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Previous Homilies
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Deacon John Payne
St. Louis Church
FIRST SUNDAY IN
LENT
Last summer, Fr. Kevin
needed to purchase a lawn mower for his place in Bristol. He headed into
town to buy one, but on the way he saw a sign advertising a lawn mower for
sale. He stopped at the house and a young kid came out to greet him. Fr.
Kevin asked about the lawn mower and the two went to look at it. The engine
was sputtering along at idle speed. Fr. Kevin increased the speed of the
engine and mowed a few strips. Satisfied that the mower would do the job,
they settled on a price of $25.00.
Later in the day, the young
kid was out riding his bicycle when he saw Fr. Kevin pulling on the engine
starter rope. The kid stopped and watched for a couple of minutes and asked,
"What's wrong?"
Fr. Kevin said, "I can't get this mower started. Do
you know how?" The kid said, "Yep, you have to cuss at it." To
which Fr. Kevin replied, “Son, I am a priest and if I ever did cuss, not
saying I have, I've forgotten how to do it after all these years." The
kid replied, "Well, Father, keep pulling on that rope, and it'll all come
back to ya."
Lent has begun again. On
Ash Wednesday we received ashes on our foreheads with the words, “Turn
away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” – a call to conversion, a
metanoia. So once again, we give it another try, kind of like trying
to start that old lawn mower. The word Lent is from the Anglo-Saxon
word lengten, which means spring. It’s a time of year that we
are already longing for, right? Spring, of course, is a time when nature
comes back to life. And so too, we are called during Lent to come back to
life, to change; we are called to conversion, hopefully evidenced by our
different attitudes, our different lifestyles, our being and acting like the
persons that God wants us to be.
St John Vianney, reflected
on today’s Gospel this way. “Are we poor? We have a God who is
born in a stable, who lies in a manger. Are we despised? We have a
God who led the way, who was crowned with thorns, dressed in a filthy red
cloak, and treated as a madman. Are we tormented by pain and suffering?
Before our eyes, we have a God covered with wounds, dying in unimaginable
pain… Finally, are we being tempted by the demon? We have our
lovable Redeemer. He also was tempted by the demon and was twice taken up
by that hellish spirit. Therefore, no matter what sufferings, pains, or
temptations we are experiencing, we always have, everywhere, our God leading
the way for us, and assuring us of victory, as long as we genuinely desire
it.”
None of us is immune to sin.
A big threat to our spiritual growth is the thought that we are exempt from
the discipline and the hard work of conversion. An essential human
attribute for genuine conversion is humility – a virtue that removes the
debris of pride that blocks our vision of reality and keeps us from true
holiness. The Catechism describes conversion as a “radical
re-orientation of our whole life away from sin and evil, and toward God.”
It needs to begin with the sacrament of penance and reconciliation, which is
our individual path to that change of heart needed for fully embracing the
Gospel. “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the
Gospel.”
How seriously do we take
the devil? Scripture describes the Evil One as an adversary, an accuser
against the community, one who splits and breaks apart. Today’s Gospel is
not mere metaphor or symbolism – the characters of Jesus and the devil are
real. St. Thomas Aquinas held that all possible temptations are included in
the temptations experienced by Jesus in today’s story. Specifically, the
lust of the flesh, the desire for glory, and the quest for power, are all
encompassed in the Tempter’s offers. There is no area of human desire exempt
from the our Lord’s experience and his empathy with us.
Just how close is the Evil
One? Just look around us –
evidence of lust for worldly attachments; antagonism; power to control
others through politics, physical suppression, and bullying; false
accusations and corruption; injustice toward the poor and marginalized – I
guess we can say that the proofs are legion. This continuing agenda of the
Evil One is evidence enough for our need to make changes in our own
lifestyles, attitudes, and actions. “Turn away from sin and be faithful
to the Gospel.”
We are being called to
conversion, to humility, to the sacrament of penance and reconciliation. We
are being called to recognize the Evil One in our lives, and are being
called to quit pulling on the starter rope that will lead us back to our old
ways and habits. We need to recognize that it’s time for a tune up.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Jer 17: 5-8 I Cor 15: 12, 16-20 Lk 6: 17, 20-26
The best part of a vacation is the first few hours when we look
forward to the full time of being away from routine and relaxing in
pleasant surroundings without pressure. The picture too quickly
changes, though, and all too soon we begin to prepare for reentry.
Joy in the vacation, then, becomes part of the realm of memory, and
the vacation becomes a total package, as it were, to be compared
with other experiences in our life.
This Ordinary Time has much the same dynamic. Having celebrated the
reality of Epiphany, we strive to live the mystery in our daily
lives. We begin once again to live life from the vantage point of
the incarnation, and, through faith, we attempt to give Jesus a more
deliberate place in our daily round of activities. As He becomes
more regularly a part of our daily life, we grow in holiness and
learn to keep Him in the center of mind and heart and action.
Jeremiah uses strong language when he addresses the subject: “Cursed
is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in
flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.” The curse is more in
the consequences of a life lived without the proper orientation -
whose heart turns away from the LORD. Life loses its focus; one’s
usefulness or sense of purpose become elusive: “He is like a barren
bush in the desert,” Jeremiah continues,”that enjoys no change of
season, but stands in a lava waste, a salt and empty earth.”
Life without focus in God so easily becomes a bore; motivation takes
real work, and there is frequently a kind of moral stubbornness: “I
like the way I am, no matter what anyone says.” The position is not
unlike the bigot or the self-centered pest at a party. Rather than
being the source of joy and enthusiasm, we can lose the ability to
dream or to care for others.
But then Jeremiah offers us the contrast: “Blessed is the one who
trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD. He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream; it fears not the heat
when it comes; its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it
shows no distress, but still bears fruit.” A barren waste – a
productive garden of fruit and flowers – the contrast is striking.
Today, Paul brings Jesus back into the center of life along with a
hint of His coming resurrection, the second of the great mysteries
celebrated in the Church’s liturgical year. In a few days we will
begin the season of Lent to prepare us for Easter. “If for this life
only we have hoped in Christ,” Paul goes on, “we are the most
pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the
dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
In the gospel, Jesus gathers a large crowd of disciples and those
people who simply came to hear Him, and He proclaims to them the
beatitudes and woes. "Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom
of God is yours.” It is a poverty that acknowledges that all that is
good is God’s gift, and those are blessed who live their lives
acknowledging that all comes from Him. Their lives become an
epiphany of God’s presence. In the simple authenticity of human
relationships God’s presence becomes more evident. In the reality of
the sacrament of marriage the presence of God can and must be
profound.
This weekend we acknowledge Valentine’s Day but need to remember and
enable our world to remember that Valentine is a martyr who gave his
life to show love for God who is love itself. One of the most
profound expressions of Divine Love in the human reality is the
covenant of Christian marriage which Paul describes in his epistle
to the Ephesians. It is a relationship that mirrors the love of
Christ for His Church – a love that goes even to death on a cross
and a love that is returned even in a martyr’s death.
No small tragedy of today’s world is the continuing lack of
appreciation and reverence for one another that can overcome even a
Christian marriage. Society can be so forgetful, take the covenant
of marriage for granted, and leave our world with only a skeleton of
the reality God gave us. Compared to Christ’s love for us and our
required love of Him, marriage can sometimes become a tragic empty
hulk of the reality.
May we acknowledge the Epiphany, the manifestation, of Christ’s love
in our world especially in the covenant of marriage. May we avoid
the supposed sophistication which looks upon this great gift as a
mere formality where marriage vows are mere words. We must remember
that every marriage is intended to mirror divine love. As we
continue in Ordinary Time, may we all find the ongoing epiphany of
God’s love at every moment in life and find the beginning of that
eternal epiphany we call heaven.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Neh 8: 2-4a, 5-6, 8-10 I Cor 12: 12-30 Lk 1:1-4; 4:14: 14-21
There’s the proverb that says we can know truly where we are going
only when we know from where we have come. Today’s Scriptures tell
us of a people returning from exile and just beginning to restore
their national identity. Following the Babylonian exile the Jewish
people began a difficult period to discover again their reality as
God’s people, established by Him, tried by Him, nurtured and
restored by Him and loved by Him.
As we just heard, the people listen intensely to the reading of the
law, they rediscover who they are as a people in their sincere
acceptance of the Law God had given them. For them it’s a time of
finding once again their identity, but now as a people in the midst
of a foreign culture. They are home again, but now must become
comfortable in circumstances of home so changed after many years of
exile.
In this Ordinary Time following Epiphany we reassess our own
identity as a Christian people. We look again at ourselves with the
renewed realization of Jesus’ birth and the consequence of His
dwelling among us. Remember the words of the Angelus Prayer: “And
the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” “He dwells among us” is
a phrase compelling us to realize its implications for us as a
Christian community – as a living and thriving parish.
We may not be returning from exile, but we are finding ourselves in
an environment – in a culture – that does not always reflect
Christian values or even a respect for the human individual. Just as
the return from exile intensified the faith of the Jewish people,
the culture that surrounds us should intensify and deepen our
respect for life and our awareness of the need to deepen the
practice of our faith.
