Homily for June 28, 2009

There are many levels of meaning in the Gospel today. The more I read about it, the more I realize there isn't any single definitive meaning. It means whatever it means to us as we hear it. I'll share some meaning I got, but I realize many of you may have been drawn to other parts of the story that are equally important.
First, I want to point out two things. Remember last week I pointed out that when Jesus and the disciples cross the lake a storm comes up, but only when they're crossing from the Jewish side to the Gentile side? Well, in today's Gospel he's crossed back from the Gentile side to the Jewish side. There's no storm. He walks by the lake and crowds gather around him.
Then at the end of the Gospel, he tells them not to tell anybody. That happens a lot in Mark's Gospel. Jesus works a miracle and he tells them not to tell anybody. Why? Any hints as to why he would tell them not to tell?
[inaudible response]
Well, Neal said that way it makes sure that everybody will go tell, and, of course, that's exactly what happens.
Mark uses the command not to tell as a literary technique because he wants to emphasize that you don't know who Jesus is until the crucifixion and the resurrection. Until that happens, you're not allowed to say who Jesus is. The meaning of his life was not in how many people he cured, how many people he healed. Of course, he did it because he could, and he was God, but the ultimate meaning is his death and resurrection. So Mark always says, "Don't tell." And the irony in Mark's Gospel is that when the angel finally says, "Go tell," they don't say anything. So there's a little irony.
My attention was drawn to the woman with the hemorrhage, and every time I read this Gospel, that's where my attention is drawn. I realize the little girl is there, too, and many of you may have had your attention drawn to her. But I want to concentrate on the woman.
What did she want? Let's do a little profile of her for a minute. What did she want? She wanted to be healed, right? Was she looking for a relationship with Jesus? No. She just wanted to reach out and touch the garment and be healed and slip away without anybody noticing or making a fuss over her.
When I read that story, I think of the people I've seen in church for, well, for the 43 years I've been a priest, and for the 26 years before that. How many people come to church Sunday after Sunday, and what do we want? We want to get grace. We want to get a little bit of God and then we want to go home. No fuss, no big display. Maybe we don't even feel worthy of a real relationship with Jesus. Can you follow me so far?
Look at what Jesus does. It's not enough for him that the woman is healed. He wants to look her in the eye. He wants to see her face to face, and he wants to say to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you."
I wonder what impact there was on her life in that culture.  12 years of constant bleeding, you exhaust your life savings on medical care that doesn't do any good  what is your opinion of yourself? Who is she in that culture?
[inaudible response]
What? Nobody. Maybe she's even worse than nobody. She's an unclean woman, unworthy, unwelcome in the ritual gathering of the people. And so what does Jesus say to her first off? "You are not an unclean woman. You are a daughter of God, and your faith has healed you. And now you can go in peace."
Do you think people need to hear that part of the Gospel, "You are not an unclean person; you are not an unworthy person; you are not a sinner"?  Well, we all are, but  "You are not only a sinner. You are a son and daughter of God." And God doesn't want to just show you the hem of his garment from behind, but he wants to look you in the eye and tell you face to face who you are.
I mention in my bulletin letter, one of the Carmelite nuns tells me that prayer is 90 percent touching the hem of the garment and ten percent face to face, but the face to face makes it all worth it.
One scholar’s commentary on Mark that I like makes a big deal of saying that Jesus is on an errand of mercy to this young favored daughter of Israel, but his errand is interrupted to cure this woman with a flow of a hemorrhage, and maybe Mark is saying the new can't be healed until the old is healed. I was thinking of our desire to pass on faith to our children and our young people. Maybe there's a message there that we have to be healed first and we have to enter into that relationship first, and then we will have something to pass on.
Anyway, that's just one meaning. But maybe, as we pray today, just ask yourself what are you looking for, the hem of the garment so you can just touch it and slip away, or are you ready for that face to face encounter?

