intervening Sundays we'll read other sections of the Gospel. But I want to tell you today what the story line is after the baptism of Jesus, and I'm going to do it with an image.
I wish this was my original thought; it isn't. It comes from Father Eugene Hensell, who teaches at St. Meinrad. But he says this: Conversion is not a two-step process. Conversion is not "Here I am, and I step into the light."
The story line in Mark's Gospel is Jesus hears the voice, "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased," and then immediately the Spirit drives him out into the desert and he is with wild beasts and the angels minister to him. Conversion is a threestep process.
Now, I need help here. I don't dance. Is there meaning to two-step or three-step in dancing? Is there a difference between two-step and three-step in dancing?
(Inaudible response.)
It's more basic?  A three-step is a waltz? I didn't know that. How many of you knew that? Well, see what you miss by having a celibate priest preach to you?
So that's really neat. The three-step is a waltz. So this conversion process is a three-step process, not two steps or four steps. And before we get to Easter, we will go through Lent. Before we get to Easter, we will celebrate Good Friday and the cross.
So, as part of our continuing rite of welcoming and receiving you into the order of catechumens, I want to invite you up again to stand here and receive the sign of the cross.

Homily for December 28, 2008

Feast of the Holy Family
I don't have any deep or earth shattering thoughts today. I want to invite your own reflection on your family rituals and customs, whether you're an old family with well established rituals or -- I see a couple of you here whom this fits -- you will just be beginning families.   Rituals are very important.
To the writer of Luke's Gospel that we just read, it was very important that we know that Joseph and Mary fulfilled all the rituals of the law. In the Jewish heritage, which is also ours, rituals are very important. There are rituals that mark the beginning of the day, the end of the day, midday; rituals for coming and going, for eating, for purifying ourselves; rituals to remind us that God is between us when we meet to study Torah. The danger of rituals is that they can become absent-minded, things that we do externally our heart is far from them. So religious people kind of have a love hate relationship with rituals. Sometimes we want to be free from them; and sometimes we need to return to them.
A few weeks ago I felt this strongly. I was at the women's prison for Mass. The chaplain wasn't there, so I was all by myself with the women. I couldn't get into the room where my vestments were, so I said Mass in my street clothes.
Now, I think you all know me well enough to know that I'm not scrupulous and uptight about things like that. But you know, it didn't feel right. I know it's the Mass whether I wear the vestments or not but putting on the vestments puts me in a frame of mind, and it makes me realize that what I'm about to do is something different.
I had Mass there on Christmas Day and the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Theresa's order, joined me for Mass. I hope this doesn’t get quoted, but I found that I was uptight, because they're so much more conservative in their style, and it crimped our style. So Mass wasn't the same as it normally is when we're there.
I think those of you who come to Holy Cross all the time know that we have our own quirky style here. We do some things that would raise people's eyes. Even if I didn't like them, some of them I know are so sacred that I wouldn't touch them, because they mean a lot to us. The way we walk, the way we carry ourselves, the way we act, all of these things do have meaning for us, don't they?
Last year we started bringing up the collection instead of passing the collection basket. I love to see the little kids come up and drop money in the basket. I hope it means something to them. I'm always reminded when I see them, though, of Erma Bombeck's story of the little kid who had the envelope to drop in the basket, and he wouldn't do it. They had had a discussion beforehand about why he wasn't old enough to go to communion. When he wouldn’t drop the envelope in the collection, they nudged him and he blurted out, "If I can't eat, I won't pay."
It’s not only in church, but in our families that rituals are important. Do you have rituals in your family that you recognize? Would anybody like to share any of those rituals?

John: Years ago  it's been 25 plus years  we started going to dinner at Christmastime, before Christmas, with some friends of ours. And what's interesting is  and again, we always go to Hollyhock Hill, and we always have the exact same thing to eat -- but it's interesting because it became a tradition for us, and we realized we kind of created our own and it would not seem like Christmas without that kind of marking point.
And no matter what the schedule is, we always make sure we get it in. And it's just been part of us. We always take a picture every year, so we see the kids grow. It's just been a nice part of the Christmas season for us.

And without those rituals, something is missing.
Somebody was telling me recently that they have family rituals around Christmas of a play that the children do. The children are teenagers now. They still do the play. Family tradition is very important to them.
Any other?

Audrey: As a child, we were rather poor. And so at Christmastime Santa Claus would bring us each one of our favorite foods that we couldn't afford to buy otherwise. And they were strange things that we got, like my brother got pickled pigs' feet; my other brother got peanut butter; I got prunes, things like that. And we've carried through that tradition with our children and with our grandchildren.
I'm not sure that they really understand it, but they would be really upset if they woke up Christmas morning and Santa had not brought them their favorite food.

Any other rituals?

Shirley: When I was a child we had certain rituals, and one of them was that we could close off our living room, and my parents would decorate the tree while we were sleeping. And then on Christmas Eve all the presents would be there.
And I think that we've continued that, and with my grandchildren, especially. We close off our living room, and we go downstairs and do a play. And then we come up and they wait to hear Santa Claus walking in the living room. And then they all run up and we open up the doors.
The grandchildren range in age from three to 16, and they still all want to do it this way.

I have a nephew whose birthday is December 23rd. I remember once when we were at a summer birthday party for one of the kids, he looked sad and perplexed, and he said, with all seriousness, "How come I never have a birthday?" The birthday rituals for him got absorbed into the Christmas rituals. Those rituals were very important, because they mark our place in the family.
I know in my own personal life, I have my morning rituals involving prayer and work and all of those things, and when I'm rushed in the morning and I don't complete those rituals, the day doesn't seem the same.
I have on my doorpost at home a Jewish symbol, the mezuzah, that has a scroll on which is written the commandment to love God with your whole heart and soul and mind, and I try to notice it when I leave or when I come into my apartment, because that makes my going and my coming special.
Rituals mark transitions in our life, they mark our place in the community, they mark the coming and going of days and times and seasons, and all of these are very important. They're what make one day, one moment, different from another day and another moment.
I just wanted to offer that reflection but encourage you today to continue reflecting. Maybe think about the rituals in your own life, the rituals in your family, and become, not absent minded about them, but become very intentional about doing them. There is a great deal of power in being very conscious and very intentional about what we do and about our actions. Our minds and our hearts follow what our body is doing.