St. Paul reminds us that: “in one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body,” “and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.” In that
same Spirit, different gifts grace each of us - different
responsibilities which we bring to our Christian community and to
our world. Unfortunately, we can hide behind a certain indifference
or reluctance to become involved. We can even become quite
proficient in convincing ourselves that it is normal not to live
fully our Christian commitment, when common sense should be telling
us it is not.
Using our gifts is simply a natural consequence of their having been
put in our lives to begin with. Parents, for example, are proud of
their children’s accomplishments – recitals, rehearsals, soccer and
basketball games and so much more. Children not infrequently are
delighted in the gifts of their parents. In my own family we could
spend hours listening to my mother play the piano for us. Is it not
true, then, that God must take great delight in us when we use well
the gifts with which He has blessed us? And does He not find delight
when we rejoice in Him?
What magnificent drama it is when Luke’s gospel relates that moment
when Jesus reveals to the congregation at the synagogue of Nazareth
His gift of being the promised Messiah. Jesus had come to the
synagogue that day as He was accustomed, and the people would have
found nothing extraordinary in His presence. They had to have been
truly surprised, however, when, having quoted Isaiah’s prophecy of
the coming Messiah, Jesus announced: "Today this Scripture passage
is fulfilled in your hearing."
It was a stunning moment for them, and it should be for us. It was a
moment in history that has affected the lives of us all who claim to
be Christian. This was a moment of continuing epiphany when the
Incarnate Word is revealed in time. Jesus places Himself firmly
within the Scriptures with all their expectation of a messiah who
has been sent “to bring glad tidings to the poor” - “to proclaim
liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
This is a passage proclaimed in our hearing as well; have we
listened and are we paying attention? Do we see the consequences of
that proclamation in our own life? Are we smug in thinking we need
not respond or become involved? It is really from such a moment that
motivation for our life as Christians should arise. All our life
must, in fact, be our continuing fulfillment of that Scripture
passage. It should be motivating, for example, what we do for the
people of Haiti. Whatever we do for anyone in need must flow from
our realization of Jesus’ proclamation in the synagogue in Nazareth.
This weekend, two more things call for our attention in the light of
Jesus’ fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. The Octave of Prayer for
Christian Unity invites us to remember Jesus’ prayer at the Last
Supper: “Father, may they be one as we are one.” We should be doing
all in our power to enable the answer to Jesus’ prayer. What are we
doing to pray with Christ? Does our life in any way simply make its
fulfillment more distant?
This weekend we remember legislation that ignores the value of human
life at the earliest moments of its conception. How intense is our
prayer for a basic respect for human life no matter how long that
life has been in existence. The law of the land has been skewed to
put human life in jeopardy, and millions of souls have died. The
world needs our awareness so that all life will be held precious and
protected. How often do we pray for the conversion of those who do
not hold life sacred?
With Jesus’ declaration at Nazareth we are able to know where we
have come from and where we are going. On that journey may we reach
out as one family not only to our fellow Christians, to the people
of Haiti, to offended innocent human life, but to any and all who
need to experience the love of God enfleshed and reaching out to
them.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
Baptism of the Lord
Today we come to the end of he Christmas season with the celebration of the
Baptism of the Lord. Next week we will return to green vestments and
Ordinary time. So what have we experienced and learned from this year’s
Christmas celebration?
We have seen the wonder of God becoming flesh---the Incarnation, Christmas.
It all happens among ordinary people and in ordinary places and time. God
asks the participants to accept a role in the unfolding of the mystery; they
show trust and faith as what is happening is not fully understood. There are
a lot of questions and many things to reflect upon. It all happens among the
‘little ones’---Mary and Joseph, the Shepherds and in the backwater town of
Bethlehem; not in palaces, among the rich and famous, the ones who could
make it get more attention; rather it is among the poor and ordinary (people
like us). We also see that Jesus had to grow in a family, with religious
practices and rituals a part of his upbringing. He grew in age and grace and
wisdom under the guidance of his parents.
Now we come to the Baptism of Jesus by John. That Baptism is quite different
from the baptism that we have received. The Jewish faith, as well as other
religions, use water rituals to speak of cleansing, preparation, and
initiation. For Jesus His Mission begins with this ritual blessing. The
Voice in the Gospel of Luke is for Jesus alone to hear as it confirms him in
his mission and confirms who he is: “You are my beloved son, with you I am
well pleased.”
A transition begins here, from the private life of Nazareth to going out to
preach the Good News and to heal and comfort, to lift the spirit and to
bring hope to the sinner. The Baptism is an Epiphany for Jesus, a glimpse
into the more, a look at who he is. I suppose it would parallel college
graduation---one moves from preparation to the arena of work in a job
market. The child is no longer a child, but takes on a new mantle of
responsibility.
Our Baptism ties more into Jesus’ mission than into his baptism. Our baptism
reveals us as ones who have been graced by the mission of Jesus; we have
been saved, renewed, justified and made heirs of eternal life. We are
baptized with what John the Baptist calls the Holy Spirit and fire. The Holy
Spirit speaks of the divine presence within us---we are transformed and
become part of the Body of Christ, we are blessed with new life, the seeds
of God’s life are planted in us.
The fire burns within us so that we are ignited with energy, with a drive
that reaches out beyond us to touch others with its power, warmth and
welcoming presence. We use a similar expression when we speak of more common
and human experiences: a coach works to get a team ‘all fired up’; a boss
tries to ‘light a fire’ under employees; someone takes on a new project and
has ‘a fire in the belly.’
Confirmation that sacrament so linked to baptism is about activating that
Holy Spirit and fire for the teenage believer. We often see the image of the
Holy Spirit as a tongue of fire on the heads of the Apostles, but maybe the
image should be a fire under them. Baptism is done usually as infants;
Confirmation to older candidates who accept their responsibility to live the
Mission of Jesus.
Confirmation leads us to be eager to do good for others. It joins us to the
Mission of Jesus and empowers us to be able to touch others with the love of
our God…as Jesus did. It is not just doing something nice, but the good we
do is the gift of God through us.
Baptism then is for the parents and family an embracing of who this child is
and then the parents form the child through its growing up years in grace
and wisdom, like Mary and Joseph did.
Confirmation is where the Holy Spirit and fire fill us and lead us to
understand what the Mission of Jesus is---this is where our Baptism and that
of Jesus intersect. It is a wow moment---wow that is what this is all
about---God gives me the ability to share God’s love when I love, when I
serve, when I help someone else. This is a precious and generous gift that
carries on the work of the Church in the shadow of Jesus. May the Holy
Spirit and God’s fire energize us!
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
HOLY
FAMILY
Christmas is one of those days when we can experience both the best and the
worse of family life. There is the promise of coming together from a variety
of places to gather together to recall past memories of time spent that has
nourished and helped individual members of the family to grow and be
enriched. And in doing so, we create new memories that strengthen and help.
Who does not yearn for that Norman Rockwell painting to be the reality that
we experience again?
Yet at the same time, Christmas can reveal the fractures and brokenness of
family life. Perhaps it is that moment when old disagreements surface when
we hoped they would be held back; or maybe it is the absence of someone who
was central to who our family was; or maybe it is being aware of the very
blend that our family is---children from two marriages, step and foster
children, parents and grandparents from more than one relationship.
Part of the challenge of this feast is focused on the word, HOLY. We can
think that the home in Nazareth where Jesus grew up was marked by yellow
halos that were always evident from morning to night. We can mistakenly
picture this family as being obsessively pietistic and religious. There was
never a cross word, any hurtful experience or need to correct. That may be
what we have imagined and been taught by all those pious holy cards, but the
reality might have been different.
The Gospel itself reminds us that not all was so perfect. After the
celebration of the Passover in Jerusalem, the child Jesus was found to be
missing. If you ever were a missing child or a searching parent, you know
that is not a calm and gentle experience. It is filled with fright and
worry. It almost pushes you to the edge of sanity.
You hear it in the words of Mary: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your
father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”
So there was even in this ‘holy’ family tension and anxiety among the
members. St. Luke goes on to tell us that Jesus was obedient to them, in
other words, he did not pull that trick again. Jesus had to grow in wisdom
and age and favor in that home where he had disappointed Mary and Joseph.
I point this out not to minimize the example and challenge of Jesus, Mary
and Joseph but to attempt to offer them as realistic examples for us in our
family situations. It is not always easy to accept the normal annoyances
that are part of family life; we can too easily see the things that bother
us (bug) us; we see the idiosyncrasies of other members of the family. What
we are called to do is to help one another to be a better person, to learn
to give respect and love to each other. This is not an easy thing to learn,
let alone practice.
There are three things from the SS today that could strengthen our families:
Hanna gave thanks to God for her son, Samuel. What if we were more
grateful and expressed our thanks for each other. Parent for child, child
for parent, brother for sister and sister for brother?
St. John tells us that we are all children of God. True in our
personal families, in our Church family, in our world family. What if we
lived more conscious of how we are related and join with one another in the
life of God? What if each of us worked everyday to love better one other
person?
In the Gospel it says Mary and Joseph went to the Temple in
Jerusalem each year. They practiced family prayer and ritual celebration as
part of their family life. God was not extraneous to their daily lives. What
if each family became more committed to family prayer and worship in Church
on a regular and consistent basis?