Homily for June 21, 2009

At the beginning of the first reading I asked you to pay attention, to tie it to the Gospel. God addresses Job and says, "Who set the limits to the sea?" Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, it is God who keeps the sea in its boundaries. It's God who keeps the forces of chaos from overwhelming us.
So, when they see Jesus calming the sea, they are bound to say, "Who is this, whom even the wind and the sea obey?"
I want to direct your attention to an image, the image of crossing the sea at night, a night sea crossing. There are multiple stories in the Gospel of crossing the sea at night. Do you know what happens every time they cross the sea at night? A storm comes up.
Now, when they're crossing the sea, they are, of course, crossing from one side to the other, but from what side are they crossing and to which side are they crossing?
[inaudible]
Right, from the Jewish side to the gentile side. It's only when they are crossing from the Jewish side to the gentile side that the storm comes up.
Now what was happening in the church when Mark wrote his Gospel? They were trying to integrate gentiles into a Jewish Christianity. They were reaching out to the gentiles, and it was causing all sorts of storms. Some people said, "You've got to circumcise them, you've got to make them Jewish."
And other people said, "Oh, the Jewish ways don't count anymore." The writer of Mark was trying to find middle ground.
So whenever they were trying to integrate the two, a storm came up, and it looked like the church was this little boat being tossed about by the waves, ready to sink. Maybe it looked like the Lord was asleep, and yet the message is that the journey will be successful, the boat will not sink, because God is with us.
I wonder if that has meaning for our life today? I'm going to throw out some examples. They're not at all intended to be exhaustive or definitive, they're just some examples, So you might have your own examples. I am aware in my life that when things get stormy, it never happens when I am sitting in the calm waters and all of a sudden a storm comes up. It always happens when I'm trying to integrate different parts of my life. It happens when I am trying to integrate my right brain with my left brain; it happens when I am trying to integrate my intellect and my emotions.
As a reference to Fathers Day, maybe for many men in the past generation, waters have been stormy as we try to integrate the emotional and the tender and the caring side of our life from more stereotypical men's images of the past. Does that seem to fit a little bit? It seems to me, in our society whenever we try to integrate different elements, the waters are going to get stormy. Ched Meyers, who's a Quaker biblical scholar, talks about these, and it says all the symbolic powers that hold the universe together rise up in rebellion when you're trying to cross from one side to the other.
In the second reading today, by the way, Paul says the love of Christ impels us to no longer see anyone according to the flesh, but to see them in the spirit. What are some ways of seeing people according to the flesh? Man, woman; black, white, Hispanic; Christian, Jew, Muslim; Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative. Can you think of some other ways of seeing according to the flesh? Adult, child; rich, poor; good and bad; mentally ill, not mentally ill; us and them, whoever "us" is and whoever "them" are; negative and positive.
The love of Christ impels us to see no one according to the flesh but to see according to the spirit. Is that easy? I mean, try it and see how many stormy seas come up and threaten to swamp your boat, and to make the whole project look like it's doomed to failure.
I've mentioned several times we're doing some planning results based training for our parish. We had a meeting  I think it was the day I had surgery. Trying, in our parish, to move from talk to action, I think that's like crossing the sea at night, and it gets pretty stormy when we try to do it. Those of you who were at that meeting, does that fit? I mean, it's a good description.
Look at the problems in our culture. Our economic problems, health care, the industries that are failing. We all want things to be better, but when we try to make that crossing, the forces that hold things together the way they are, are going to erupt in a violent storm and threaten to sink the boat. Does that seem on target with life and the way it is?
Now, let me ask for a show of hands. How many of you have ever felt that the Lord is asleep in the back of the boat? And how many have ever felt like crying out, "Lord, aren't you concerned that we're going to perish?"
A question I have is, when Jesus says, "Why are you terrified? Do you still not have faith?" how do you imagine his face? Is he scowling at us? Is he angry? Is he amused? Is he smiling with a compassionate smile?
[inaudible] You think he's smiling with a compassionate smile. That's the way I'd like to imagine him looking at me, not in a scolding or shaming way, but in a gentle and encouraging way.
[inaudible] Jose says maybe he's grumpy because he just got woke up from a nap. That's a very appropriate image for Fathers Day, isn't it?
Anyway, I think what we need to hear from the Gospel is also the assurance of faith, that God does have the power to hold all these forces of chaos in check, that God is in the boat with us and the boat isn't going to sink. We will make the crossing.