Pope John Paul spoke of the family as the domestic Church. It is in the
family that Christian virtues and practices become routine and integrated
into a person’s being. It is the family where the faith in God and belief in
Jesus Christ get passed from the hearts of mothers and fathers into the
hearts of the children. Even with the rough edges and hurt feelings, may we
find ways to be a domestic Church for one another.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
CHRISTMAS
So many Christmas Carols have within them part of the message of the meaning
of Christmas. Little Drummer Boy, Silent Night, Little Town of Bethlehem all
in someway offer some thought to the significance of what we celebrate
today. Little Town of Bethlehem has the beautiful words…the hopes and fears
of all the years are met in thee tonight. How very true for us today---our
hopes and fears are met in this new-born.
Isn’t it a wonder that so many people come to Churches around the world on
this day. They come to hear the same old story that has within it a sense of
mystery and hope. The details of this simple story, filled with Good News,
don’t change from one year to the next. We will be taken back to a small
town off the beaten track, a back-water town of 30-50 families, famous for
its pastures for the sheep that will be used in the Temple of Jerusalem. It
was also the home town of the great King David but that is a very distant
memory tonight.
Look who is involved this night---not the rich and famous or even wannabes:
A carpenter from up north who may have been unemployed, his pregnant teenage
wife, who was about to give birth, a variety of field animals, and shepherds
tending their flocks. Not a gathering of people that YNEWS would even cover.
Yet in this birth of a helpless child to such poor parents, the world and
human existence has been changed forever. In the joining of the human with
the divine, we are all changed. And maybe, just maybe this is the reason
that so many come out on a cold night at the darkest time of the year to
hear again this simple story. It may be that as we tell this story again, we
are reminded that God has lifted us to himself in Christ Jesus. God has
shared our life here in this simple setting so we too could share his life.
This is the powerful meaning of this Christmas birth. In the light of this
birth, we discover ourselves there in this child fully human. We discover
ourselves in this human birth, we have the sense of the esteem of our best
selves, and we are lifted beyond the frailty and weakness that we can feel
most days.
So the Good News is more than about Jesus’ birth as a human being, but it
also is about our hidden self that is blessed by God. We glimpse for at
least a brief moment that we have within us the spark of the divine, the
ability to rise to a better self, the blessing to truly live a fuller life
with others on this earth---the hopes of all the years.
Alexander Pope has a thoughtful question for us: “What does it profit me if
Jesus is born in thousands of cribs tonight all over the world, but is not
born in my heart?”
Christmas is very personal, not out there, but in here. We are asked us to
live in a new way: reflecting the grace that is ours. We are, each of us,
“favored by God.” Can we be in touch with our hidden selves---the self that
God graces and favors tonight? Can we live more from our best selves? Can we
walk away from sin, from judging others and holding on to hurts, can we give
others the benefit of the doubt, can we grace another person, can we open
ourselves to someone different, and can we expand our comfort zone?
This Christmas can we be drawn to this simple story and hear it to be about
us? We are favored by God. Can we see in the birth of Jesus that my life can
be different? That I can be different? That because I am held in God’s
grace, I am made new and even my sin and failures can lead me to open my
heart to receive the grace of healing and begin to live with a different
attitude. I am embraced and held in the loving arms of a God who sees beyond
our gifts and failings to the core of our being. This Christmas can be a
miracle of grace where the Scrooge with in us can be changed. Yes, the fears
of all the years are met in thee tonight.
It is difficult to accept that God loves us as we are, with our limitations
as well as our tendencies toward sin. God is constantly calling us to
conversion, to turn from our sinful behavior. God is always inviting us to
follow him with a full knowledge of our human nature. Being a Christian is
being a loved sinner. God has embraced the human in Christ Jesus and because
of that marriage, we all can be different.
We can say if only I were holier, I then would be worthy of God’s love. I’m
not Mother Theresa, or John XXIII, I’m too human to be of any use to God.
Using our humanity can be an excuse for not hearing our call from God or
from bearing our responsibility to one another.
True Christmas is about celebrating the coming of God in us---with all our
humanness.
Pray that the wonder, the miracle of Christmas is not the birth in a stable
of Bethlehem but in the heart of each of us ---may the grace of our God
embrace each of us.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
CHRISTMAS
Is 62: 11-12 Titus 3: 4-7 Lk 2:15-20
Today is the feast of a Child – a Child
whose home is eternal and who was born in a stable. In the liturgy we
celebrate the Christmas feast from Midnight, through Dawn and into the New
Day. With this liturgy we celebrate the Mass at Dawn, reminded that that one
of the titles of Jesus is “Oriens ex Alto” - the Rising Sun. He is the Dawn.
Such an awesome part of the day, probably few of us get to see the dawn.
Astronauts in orbit experience it every ninety minutes. A wonderful place to
experience it here on earth is at the Abbey of the Genesee, just before the
monks begin their morning prayer.
In the moments just before dawn all the birds begin to sing as if to
announce the sun’s coming. Night’s blackness gradually softens to a light
gray which, with equal slowness, gives way to pastel blues and then a deep
rose. A deep red, like a glowing furnace, begins to fill the center horizon.
With thrilling suddenness, a thin sliver of brilliance appears just at the
horizon. It grows larger, filling the sky; we greet the sun, and day has
begun.
We speak of the sun as rising, but the fact is that, as the earth spins on
its axis it brings the surface of the earth to the horizon where it meets
the sun. We can imagine the entire planet bowing in adoration. Like the
spinning earth, we, in this Christmas Mass at Dawn, rush to meet the Christ
Child. Like the shepherds, we go in haste to Bethlehem, to this Bethlehem,
this House of Bread, this Eucharist.
With the dawn, the sun envelops the earth in ever increasing light, and the
world is transformed. The sunrise glow is replaced with a soft then
brilliant light that brings everything to light. And so it is as we come to
meet the Christ Child. Isaiah tells us: “the LORD proclaims to the ends of
the earth: ..,your savior comes!” As we rush to meet the Christ Child, our
world brightens into a new day.
In today’s letter to Titus, Paul reminds us that the coming of the Christ
Child transforms us all: “When the kindness and generous love of God our
savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because
of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the
Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our
savior, so that we might be justified by his grace.”
In this Mass at Dawn, we accompany the shepherds as they make their way to
Bethlehem to share with them that initial wonder as we, with them, find the
Child who is Emmanuel – God with us. We wonder along with the shepherds at
the news we have heard, and we can now return to our homes like the
shepherds: “glorifying and praising God for all they (we) had heard and
seen, just as it had been told to them (us).”
Without actually going to Bethlehem, the shepherds would have been left with
only information. Their journey to Bethlehem was absolutely necessary for
them to find the Christ Child and to confirm the truth of all that had been
told them. How do we make our journey to Bethlehem; how is the reality of
Christ’s coming truly a part of our life? Like the shepherds, we must come
in faith to the infant of Bethlehem and build our lives around what He is
and what He has revealed to us.
With Mary we are called to keep “all these things, reflecting on them in
(our) heart.” Christmas must be celebrated with the thoughtfulness of Mary.
It is a mystery of love that only our own attentiveness can open for us. The
world cannot afford only a superficial faith from us. We must be, for own
sakes and for our world, a people who come to Mary to ponder what this feast
holds. Our modern world does not offer much assurance of a thoughtful
realization of what Christmas is all about.
Christ is born for us; Christ is born in us! We have wonderful news to
share; we have a day that is just beginning. When we offer Christmas
greetings to each other, we bring the Christ Child more securely into our
lives and more deliberately into the lives of all around us. Dawn is that
wonderful time of discovery and revelation. May we truly wake with the Dawn
and find the Christ Child this Christmas morning; may we truly make Him
known in lives transformed by Him – transformed so that our world may know
Emmanuel – God with us.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
FOURTH
Sunday of Advent
Mic 5: 1-4a; Heb 10: 5-10; Lk 1: 39-45
They waited so long! In the many centuries before Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem,
longing for a Messiah filled the lives of the Jewish people as they looked
forward for deliverance through repeated exiles and oppression. Eight
hundred years before Christ’s birth they knew the consolation of the
prophecies of Isaiah and Micah to assure them that the promised Messiah
would indeed come. Today we hear Micah foretell that the Messiah would come
from Bethlehem, “too small to be among the clans of Judah”. “From you shall
come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.”
No ordinary Messiah, His origin is “from of old, from ancient times.” He is
of the fabric of a people’s longing that spans centuries. And still the Lord
calls for loyalty and faith. For us who regularly celebrate the arrival of
that Messiah at Christmas, the longing to know Him must be no less profound
than the longing of those who awaited His coming those many centuries before
His birth.
This Messiah comes with the destiny to fulfill the Divine Will: “As is
written of me in the scroll, behold, I come to do your will, O God.” The day
of sacrifices and sin offerings is past, and redemption is found in that
desire to fulfill God’s will. And for us who live in these days when the
Messiah is among us, life must be the continuing fulfillment of the Divine
Will. It must be our very way of life – more and more deliberate, with more
and more awareness.
Jesus’ mother Mary is given to us on this last Sunday of Advent as the one
of profound faith who, as we hear Elizabeth say in the gospel, “believed
that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled." The centuries
of waiting are crowned with that mother’s belief and trust that the Messiah
would come – and come with Mary’s consent to be the “Mother of the Lord.”
To follow Mary’s example, we must remember that, immediately upon her reply
to the angel, she journeys to the hill country of Judea to be with her
cousin Elizabeth. Part of her motivation must have been to find in the older
woman the sign of God’s faithful promise - the fact that Elizabeth was in
the sixth month of her pregnancy. Present too, I am sure, was Mary’s desire
to offer her assistance in the closing days of Elizabeth’s pregnancy.
Mary becomes, along with Isaiah and John the Baptist, the third of the great
figures who announce, in our Advent liturgies, the presence of the Messiah.
Each becomes a messenger who touches heart and mind to be aware of Jesus’
presence among us now. We are to offer Him our lives that we may be of
assistance to all around us so that the world will share our awareness and
find the Messiah present in today’s struggling world.
In the middle of the mad rush of preparation for the Christmas holiday, we
need to remember that preparation for the holyday which is Christmas is far
simpler and far more profound. Beyond gifts, cards and decorations is the
reality of our intense awareness of Christ’s presence – here, in the midst
of crowds, in heartbreak and disappointment – here in the Eucharist (our
Bethlehem, our House of Bread).
We must be careful to avoid a certain political correctness which turns
“Merry Christmas: to “Happy Holidays”. We must attempt to be thoughtful
enough to remember the celebrations of our Jewish and Black brothers and
sisters, but we can never forget that the feast of Christmas requires of us
a constant remembrance of the meaning of the holyday which is Christmas. It
is good for the world to know that we celebrate the birth of the Messiah who
enters all peoples’ daily lives with all their accompanying pains and
suffering. He comes to make all things new; He comes to bring meaning even
to the tragedies of life. .
Days away from Christmas, we ask ourselves what we Christians are offering
to our world that is powerful enough to quiet the clamor of materialism.
Does our example, does our behavior, offer concrete indication of hope to
those who suffer not only material poverty, but also a poverty of soul and a
lack of hope? Do we help our world see beyond the immediate to the eternal?
Does the love we have for the Christ Child help to motivate a world to love
infant life even before its birth?
Does our love enable us and our world to find the child in each of us and in
all we meet?
It isn’t always the easiest thing to find that child in each of us; but we
certainly will be able to do it far more easily when we have found the Child
who is the model of the creation of each of us. As John the Evangelist
reminds us: “Through Him all things were made and without Him was made
nothing that was made.”
Early ages waited so long for the Messiah to come. May everything about our
lives now proclaim that the waiting is over. We can well put ourselves in
Elizabeth’s place as she greets Mary: “How does this happen to me, that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?” How do we respond as Mary brings us
her Child in this last week of Advent? Now we need pray intensely that His
presence among us will be obvious enough to all around us that we make Him
known now that at last He has come.
Deacon John Payne
St. Louis Church
THIRD
Sunday of Advent
One morning a man came into the church on crutches. He stopped at the holy
water font, put some water on both legs, and then threw away his crutches.
An altar boy witnessed the scene and ran into the sacristy to tell the
priest what he'd just seen. "Son, you've just witnessed a miracle!"
the priest said. "Can you tell me where is this man now?" The boy
said, "Yes Father, he’s over by the font flat on his back!"
I can relate to this man on
crutches. I have to laugh at myself for the number of times I look for the
quick fixes in my life, looking for miracles, rather than recognizing the
miracle right in front of me. I am reminded of my lack of faith every month
as I pay the bill for our children’s college loans. I used to pray that one
of the five kids would get a scholarship to college, and we could take care
of the rest. God heard my prayer, and one of the kids got a full ride. I
wonder today why I didn’t ask for four of them to get scholarships and we
would pay for the fifth. And then every time I step on the scale, I wonder
why someone hasn’t invented a way to donate fat to those poor souls who need
to gain weight – I could be a donor. Again I’m looking for the quick fix,
instead of watching what I eat, instead of getting on the treadmill.
I think it was Father Ray
who told the story a number of years ago about the Native American patriarch
who told his grandchildren that every person has two wolves inside of them
who are engaged in an ongoing struggle. One is the wolf of justice, peace,
and kindness; the other is the wolf of hatred, fear, and greed. “Which
wolf will win?” asked one of the grandchildren. To that the grandfather
replied, “Whichever one we feed.”
During the season of Advent,
we try to welcome Christ into our lives and we find ourselves facing the
wolves that dwell within ourselves, who vie for the precious food of our
energies and attention. Identifying these wolves and calling them by name is
a good first step. Deciding which to feed, will set the agenda for a
lifelong struggle. Who among us actually lives with the eager expectation
that the coming of Jesus is imminent? Have we done anything differently this
Advent season to prepare for him, or do we continue to fall prey to the
wolves of apathy and denial?
Every Advent, as our
attention to John the Baptist and his message is renewed, each of us is
challenged to follow the lead of his contemporaries. Repeatedly they asked,
“What ought we to do?” and repeatedly John explained how they could
best prepare the way for welcoming Jesus. Some had been feeding the wolves
of selfishness. Rather than share, they hoarded and overlooked the needs of
the poor. Others had fed the wolves that worshipped wealth -- and had even
sacrificed their ethics in an attempt to satisfy their growing appetites.
Still others allowed the wolves of ambition and greed to lead them to lie,
cheat, and lord their power over the helpless. As we journey through this
Advent season, we, too, are prompted to ask: “What ought we to do? Which
wolves are we to feed, and which are we to put on a permanent diet?”
And this is not easy to
do. What if we were to prepare for the Lord with the same simple and
joyful anticipation with which children throughout the world ready
themselves for Santa Claus; how might that excitement enliven our hearts and
fill our lives with a holy longing? Because we believe in miracles, because
we’re used to quick fixes, some of us have been feeding the wolves of
procrastination, putting off until some distant tomorrow, the preparedness
with which we should live each day. Others among us have been allowing the
wolves of doubt and discouragement to eat away at our hope. We look at our
world and see only its worst attributes. We wait, but without eagerness;
we hope, but without conviction; we anticipate, but without enough faith to
ignite our enthusiasm.
In the story of the man on
crutches, he was probably sick and tired of having to rely on them and was
looking for the easy way out. Our maybe he had great faith and was
expecting a miracle. He may have been forgetting that he had a great
blessing, namely that he was able to get around on crutches and didn’t need
a wheelchair; yet he wanted more, forgetting that he already had a lot. I’m
not saying that there’s something wrong with wanting more, but sometimes we
need patience and allow our bodies to heal themselves. We need the vision
to see our blessings and be satisfied with what we have, as Luke
tells us in the gospel today.
As a remedy to the ravenous
wolves that threaten our faith, in today’s first and second readings,
Zephaniah and Paul raise their powerful, prophetic voices with the reminder
that the Lord is indeed in our midst, nearer to us than our own heartbeat.
As Catholics, we believe that the real presence of God is in the Word, in
the priest, in this community, and in the Sacrament of the Eucharist; this
belief calls for us to rejoice greatly. Are the problems and struggles of
our own lives and of our world still frighteningly near? Of course! But God
is nearer still and God’s presence is deeper, fuller, and more pervasive.
The season of Advent calls
us to act, to do something to change our life. So as Father Al suggested
last week , we should go to the sacrament of Penance. This, too, is not a
miracle cure, but it’s a step. Ask anyone with addictions, attending one
meeting won’t make you stop drinking or lose 100 pounds. Because if you’re
like me, you will sin again, and will again need the grace of the sacrament
to help you lose the addiction of your sins. A great opportunity for us to
receive the Sacrament as a community will be a week from Monday, on December
21st at 1:30 in the afternoon and 7:30 in the evening. At least
then, for a while, we will be able to throw away our crutches.
Our best hope is the
knowledge that God is in our midst – right now. Our conviction of God’s
presence empowers us to be joyful in this season of Advent, especially on
this Gaudete Sunday. Our trust in God’s presence allows us to stop
feeding the wolves of worry and anxiety, and allows us to look ahead with
certain confidence to the day when every wolf will be content to live in the
presence of the Lamb of God.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
First
Sunday of Advent
We have survived another Black Friday. There could be a TV show about the
life and times of so many people, beginning at 4am on Friday. It would be
called the Survivor! Oh, I guess there is a show by that name. This month
has to be the most frantic and stress-filled month of the whole year. There
is so much added that we just have to do; and while all that fills our time
and our days, nothing else stops. In fact, there can be some other add-ons
that complicate life: things like anxiety over having a job and being
assured of its dependency; or having to deal with a personal matter with a
friend or neighbor; or facing the unexpected demands because of health
issues.
What more could be added to make life even more full of challenges and
stress?
Church! We come to Church and hear this very graphic description of the end
of time—people dying of fright, the heavens acting strangely, and the seas
out of control. It is enough to make one want to find a hole and climb into
it; to pull the covers over our heads.
The readings, as we begin a new Church year, challenge us to do more than
survive. We are confronted with the need for adjustment. Not only have our
clocks and calendars had to be adjusted, but we are called by our God to
adjust our vision. How do we approach our everyday? How does our faith and
our commitment to God filter into the events of each day? What do we see as
our Christian responsibility in the midst of everyday? How do we find in
this frantic month an element of faith and spirituality?
Humans have been fascinated with the end times. The hype around the movie,
2012, is filled with anxiety about its message for us. People see the signs
of the end of the world, the end of existence all around us. While other
ages were wrong, maybe, just maybe the way the world is today, maybe it is
really coming to an end.