Homily for June 14, 2009 Body and Blood of Christ

Sometimes when we celebrate feast days in the church, I like to wonder, "Where did this feast come from, and why is it in the calendar of the church?" So I looked up some information about the feast day that we celebrate today, the Feast of Corpus Christi as it used to be called, or the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.
It dates back to the 12th century. Now, let me explain a little bit about what was going on in the church in that time. Until that time, people never questioned whether the bread and wine at Mass became the body and blood of Christ. They just believed it. It's the body of Christ, and it's the blood of Christ, and when we participate in the Eucharist we become part of the body of Christ.
Well, there was a man named Berengarius who took it upon himself to explain, "How can this be that this becomes the body and blood of Christ?" As you might guess, whenever we try to wrap our mind around God's revelation, we're in deep trouble. So anyway, Berengarius couldn't explain how that happens, so he denied it. Simple enough, right? If I can't explain it, I'll deny it. So anyway, he denied it, and then that created a counter reaction in the Church of affirming with a vengeance, "Yes, this really is the body of Christ."
It was at that time in the history of the Church that Eucharistic devotion began. Until that time we would have never thought of carrying the Eucharist around or exposing the Eucharist and things like benediction or worshipping it. We just assumed that it was true. Eucharistic devotion began to come into the church at this time. Do you follow me so far?
About the year 1109 a Dominican nun named Juliana of Liege began having a recurrent dream, and in her dream she saw the full moon with a dark spot on it. And she came to understand her dream in this way, that the full moon was the church and the dark spot was the absence of a feast in honor of the Eucharist. So she went to the archdeacon in the diocese where she lived and persuaded him to go to the Bishop and have a feast in honor of the Eucharist. So one was celebrated.
Well, wouldn't you know it, that archdeacon became Pope years later and he remembered Juliana, and he declared this to be a feast of the universal church. Well, nobody listened to him, so it took about a hundred years for the idea to catch on. Let that be a lesson to you. People in authority aren't always listened to, and sometimes it takes a long time for an idea to catch on and take hold.
I hope that information is useful to you. As I thought of the feast, I wanted to link it to some of the thinking that we had when we restored our church.
Look around. It's a beautiful job, isn't it? The architect whom we hired made two recommendations that we did not accept, and I want to share with you what they were.
The first was this area back here, where we have coffee and donuts. He wanted to carpet that. Now, what's your reaction to that right away? What? Yeah, Maureen said all she could think of is what a mess it would be if we carpeted that area back there and we'd have spilled coffee and ground in donuts. So what was the architect thinking when he recommended that?
Now, my shoes have rubber heels and soles, so I'm not picking on women here, but imagine if you're a woman with heels and you are walking across that area. What would happen when you left that area and got onto the hardwood floor of this area? What would happen? You would become conscious of the noise of your feet on the floor, and you probably would slow down and probably try to walk softer.
That's what he was trying to achieve, that when we left that area and walked into this area we would know that we were leaving a gathering area and coming into a worshipping area.
The other recommendation he made (how many of you remember this?):  he wanted to build an arch there and suspend the crucifix from it. Well, that idea went over like a lead balloon when we presented it to the parish, and so after listening to all of your input, I said no way.
What was he trying to achieve by that recommendation? Any guesses? On the plan, what he was trying to communicate was that that area back there where the old high altar is and where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, that that was a separate area. In fact, on the plans he listed that as a Blessed Sacrament Chapel with the thought that maybe people would want to go there and pray.
Now, I have no regrets that we didn't carpet the area back there, and I have no regrets that we didn't build an arch there. I'm sure if we put that arch there people would still be complaining about it. And I'm sure that if we had carpeted the back, people would still be complaining.
The question I want to raise for our reflection  and I really don't have an answer to it is this: do you think we missed something in not doing what he was trying to achieve? How many would say yes, that we missed something? What is it that we missed?
We missed creating a separation between sacred space and communal space. Is that important? What do you think? Joe says it's a plus. It seems like it's all sacred space and it's all communal. It all flows together right now, and there are some pluses to that. I love the sense of ease and freedom and comfort that people have. You don't walk into Holy Cross like you walk into some other churches.
At the same time I think in our communal life we struggle with things that we miss in that, and I'm not proposing anything.
[inaudible]
Okay. Did you all hear that? Jose was saying, first of all, in the summer he misses winter, and in the winter he misses summer. So there is something wonderful about the way we are now, but there is also a yearning for that sense of sacredness and worship. And one of his fond memories is 40 hours devotion and watching Maude Wernsing  just as a curiosity, how many remember Maude Wernsing  and watching her at prayer there, and there was a sense...
Jay? Okay. Jay was saying, as usually it is, it's both/and, not either/or. So there's the need both for the public gathering and for the private prayer and devotion.
If you were to give us  meaning Holy Cross  a grade on balance between the two, what grade would you give us? You'd give us an A? How many would give us an A? Okay. How many would give us another grade? Okay.
Anyway, I didn't start this with any conclusion to draw, but I just wanted to use the feast today and its history as an occasion to lift some things up for our consciousness and for our reflection, ongoing.
[inaudible].
Maureen was commenting on how much she likes the portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe and how she identifies with the man, Juan Diego, being invited to come closer to Jesus.
By the way, on our deacon weekend this weekend, it's all on spirituality, and as I left to come here, they were talking about Juliana of Norwich, a medieval anchorite. But one of the things they were talking about is she was illiterate. And so her visions  and she wrote a big book, Revelations  her visions were all taken from the artwork that she saw around her, and those became her vision of God. And I think that's true of us as a church.
Just to end on a personal note, one of the huge meanings to me of our belief about the Eucharist and our celebration is, everything else I do can be corrupted and emptied of meaning by my own inadequacies and weaknesses, and here is one thing that we do together that has meaning that transcends us. No matter how sinful we are, no matter how inadequate we are, no matter what's gone on in our life in the past week, when we come together here today, we believe that Jesus is really present, offering himself to us as our food and our nourishment. And that's rock bottom truth that we always believe, and none of our quirkiness can ever take that truth away.