So what kind of adjustment does the Lord ask of us as we begin this season
of Advent? The end of the Gospel tells us to be stout-hearted, to have
courage, and do not allow anxieties to overcome your spirit. Good words, but
not always easy to practice. Maybe making a determined effort to enter into
our weekend worship during this Advent can help to stabilize our lives: to
prepare the readings, to be on time, to sing with whatever voice the Lord
has given you, to open your heart in prayer…to use this hour to be in touch
with our deeper selves and with our loving God.
There is a key phrase from the second reading that may help us also: may the
Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all. Maybe
we can allow this phrase to speak to our lives during this season. Who is
the person whom you could love better: maybe your son or daughter, or that
troubled person at school or work, or that family that you read about in the
paper who is homeless or maybe a refugee family that Saint’s Place helps. If
we all could focus on just one person this Advent and really worked to
practice love, maybe the spirit of Christ would fill our busy days.
Remember we don’t have to save the world---Jesus has already taken care of
that. But we are called to spread the love of that Messiah to those whom we
can touch.
Monsignor Gerard Krieg
St. Louis Church
33rd
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Dan 12: 1-13; Heb 10: 11-14; Mk 13: 24-32
In the Book of Ezekiel the Prophet we can hear God say to us: “Do I have
plans for you!” “My plans for you are peace and not disaster;” God says,
“when you call me I will listen to you, and I will bring you back to the
place from which I exiled you.” These are the opening words of the Introit
of today’s liturgy, and they remind us of what goes on in these final days
of the Church’s year.
Today, as we do on birthdays, we celebrate the year that is just concluding;
we remember all that has happened to us – good and bad – and we hold them
all together in thanksgiving. In these closing days of the year, today’s
words of Daniel can be terrifying when he speaks of Michael, guardian of
God’s people in “a time unsurpassed in distress since nations began until
that time.”
These final days are times of reward and punishment, of affirmation and
confrontation, of everlasting happiness and eternal loss. These days look
back to lives spent accepting divine love and returning it, rejecting or
ignoring it. They are days of thanksgiving or regret. Paul reminds us that
Jesus comes first as Redeemer and only then as Judge. He comes first with
mercy and only later with justice for those who refuse His mercy.
Today’s liturgy prepares us for that time of final reckoning when each of us
accepts the responsibility for how we have lived our lives. In the gospel
Jesus warns us to be aware of the signs that indicate the time of judgment,
when excuses have run out - a time simply to accept the judgment which is
the consequence of our faith or the lack of it; a time to acknowledge our
willingness to accept only our own dreams or those of a loving, creative
God.
With these final days of the Church’s year, indeed, with every day of the
year, we need to know the dream that drives our lives. Is it really the
dream God has for us – the dream that created us, saved us from the
foolishness of our sins and brings us to the promise of eternal life? Is it
the dream, as Ezekiel mentions, that brings us peace and not disaster, or is
it our own dream that can be so selfish, arrogant and short-sighted?
"Learn a lesson from the fig tree,” Jesus tells us. “When its branch becomes
tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way,
when you see these things happening, know that he (the Son of Man) is near,
at the gates.” How well have we learned our lesson from the fig tree? How
well have we stayed focused on the reality of God’s dream for us? How
devoted are we to that portion of the Lord’s Prayer when we say: “Thy
kingdom come; Thy will be done? This is not only a prayer; it is a way of
life, and hopefully our prayer reflects the way we are living our lives.
The liturgical year will conclude next week with the feast of Christ the
King. The role of kings in our present day world may not have the greatest
political or even personal relevance, but the role of Christ the King has
not changed. We must realize that we are called to see our life as one of
intense personal loyalty to Jesus Christ. It is not simply our loyalty to
our Catholic Faith or our knowledge of theology; it is far more personal –
far more intimate. It is the recognition of Our Lord’s complete commitment
to us and the need for our complete commitment to Him. Knowledge of theology
and a strong religious practice follow necessarily from that commitment to
the One whose love for us is complete.
Our life’s destiny is affected by the love of an infinite God, a King whose
crown is made of thorns and whose throne is a cross – a King who invites us
to join Him in Risen Life – a life when the King has pierced hands and feet.
A life of following Him assures us of victory over all that plagues our
lives – a victory that is ours to know for all eternity, a life when we need
celebrate no endings but live in eternal thanksgiving.
This is a wonderful time to reflect on what this year has brought us, but we
will best appreciate all that has happened when our reflection can be one of
thanksgiving and profound trust. We can pray for one another that we will be
aware of all the Lord has planned for us.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
ALL
SAINTS'
Who are the people we admire? Whom do we hold up as models for ourselves and
for our children? Allow me to mention a variety of people and consider
whether each would be someone you would hold up as an example to follow.
Brett Favre, Derek Jeter,
Mario Rivera, Chris Lee,
Susan Komen, Anthony Di Ponzio,
Dr. Steven Chu, Mary Cariola,
Edward Cullen, Bill Wilson, founder of AA
Sr. Seraphine Herbst, Gary Mervis,
Ursula Burns, Michael Jackson
I think we would generally agree that each of these people has something
outstanding about them; they are models. But we might be quick to add that
they are certainly not perfect: maybe they are outstanding in one way, but
lack some other qualities. The reality is that our heroes are all flawed;
they live in the human condition. As a youngster, I thought Johnny Unitas
was the greatest, and then I learned that he was divorcing his wife and my
world crashed.
Today we celebrate the Feast of All the Saints. We as a community
acknowledge and name people who are holy and have been an inspiration in our
lives. They may not have been perfect, but they responded to God’s
call---perhaps not perfectly, but they tried. . The SS this fall have
focused on the discipleship of those first followers of Jesus: Peter, James,
Mary Magdalene, Philip and others. We have been in a sense eavesdropping in
the school that Jesus has been teaching through the Gospel. For we also are
called to follow in the way of the Lord, to be Christ-like, to have the
qualities of Christ in our lives. We are reminded on this day what our
calling is---to be saints, to be holy and inspiring. We acknowledge and own
the goodness and virtues of life.
What makes a saint? The Gospel lays it out---to be poor in spirit, have
mourned without comfort, have longed for their inheritance with meekness,
have hungered and thirsted for justice, have been merciful and clean of
heart, have tried to build peace and have suffered for all their choices.
Their striving to live this way in imitation of Jesus has not always been
perfect. They have stumbled and erred but have asked forgiveness and have
tried again. They are the ones whom others may never have thought of as
saints but who have placed their trust and hope in God, knowing that only by
God’s grace can they be washed clean and clothed in radiance.
The SS of the day remind us that we are surrounded by a huge crowd---people
trying to be holy, to be Christ-like. Maybe those who have inspired us are
our parents or grandparents, our teachers or priests, maybe our neighbor or
good friend. Take a moment NOW to think of one person from your life
experience whom you would consider a saint!
Think of that person as our prayer continues today---be grateful and commit
yourself to imitate their goodness. You may want to learn more about the
saint whose name you carry---what makes her/him special, a model. Commit to
develop that virtue, characteristic in your life.
Monsignor Gerard Krieg
St. Louis Church
28th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Wis 7: 7-11; Heb 4: 12-13; Mk 10: 17-30
If you were that young man in the Gospel story, what would be the most
valuable thing in your life? If, like so many we have heard about in the
media who have lost everything in flood or fire, tsunami or earthquake, what
would cause you the greatest pain? To put it another way, what is that
reality which basically drives your whole life, every thought, action, every
word?
In today’s plaintive passage from the Book of Wisdom, the author pleads for
prudence and wisdom, virtues that are as precious as life: “I prayed, and
prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me. I
preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison
with her.”
“I prayed,” “I pleaded”; it was intense prayerful desire that won wisdom for
Wisdom’s author. Not only was Wisdom the gift above all, it was to be
desired with all the intensity that could be brought to bear. How deep is
our desire for this precious gift of Wisdom that has the power to put life
into perspective? Wisdom enables us to keep our priorities in proper
alignment, enabling us to make sense of every desire. And we hear the author
of the Book of Wisdom exclaim: “Yet all good things together came to me in
her company and countless riches at her hands.” All things – and in proper
perspective!
The Epistle to the Hebrews gives us the awareness of the ongoing source of
wisdom that is the Scriptures: “the word of God is living and effective,
sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit,
joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the
heart.” That precious gift of wisdom is not only a virtue; the Word of God
isn’t simply an expression of our voice or a word on a page; Wisdom, the
Word of God, is indeed God the Son, become the Son of Mary, who knows us
through and through. “No creature is concealed from him,” and it is He “to
whom we must render an account.’
In today’s gospel passage Mark, gives us that wonderful exchange between
Jesus and the young man who wanted to know what he must do to inherit
eternal life. “Keep the commandments.” Jesus answers. Keep the priorities
straight in your life. And indeed the young man had lived his life with
integrity and kept the commandments. Note, however, that the young man lists
only those commandments that dealt with his neighbor; significantly missing
were the first three that deal with his God.
And so we come to Jesus’ response: “Jesus,“ Mark tells us, “looking at him,
loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you
have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come,
follow me.’"