Homily for June 7, 2009 Trinity Sunday

It's rare that we read a Gospel and we immediately do exactly what the Gospel tells us, but that's what we're doing today. We're baptizing Caleb and Vivienne in fulfillment of the command of Jesus to "Go make disciples of all nations. Baptize them, teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you, and know that I am with you." So today we baptize Caleb and Vivienne, and we know that God is with us.
We also celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity today. I wish I could explain that to you, but I can't. Somebody once told me that a grandchild who is not Catholic once asked her, "Grandma, do you believe in three gods?" She said, "No."
Well, it's a good question, though. We believe the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all God, so do we believe in three gods? No. Do we believe that there are three persons? Yes. I don't know how to explain that. The dogma is there to keep us from shrinking God to something so small that we can wrap our minds around him, and it insists that we keep the bigness of God.
What it does say is that what God has revealed about himself to us is that God's life is relationships of love and sharing. God is a community of love. What our faith teaches us is that God has invited us to be part of that community of love.
I know I've said this before, but hopefully I'll remember that I've said it and you won't. The Greeks used a word "perichoresis" to describe the life of God. PERI  now listen to the second word  CHORESIS. Can you see an English word in the second half of that word?
"Chorus" or another English word also, "chores." I can see where you would, but that's not where I was going.
Who said it? Choreography, yes. Our English word "choreography" comes from that Greek word "choresis." So what ancient theologians told us about God's life is that it's a dance. It's a continual dance of love between three distinct persons who are so close that they all share the same nature. And they've invited us to be part of that dance.
And today we invite Caleb and Vivienne to be part of that dance. As I said, I can't wrap my mind around that, but maybe I can allow myself to be wrapped up in that truth and let it guide my life.

Readings from an eCourse on Sufi Spirituality

I'm taking an ecourse on Sufi Spirituality through the poems of Rumi.

I loved this poem from Rumi on Monday. The theme this week is transformation. I continue to be both confirmed in my expectations and yet amazed at the similarities of spiritual paths. I expect it to be so. I am continually amazed at seeing it unfold.

The potter works at the pot to fashion it:
how could the pot become wide or long by itself?
The wood is kept constantly in the carpenter's hand:
how else could it be hewn and shaped properly?
The water skin is with the water carrier, skillful one,
for how else could it be filled or emptied?
Every moment you are being filled and emptied:
know then, that you are in the hand of His working.
On the day when the blindfold falls from your eye,
how madly will the work be enamored of the Maker!