The young man is unnamed and, therefore, can be any one of us. He hears
Jesus offer him the supreme object of his search; but his face fell and he
went away sad. Could that young man really be any one of us? It is possible
that, when we have finally realized what is the most precious reality in
life, we simply turn away sad?
Jesus tells us to make Him the center of our life – that which drives us,
that which gives us the energy to pursue the basic value of all human life,
that which orders all else that fills our life. We can remember the words we
just heard from the Book of Wisdom: “Yet all good things together came to me
in her company, and countless riches at her hands.”
This applies not only to the young man at Jesus’ feet, but even to the most
sophisticated citizen of the 21st Century? We just heard in the Epistle to
the Hebrews: “Indeed the word of God is living and effective, sharper than
any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and
marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.”
In every age there is the tendency to play the role of the young man, to
hear what should thrill us but then simply leaves us sadly walking away. We
want that which brings life but forget that we are made for eternal life. We
want to achieve success, bnt not to the extent that we keep our lives
ordered by the most desirable of values.
Hopefully, this is what we are assisting one another to do in the wonderful
mystery of the Church. Hopefully that is why we are present at this
Eucharist, and hopefully we are doing it well.
Deacon John Payne
St. Louis Church
27th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
There was a man who had a lot of kids — nine to be exact — who was flying to
a business meeting. He was talking with the man seated next to him about his
family and was surprised to hear the man say, "I wish I had nine kids." "You
don't really know what you're wishing for," he said. "Yes, I do," came the
reply. "I have thirteen."
G.K. Chesterton once said that “whatever else is or is not true, this one
thing is certain — man is not what he was meant to be”. He’s saying that we
were created to have dominion over all, but we do not. Instead we are
creatures frustrated by the circumstances of our own making, defeated by our
own temptations and sins, saddled with our own weaknesses. We were created
to be free, yet we are tied down; we were created to rule, and instead we
are ruled.
Yet into our world came Jesus Christ, who willingly immersed himself in the
“mess” created by our sin and weakness. For our sakes, Jesus became “lower
than the angels,” and he suffered and died to rid humankind of frustration,
bondage, and weakness, and to restore the proper balance of nature, with
humanity exercising a caring dominion over all creation. Jesus died to
recreate humanity until every person could become what each was originally
created to be.
So what were we created to be? Men and women were created by God as equals,
free to enter into a complementary, mutually fulfilling relationship called
marriage. We have the capacity to offer one another a love and a joy like no
other. This love, as the late Cardinal Basil Hume attested, “is a sharing in
the very life and love of God.” Unselfish married love is itself a way to
God that enriches and fulfills the human personality. Through their
lifelong, life-giving union, each person in a marriage helps the other
become his or her best self. And that together, and by God’s grace, they
become a new entity called “family” and are privileged to procreate new
life.
Yet, as we know the relationship of marriage can be filled with difficulty
and threatened by conflicts that are inevitable when two free wills collide,
and this may lead to divorce. Because the dissolution of the marriage
results in the end of their family, divorce can almost be compared to a
death. With that “death” comes mourning for what was and what might have
been. So when confronted with the issue of divorce, Jesus did not say what
the Pharisees may have wanted to hear. Jewish law offered specific reasons
for which a marriage could be ended. However, Jesus took a different
approach and actually refused to offer a simple answer their question.
Instead Jesus elevates marriage, citing the text from Genesis that we just
proclaimed in today’s first reading. “God made them male and female. For
this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his
wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
It’s curious that St. Mark has placed this text on marriage along with
Jesus’ teaching about children. Jesus is working on the formation of his
disciples. The general principle of discipleship that can be extracted here
is that we who follow Jesus must not look for concessions. Discipleship,
like marriage, is an all-or-nothing proposition, and cannot be entered into
lightly or blindly; it must be entered into deliberately and heavily
fortified with prayer.
Jesus calls us “brothers and sisters.” So when Jesus looks at a criminal on
death row, or a homeless woman crawling into a cardboard box for shelter
against the cold, or a mother crying over the death of her child, or a man
battling the savage assaults of cancer, or the swollen body of a starving
child — Jesus does not see a charity case, a pitiful victim, or a hopeless
cause. Jesus sees a brother and a sister! As his disciples and stewards that
compassion is ours to share with all who come into our lives each day. And
oddly enough we must be like children in order to be successful disciples
and stewards. To do so, we need to simply look at what children do as they
go about being children.
Some say that the first childhood experience is the elemental feeling of
existing, that of being alive; it is the surprise of being part of an
amazing, interconnected combination of things. Children experience being
closely connected with other human beings. Whether it is mother, father, or
sibling, a child feels accepted, wanted, validated. Also, children are
innocent and naive. They don’t know right from wrong, good from bad, friend
from enemy. They are blissfully free of prejudice, morality, civility. They
accept whatever is. And they are spontaneous. They do whatever they feel
like doing, whenever they feel like doing it. With no experience or training
to guide them, they have no reason to act otherwise. Children are trustful
and hopeful. Life has not yet taught them how dangerous the world can be,
how uncaring it can be about their wishes. Life looks like an arcade of
possibilities, a playground where they can try all the toys without harm.
We could say that a world composed of these delightful creatures would look
like a kennel of happy puppies. And from this perspective, becoming an adult
would seem like a fall from grace. If children are innocent, spontaneous,
and trustful, then adults who are experienced, dutiful, and prudent would be
lesser humans. Maturity would feel like an evil.
It would be tough if our only choices in life were to be ignorant children
or selfish adults. But there is a stage beyond both childhood and maturity.
It is called wisdom. Wisdom knows bad from good, it knows that good finally
triumphs. It knows that life hurts, but that hurts are healed. It knows that
we must earn our keep, that we should take care of ourselves and each other
— yet knows that we must depend on God. It knows that we are children of
God, loved like no earthly parent could ever love. Wisdom knows that we are
called to a higher life, to a life of stewardship to each other, because God
did not limit the size of our family be it thirteen or nine, or one or five.
God gives us everything in abundance, allowing us to do more. He made us
male and female to complement each other, to work not for concessions, but
for eternal life — together with a God who loves us, who created us in his
own image; a God who became one of us to teach us to be his disciples, to
live life abundantly as his children, trusting in his love, fearless of the
evils of the world. “Then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his
hands on them.”
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
26th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
It all begins here: (Pix of a child having been baptized). In the waters of
Baptism, our God embraces us in his love; the community accepts us and
pledges to help us grow in Christ’s life; parents affirm their own faith and
commit themselves to ‘show’ this child God’s face in their words and
actions.
While it all begins here, it is just a beginning---for the work of growing
in the life of Christ continues for a life time. We gradually come to
understand what it means and what it requires to follow the Lord Jesus. The
school of discipleship unfolds its meaning for ever.
When we speak of Stewardship, we do this in light of the cross of Christ.
For here as we gather in the shadow of this cross, we first come to believe
in God’s love and the way of Christ. It is this life that we teach our
children and ourselves. Along the way we learn from the example of others
how to practice this kind of love in our own lives---a love that gives to
the other, a love that is forgiving, a love that honors and respects each
person as a child of God.
There are some people who are shining examples of this. Sr. Judy has left a
mark on this community in so many ways. However, her loving care were also
evident in her service as a teacher, as a counselor at Mercy High School, as
a Principal at Queen of Peace and Lourdes in Elmira and for 15 years as our
Pastoral Associate. I mention her because I think she offers all of us a
wonderful example of someone who found ways to give back, to use her gifts
for the good of others. Even in her last months, when she was not able to
get around, she developed a phone ministry and taught us that death is not
to be feared, but is a step into the love of God.
There is no one way to be a disciple; the challenge is for each of us to
identify the ‘HOW.’ And this HOW will change over time: at one time it will
be as a Parent, as a Brother or Sister, as a Teacher, as a Student and
Friend, as a Neighbor, as a Grandparent, as a Nurse or Worker, and so forth.
We each must find personal ways to respond!
The Role of the parish is not to limit but to encourage and to expand
awareness. St. Louis should help each of you to realize the ways beyond your
own experience and sight that the work of growing as a disciple can happen.
As a parish community we should strengthen our common life, make all of us
together more reflective of the Body of Christ.
Our Stewardship materials which outline some community ways to give back
focus on the three “T’s”---Time, Talent and Treasure. It is one way to break
it down, to make it manageable, and to offer specific ways to serve.
TIME: primarily to foster your personal relationship with our God. How very
important for each of us to take seriously giving God time. Maybe it will be
just one of those items, like consistent participation at Sunday Mass, but
making God a priority.
TALENT: how to make St. Louis all it can be! We live in a different time for
the Church today. The days of the priests and the sisters doing it all is
well behind us; and if you add to this the expansion of the kinds of
ministry a parish such as ours offers, you realize that unless the
parishioners step up and forward, it will not happen. We need your gift of
Talent.
TREASURE: how do we provide the resources for our ministries? Church costs
money and like the old pastor said: My dear people, I have good news and bad
news. The Good news is that we have enough money to do all we are asked to
do; the bad news is the money is still in your pocket.
I ask you to take seriously this commitment and re-commitment to
Stewardship. Not everyone has abundance in all three areas of Time, Talent
and Treasure, but we all have something in each. Make a commitment but be
realistic. Don’t just sign up because in the past many signed up, but never
showed up. Give of yourself ---and everyone, Just do it!