A thread, golden thread, running throughout the themes is that we are blindfolded and it's all about removing the blindfold. I like Rumi better than our Scriptural references. Our Scriptures ask how the pot can complain to the potter, "Why did you make me this way?" Rumi promises that, when the blindfold is removed, we will be enamored of the potter.

Bulletin Letter for June 14, 2009

My Dear People,
Today we celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi or, as it is now called in English, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. The feast reminds us of our belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
I’d like to share some of the discussions behind the renovation/restoration of our Church. The architect made two recommendations that we did not accept.
The first was to carpet the gathering area that we use for coffee and donuts in the rear of the church. We did not accept that recommendation because all we could think of was how very dirty and stained it would become from coffee and food spills.
What was the architect thinking? His thought was that when people walked from the carpeted area of the gathering space onto the hardwood surface of the worship space they would hear the sound of their feet on the hardwood floor and instinctively slow down and walk more softly. They would know that they were leaving a gathering area in which one style of behavior was appropriate and entering worship space that called for a different behavior.
The other suggestions we did not accept was the suggestion of an arch with the crucifix suspended in the area of the communion rail. The opposition to this idea was very vocal in our community meetings.
What was he thinking? His thought was that it would be a visible reminder that the space behind the arch was the sacred space in which the Blessed Sacrament was reserved, a Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
I have a question. Were we right or was the architect right? I find that the answer to questions like this is usually, “Yes.” I have no regrets about our decisions. I’m sure the arch and crucifix would have been a sore point even today. I know the carpet would look ugly and horribly stained and abused. I also recognize that the architect was trying to achieve something very important that we have yet to achieve. Our space all flows together into one extended gathering place.
Don’t get me wrong. I love the freedom and ease and friendliness we have. But, as we celebrate the feast today, I also want to stimulate discussion. Are we missing some of the reverence that should be there for our worship space and for the space in which the Eucharist is reserved?
Love,
Fr. Larry

Homily Thoughts for Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009

Someone said that any God small enough for me to understand is too small to be God. That fits my thoughts as we approach the celebration of Trinity Sunday in the Catholic Church and I reflect on the Creed we recite.

Does it mean we believe there are three Gods? No!
Does it mean we believe there is one God who manifests in three different ways? No!
Do we believe there is one God and three distinct persons? Yes!
How do I “explain” that? I can’t!

The Creed raises more questions than it gives answers. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple obvious answers that I can wrap my mind around. Instead, it confronts me with mystery.

Do we believe Jesus is God? Yes!
Do we believe Jesus is fully human? Yes!
How can that be? I don’t know!

The Creed raises more questions. It refuses to allow me to settle for simple answers and confronts me with mystery.

Is mystery something I can’t figure out and should forget about? No! Mystery means not that God is not knowable. It means God is infinitely knowable.

The Creed refers to God as "He." Does that mean God has a gender? No! Do we have gender? Yes. What does it mean to be gendered? People argue about this.

Am I and other people bothered by the constant use of "He" to refer to God? Yes! Of course some are very comfortable with this. It's a problem for some. Again, God is mystery. I can't reduce God to my concepts of male or female. By the way there are many feminine descriptions of God in the Bible. e.g. God's compassion refers to wombs.

The Creed also affirms some things:
God is a Community of love between three persons. Some ancient Greeks described this life by the word, perichoresis. It means a dance of life. (To try to explain this would require wading through mountains of Greek philosophy about what it means to be a person. What is a nature?) An English theologian, Gerald Vann, once said, “Wonderful is the person who can live without other persons. More wonderful than God.” Even for God, especially for God, what it means to be a person is to be in a community of love with other persons.

The creed affirms that we believe in a communion of saints, a community of love.
We believe in the forgiveness of sins. We have to believe in the forgiveness of sins to continue to live together. We believe in life that never ends, that finds its fulfillment with God.

I don’t begin to understand any of these things. They raise more questions than answers. But they guide me. Wrestling with them shapes me and has helped me be who I am. Today, I am reasonably happy with who I am and the direction that life seems to take. There is a huge bright light at the end of it all.