There are several areas of special need: Eucharistic Ministers at Mass; Care
of the Sick; Raihn; all of our committees.
Our last slide is a picture of the earth from space. We are called to do our
part to build a world of peace and justice where the values of the Kingdom
of God touch more and more people. Our little effort at Stewardship can move
that vision forward.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
24th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Very few of us are unaffected by the Opening of School: whether we have
children returning or starting school or having to be more conscious of the
yellow buses on the streets. This is an exciting time of the year when we
have to re-establish routines and re-commit ourselves if we are in school or
if we are parents or grandparents. We learn the lesson again that schooling
and learning is “hard work.” To develop our character and deepen our
identity requires effort and commitment. School is not easy, but requires
hard work and dedication.
Welcome this morning to the School of Discipleship! This is a never ending
school.
It is here we begin the hard work of forming ourselves to be followers of
Jesus Christ as learners and doers.
Over the next several weeks, the Scriptures will focus on developing
ourselves into disciples.
This school is not easy either, but demands commitment and hard work.
We get a glimpse of where we are going from the example of the Suffering
Servant in Isaiah this morning; and an inkling of where Jesus is going in
the Gospel.
We hear words like struggle and suffering from Isaiah; suffering greatly,
rejected and even killed in the Gospel; and those words aimed specifically
at us: deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.
We, like Peter, can have our own expectation of the Messiah. Peter saw the
Messiah as a political God-send, who would re-establish Israel as a
political savior, restoring the power to the nation by overthrowing the
Romans. We can think that following Jesus is meant to make us feel good,
reinforce the status we have, and confirm our success and well being. Being
prosperous was often seen as a sign of God’s blessing while those in poverty
and at the bottom of the economic ladder were being punished. There are
those in Christianity who say that if a person is successful or well off, it
is because God is blessing them. This attitude was also applied to physical
disabilities: remember the discussion about the Man Born Blind in John’s
Gospel: who sinned, this man or his parents? If someone suffered from
blindness or another malady, they had somehow fallen out of favor.
Jesus brings reality to the hopes of Peter and the others…and perhaps to us.
He points us in a different direction: deny yourself, take up your cross,
and follow me. Where he is going is the giving of love through death. We are
asked to follow him! We don’t hear the words, “deny yourself, take up your
cross” very often, but we will over the next several weeks so that we
remember that discipleship is not a comfortable or easy way. It is similar
to what parents have to remind their school aged children at the beginning
of the school year: school will require hard work and some choices that are
not always easy. There is no way around growth and learning, but only ways
through it.
How true this is for us regarding our faith growth, our attempt to become
true disciples of the Lord. It is hard work to form ourselves and our
children in faith.
It requires making religion and the practice of it a priority. Too often
today we can allow even children to dictate the choices: like participating
at mass or not; being faithful to religious education. Sometimes it is hard
when you are away from home on a travel hockey weekend to find a Church. But
it is what I believe families have to do. Sometimes it will mean getting up
early for Mass or coming to the late afternoon Mass---but it is what should
be done if we want to form our children and ourselves in the faith of Jesus
Christ. Where does “following Christ” rank in the priorities that families
set? There are way too many excuses that get in the way of our relationship
with God; too many reasons keeping us from the school of discipleship.
We need to hear the call of our God to follow in the way of Jesus. Like
anything worthwhile in life, it takes determination and hard work. St. James
says today in the second reading: Faith needs works! I urge you to re-commit
yourself to work at becoming a disciple of the Lord.
Monsignor Gerard
Krieg
St. Louis Church
23rd
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Is 35: 4-7a; Jas 2: 14-18; Mk 7: 31-37
Probably more often than we would like, we find TV newscasts of returning
service men and women, but each is a scene of cheering, tears of joy and
hugs of greeting. It’s a magic moment when love can be expressed and
received with heartfelt joy. While awaiting our own return flight from
Bangor to Rochester, my sister and I one day shared such a moment. We were
asked to join a group of local people who have committed themselves to greet
every flight of troops arriving home from Iraq. (Bangor is a point of
departure and return for the military.) It was a thrill for Ginny and me to
join that wonderful reception committee and share the tears of joy.
Isaiah, in today’s reading, paints a picture of joyous welcome as he
anticipates the joyful return home of the exiled Israelites. “Be strong,
fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine
recompense he comes to save you.” “Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe. The burning sands will become pools, and the
thirsty ground, springs of water.”
It’s a thrilling experience, we are told, to witness that desert blooming
when a rare downfall of rain causes small flowers of glowing color to cover
the desert floor. The delightful phenomenon has been described ecstatically
by those who have seen that transformation of a desolate expanse of rock and
sand into an endless carpet of bright color.
For the Israelites, they can hardly believe their exile is coming to an end.
Isaiah goes on to describe the wonder: “Then will the eyes of the blind be
opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a
stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.” The people are free once again
to live as God’s people, to laugh and to sing; to praise their God as His
Chosen Ones.
Homecoming is not restricted to the time of Isaiah and the return from
exile. For every generation of Christians – for every Christian – there is
the experience of a return home. We welcome the catechumens and candidates
to the Eucharistic community as an integral part of our celebration of
Easter joy. All of us can know the experience of returning home in every
Eucharist. We are welcomed by the Lord who gathers us in Eucharist and calls
us to welcome one another.
Today, St. James challenges our conscience as he describes the welcoming
gone awry in some of the Eucharistic gatherings of the early church. It’s a
fine opportunity to ask ourselves how openly we welcome those around us at
each Eucharist. Have we welcomed or were we welcomed by those who sit with
us today? “Show no partiality”, James says, “as you adhere to the faith in
our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” We all know that it is no joy to be left a
stranger at the Eucharist.
It’s important for us to remember, too, that Jesus came to earth, born in a
stable, a stranger, and later a refugee in the land of Egypt. As He lives in
the midst of the world, He finds Himself at home with the rich and the poor.
Do we welcome Him in one another? Can He find a home among us as an
immigrant from Somalia, Kosovo or from any of the many lands whose people
have been assisted by Saint’s Place? Does our welcome extend to being a part
of that wonderful ministry with at least the gift of our own prayers and
resources?
Mark’s gospel today deepens that phenomenon of welcome. He describes Jesus
opening the ears of the deaf-mute. As the man’s ears are opened, immediately
his speech impediment was removed’ “and he spoke plainly.” As each Christian
community reaches out to those who have not heard of the wonder of Jesus
Christ, deaf ears are opened, and muted lips are enabled to proclaim the
gospel. As we reach out to those around us, we enable that joy of community
that is the fruit of Eucharist.
It is possible for any of us to play the role of the person who could not
hear or speak. We can fail to appreciate the presence of the Lord in
Eucharist not only in the elements of the words of Scripture or in the
elements of bread and wine - we can fail to recognize His presence in one
another. Insofar as we do not hear, so we will be unable to speak – to
extend care and concern for others, to be the welcome of Christ to others.
Our lives may not be as spectacular as a desert blooming or as emotionally
exciting as those of the Jewish people returning from exile. We can be,
however, the sign of God’s welcome at Eucharist and in our lives as
Christians in the world around us. Hopefully, we will be noted for the joy
we generate and the welcoming love that reflects the divine.
LABOR DAY
September 7, 2009
Gen 1:26-2:3 1 Thes 4:1b, 2:9-12 Mt 6:31-34
Labor Day is bittersweet – a holiday, but the last of the summer. Each year
we celebrate labor with a day of rest and relaxation. It’s good to remember
that Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894 though it had been
celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the
1880s. Interestingly, still later, by a resolution of the American
Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday proceeding Labor Day was
adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational
aspects of the labor movement.
Today’s Scriptures remind us that God is forever our Creator; “God created
man in his image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he
created them.” Genesis introduces us to the master artist at work. God
prepared a world for that creative image of Himself and gave us a home.
Watching the astronauts at work in orbit around the earth, we begin to
realize that the whole universe is God’s creative work and our home.
Labor is a divine activity, and we are the product of God’s labor. Genesis
presents the human as the culmination of creation, imaging our Creator: “God
looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.” The artist
admires His work; He takes delight in His creation. Made in God’s image, we
are, of our nature, co-creators for whom labor is creative, productive
activity, an essential part of who we are as humans, created as we are in
the image of a wonderful creative being.
We image God not only in what we are but also in what we are destined to do:
"Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over
the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that
move on the earth." That we labor to fulfill the wonder of creation is an
essential part of our human reality, and today we celebrate that essential
element.
When we can keep human labor in perspective, we will know that in our labor
we somehow image also God’s creativity; human labor is something which
fulfills us as human beings, and it is that to which the human being has a
fundamental right.
We live in a world that has become so completely capitalistic that we are in
danger of losing our perspective on the essential reality of human labor.
Those who produce products or services must always acknowledge a
responsibility for the welfare of the earth and for its inhabitants.
Pollution, irresponsible use of the world’s resources, unfair labor
practices - all become offensive to the Divine Author as well as to the
Creator’s image. Corporations that do not put the human being first in the
process of production call into question their very right to exist.
More positively, when each of us in the private as well as the corporate
world is aware of the ancient divine mandate to fulfill the earth, we can
find profound satisfaction in our work. “Seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides.” All
people will have reason to rejoice and to expect that the world will
constantly become a more beautiful place in which to live, where its
resources are properly available to those who need them.