Homily for Pentecost, May 31, 2009

I want to begin today with a trip down Nostalgia Lane. How many of you went to Catholic grade school? Okay. Now, this may apply to those who are close to my age range more than younger ones, but anyway I'm going to explore a little bit.
When I was in grade school here at Holy Cross, we wrote at the top of every page the letters "JMJ." How many remember that? What did it mean?
[voice] Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Anybody remember any other things that you wrote at the top of your pages?
A cross, okay. That was in Illinois. Okay. Anything else?
Your name, of course.
Some people used to write  and I can't remember the Latin phrase, so I can't give you  yes, AMDG. Thank you, and what does that stand for? “Ad majorem Dei gloriam,” and that's translated "for the greater glory of God." So we had those things. We did it religiously and very carefully.
I also remember, I think about every half hour the bell would ring. No matter what we were doing, we all stood up and got out of our desk on the left hand side and we said something. Maureen?
"All for thee, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Anybody remember that? I do.
Are there any other things you remember? Yes? The morning prayer, the morning offering, lunch prayer, and the end of the day prayer. So we had prayer three times a day, including Mass.
The angelus at noon. By the way, our students still come over at noon and ring the bells. The women at the women's prison tell me that they hear those bells three or four blocks away.
We had many devotions, and I mean that with a small "d" and a plural. What they served overall was a deep sense of devotion that permeated our life. And what I mean by “devotion” is a sense that I serve something or someone with my time, my talent, and my energies; my life is devoted to something. Does that make sense?
I started thinking about my homily today with a question: How do you know when you're doing the will of God? And then I thought, that presumes something. That presumes that we're devoted to doing the will of God.
I also remembered a conversation I had with somebody recently about a young person who wasn't very interested in religion yet, and I remember input from one of our classes with deacons. Oftentimes you hear people say, "What can religion do for me?" or, "What can going to church do for me?" or, "What can God do for me?" Familiar questions?
What do those questions all have in common? Me. They're all centered around me; what will this do for me? I think the beginning of religion or of faith is when we begin sensing and asking, "What is the purpose of my life? Why am I here? What greater meaning or purpose do I serve with my life?"
Now, I was sharing this with somebody who said, "I've been asking this question all my life," and I think we do. One of my favorite quotes is from Parker Palmer who talks about a minister who says  and I'll say this about myself "I always knew I was here to save all of you, but what are you here for?"
Do you know what I mean by beginning to ask that question, "What am I here for?" And when we begin to ask that question, then faith begins to be at work in our life. Maybe we begin to be devoted to something.
And I want to ask you today the real life test. I'm not going to ask you what are you devoted to. We'd probably  if you're like me, you'd give the answer that made you sound good. What I want to ask is, if someone followed you around and observed  and I know no one can be totally objective in their observation, because we always interact with what we observe  but if somebody followed you around and at the end of a period of time was asked, “What is soand so devoted to?” what would they answer? And don't think about the answer that should be there, but just what answer would be there. And I think for most of us it would be a mixed answer.
I know a few people of whom I would say that when they do good there is no ego in it. They just do good for the sake of doing good, because they're devoted to the good. I'm not one of them. I'd like to get there. In AA people have a slogan, "Progress, not perfection," and so I hope I'm making progress.
But I think the readings today suggest to us the possibility of life in God's Spirit. They also suggest the possibility of life that is not in God's Spirit.
I memorized the fruits of the Spirit. I did not memorize the fruits of the flesh. I don't want to dwell on them, but I remember some of them  rivalry, faction, envy, dispute, outbursts of anger. Has anybody here ever been there, when you set out on a course of action and it produces those fruits in your life? Have you been there? I mean, we all have, haven't we?
And the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and selfcontrol. Now, I'd like to emphasize those as a package deal. I know a lot of things that bring me the illusion of love and joy, but they don't bring me peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and selfcontrol. You know what I mean?
And I know a lot of things that bring selfcontrol, but they're white knuckle and they don't bring peace generosity, gentleness and kindness, and so forth and so on.
By the way, if I were to add to the list of Paul, I would add also social responsibility, responsibility for the earth and the community, and I would add also building communities of faith.
By the way, one of the criticisms we get from time to time for the way we do prayers of the faithful here  there are two. The first is that you can't hear them, and believe me, we've discussed that at length, and we've discussed options. One would be to pass this around [holding microphone,] or the other would be to invite people to a microphone, but we were afraid that would intimidate people. And we thought, well, God hears, and the important thing is that they're free to speak it.
The other criticism I hear is that so often they are lacking in concern for the larger world, or for issues of justice and peace, and the bigger issues, and I think that's valid. And when we pray we could be mindful of those things.
St. Ignatius of Loyola  he's the one who is the classic in answering the question, "How do I know God's will?" By the way, one of the statements attributed to him is, "When everything else fails, use logic," which means logic is the least of the ways we discover God's will. What he discovered is that sometimes when he did things he felt very good while he was doing them. And afterwards he felt emptiness. And other times he felt very good when he was doing things, and afterwards he continued to feel good.
People I know who struggle with addiction know very well what I mean, and I think we've all experienced this. There are some things that give us a sense of happiness and excitement and wellbeing when we do them but afterwards leave us feeling emptiness and shame and desolation. There are other things that we do that, after we do them, we feel a real abiding sense of peace.
There are things I do  well, there's a category of things that I do  that I never want to do. I never look forward to them. I always put them off, and I even dread doing them. Do you know what I mean? How many of you have things like that? But after I do them, I feel really good. You know what I mean?
Well, I think that's what Paul is saying to us today. There is a possibility of life in God's Spirit. I know many people in recovery, and I know many people both young and old who are a real source of inspiration, because the abiding question in their life is, "How do I know that I am doing what God's wants me to do?" And they are devoted to that question and to finding an answer to it.
And the readings today suggest that we can find that answer. More often than not we find it by paying attention to what's going on inside of ourselves.
And as we pray, just be with that question. Maybe, if you remember, we can recite it together. Join in with me. What are the fruits of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, gentleness, and self control. Seek the things that bring that fruit into your life, and let's pray together that we receive that gift of God's Spirit.

Bulletin Letter for June 7, 2009

My Dear People,
Today we will do two baptisms: Vivienne Ahlborn and Caleb Trauth. I like doing baptisms in church. I especially like it when we invite all in the congregation to join in the simple act of welcoming the child by making the sign of the cross on its forehead. We look forward to some other baptisms later in the summer. Signs of new life and of youth coming to our parish. These are welcome signs.
This is also the time of the year when we prepare our annual report to the Chancery. It includes, of course, our financial performance. It also includes statistics, such as how many baptisms, adult and infant, how many marriages, how many funerals, how many professions of faith, how many first communions and confirmations. How many people are in our parish? How does this compare with previous years?
The report answers one of the questions we will be dealing with in our ongoing Results Accountability Training: How much did we do? That’s a relatively easy question to answer depending on what it is we choose to measure. Baptisms, marriages, confirmations, first communions, professions of faith, funerals -- there are clear guidelines for measuring these. The are regulated by Canon Law. There are other things we measure more or less well. For example, what is our Sunday Mass attendance. Jose Werle went up into the choir loft last Sunday and counted 180. Of course that number will depend strongly on the time at which the count was taken. What we don’t know is how regular people are in their attendance.
This leads us to a second question we will be looking at. In addition to asking, “How much did we do?” we will also ask, “How well did we do it?”
How would you measure that? The number of people who bring their babies to be baptized who continue to come after the baptism? The number of people who enter the church who are still with us a year or two later? These are some obvious ones. Others are more subtle and, for the moment, I will just invite your imagination.
Basic questions. Whom do we serve? What do we want for them? How do we know if we are making a difference? How much did we do? How well did we do it?
When I get into measurements, I remember and keep in mind as my guide something Pope Benedict said about the sacraments. In an interview with Italian priests, someone asked him how to judge the sincerity of people who come to the sacraments. He answered that he used to be very strict. Now, he said, as long as there is a glimmer of hope, he believes in being very generous. (This was in an article in the Criterion last summer.) I believe firmly in following the Pope’s advice. Let’s be very generous in giving what we have.
Love,
Fr. Larry