Within the framework of the original divine mandate all work, personal and
corporate, is blessed. Only within that framework can we expect to share
God’s tremendous joy in His creation. Divine delight in what God has made
should, in fact, be the basis for a joy that can touch the heart and life of
every human being.
As we celebrate this Labor Day, it is well to remind ourselves of the wonder
of labor and the responsibility the creator placed on all who share that
image of the God whose work brought us and this universe and all its wonders
into existence.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
Sr. Judy Kenrick
Funeral Mass,
Mercy Motherhouse
8/26/09
Micah 6:8; Romans 8:14-23; John 14: 1-6
Have you ever wondered what God looked like? As children we picture God as
the older one, resting on the cloud, surveying the earth and all of us.
Think of the face of God. What does God look like? Perhaps the picture of
God is a mosaic, made up of small pieces and each piece is from one of the
good and wonderful and beautiful people you have met along the way. Each of
us has been touched by the kind of people that reflect something of the
image of God. In this digital age, they speak of the pixels that make up the
picture. Well, each person whom you have experienced as good and beautiful
is one of those pixels and the total collage of those pixels is God.
Your sharing of those words of description has shown all of us the many ways
that Sr. Judy made the image of God real in people’s lives. In a very
personal way, Sr. Judy added to how you would picture God. Those wonderful
words let us into the reality of God.
In the last 2 months especially, so many people have shared with me examples
of the goodness and the grace that Sr. Judy was to them:
She visited a person who was also dying of liver cancer and brought so much
comfort to Janice;
She was present to the woman who lost 4 very close relatives in a six month
period: “Sr. Judy got me through it.”
On Sunday a former student of Sr. Judy from St. Helen’s some 50 years ago,
spoke on how she had been a life-long inspiration;
When she was less mobile and not able to come into the Ministry Center at
St. Louis, I would be visiting her and within 20 seconds she would be
pumping me about people in the parish;
One day when I left her room, I swore that I would not come back: she had
assigned me four things that needed doing before the week was out; one of my
house mates said that that day I found out who was really in charge;
And even as time was winding down, she carried on an active phone ministry.
Here was a woman of Faith, a great faith that was active and always reaching
out. She had an ability to do those simple things, those little acts of
compassion and love without much fanfare but in such a serving way. She was
a servant of God.
Judy was a woman that was always grateful: she knew she had been blessed by
her parents and even by her siblings, Joan and Jim and Joe and Jane. Ours
prayers and deep thoughts of sympathy are with them today.
One of her joys was being a Sister of Mercy and to serve in various parts of
the Diocese, St. Helen’s, Queen of Peace, Mercy High School and in Elmira at
Our Lady of Lourdes and then at St. Louis. What an example of dedication and
commitment she offered as she served others in schools and in parish life.
She gave her life so generously as a sign of the Kingdom of God. For Judy,
the community of life that she lived here among the sisters was a blessing
and such a strong support for these 50 +years. She relished in it especially
over these last 4 years as she battled Cancer again.
Here was a woman of acceptance: and what a wonderful example of accepting
the will of God. She was so open to carrying whatever cross the Lord offered
her. Did she not fulfill that second reading from Romans: I consider the
sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that
is to come; creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and
obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Her hope is now
fulfilled.
Her faith allowed her to be at peace during these days of trials and
tribulations. She taught by her simple example. She was at peace for she
trusted in God as she had done throughout her life.
Sr. Judy practiced what St. Francis said--- Preach the Gospel always and
sometimes use words. She was a presence, a force, a living example to all of
us---she touched and supported people in so many ways. She personified the
verses from Micah, “to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with
your God.”
She was always so grateful, so appreciative of the simple acts of love and
compassion that people showed her. She was truly a piece of the mosaic of
God.
Most homilies would end here and maybe you think this one should. However, I
want to go one step further. How will we carry on her spirit? How will we
add to the picture of God for others? How will we give thanks? Someone
wrote: “The art of thanksgiving is thanks living. It is gratitude in action.
It is thanking God for the gift of life by living it triumphantly. It is
thanking God for opportunities by accepting them as a challenge to
achievement. It is thanking God for inspiration by trying to be an
inspiration to others. It is adding to your prayers of thanksgiving, acts of
thanks living.”
Sr. Judy lives on---may we pass her love on to others!
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
20th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
There are many things in life that we do without giving it any thought. How
does a computer do all that it can do so fast; how does a car work; how can
we send spaceships to the moon and beyond without any shortage of fuel, but
then only get 25 mpg in our cars?
The Eucharist, what we do week after week, is one of those things. We do it
sometimes without giving it much thought. That is why these 5 weeks when we
read from John’s 6th chapter of the Gospel is so good. It takes us back to
our roots and gives us an opportunity to refresh our doing with our knowing.
The basic premise here is that God wants an intimate relationship with his
creation, you and me, and all those who share this earth. God reaches out
and brings us closer to the center of life. God desires that we bind
ourselves to our Creator and to one another in the covenant of Jesus. God
wants us to be connected and to abide in God’s life. God’s life, then, is
not somewhere else, but is a life that we share in and grow into by our
worship and imitating Jesus. That is why we obey the command of Jesus and
“we do this”…this sacrifice of the mass, “in memory of me.”
We can have the same question that the Jewish people had: “How can this man
give us his flesh to eat?” This notion of “eating my flesh and drinking my
blood” can be a strain to our ability to comprehend and respond. If we
remember that we are speaking in the language of symbol, we might be better
able to understand. Here Jesus prefigures his own death on the cross when he
became the sacrificial Lamb of God; and just as the lamb that was sacrificed
in the Temple was then roasted and eaten, so Jesus would give us his flesh
and blood to eat and drink.
There are two images that help us here. The first is that of a woman giving
life to the child of her womb. A mother gives her very flesh and blood to
nurture a new life carried within her, and then continues to feed the child
from her own body after they are born. In the same way, Jesus nourishes with
his very self all who are birthed to new life through him. As the union of
mother and child in the womb, so Jesus promises: “Those who eat my flesh and
drinks my blood abide in me and I in them.”
Jesus wants to dwell in us and to form his life in and through us.
The other image that can help here is one that is before us each time we
gather around the Table of the Lord. The altar that is used for our worship
and for our sharing in this meal is decorated with the mosaic of the vine
and the branches. This is another Johannine image that speaks to the
indwelling and the flow of the sap of life that the branches need from the
vine to produce fruit. The Lord wants his life and love to flow into the
various parts of the Body. Again, Jesus wants to dwell in us and form his
life in and through us.
In a sense the Eucharist is the opposite of the normal eating process. When
we sit down to a meal, the food that we consume becomes part of us; in the
Eucharist, as we eat the body and drink the blood of Christ, we become a
part of Jesus. The process is reversed and we become what we eat and drink,
we become the Body and Blood of Christ.
I remember a Jesuit priest saying once that when we come to Communion, we
should say AMEN twice: once that yes, I believe this is the Body of Christ,
and then AMEN, yes, I believe that I am the Body of Christ.
As we pray and do the Eucharist today, may we sense that God is inviting us
into his life, into the bonds of commitment that we pledge and make happen.
Deacon John
Payne
St. Louis Church
1 8th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was covered with
freckles, were waiting in line to get his face painted. A child next to him
in line said, "You've got so many freckles, there's no place to paint!"
Embarrassed, the little boy dropped his head.
His grandmother heard this and knelt down next to him and said, "I love your
freckles. You know when I was a little girl, I always wanted freckles.
Freckles are beautiful." The boy looked up, "Really?" "Of course," said the
grandmother. "Why just name me one thing that's prettier than freckles." The
little boy thought for a moment, and looked into his grandma's face, and
whispered softly, "Wrinkles".
In today’s readings, we are being asked to quit our grumbling and our
addiction to sin, and accept and acknowledge the gift of the Eucharist as
the source of our life. If we had read on further in Ephesians today, we
would have heard, “Put away falsehood, speak the truth, each one to his
neighbor, for we are members one of another. … do not let the sun set on
your anger, and do not leave room for the devil. The thief must no longer
steal, but should rather do honest work with his own hands, so that he may
have something to share with one in need. No foul language should come out
of your mouth… And do not grieve the holy Spirit of God, with which you were
sealed for the day of redemption.” We are each called to look beyond the
sign of the bread and the wine, in order to see and believe in the one who
has used that sign to offer his very self.
In today’s first reading from Exodus, the Israelites were being taught to
accept the manna and the quail as gifts from God. And they were being
challenged to see beyond those gifts -- to recognize in them the God who had
created them, and, who, at that moment, was guiding them to freedom and a
new way of life. Moses interpreted the sign for them: it was bread from the
Lord, bread for the journey.
Last Sunday we heard the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. Today’s
Gospel is about those same people, many of whom were lost in the sign of the
bread and fish, and came to him looking for more. Jesus addresses the
people’s desire for signs. The people cited the desert event and talked of
Moses and manna. But Jesus redirected their attention to the true bread from
heaven. That bread, of course, is his very self, who can satisfy every human
hunger. Jesus is essentially asking them to look beyond the bread, to look
beyond their stomachs -- and challenges them to sink their teeth into the
real food he has to offer, namely, the bread of life. Just like the Grandma
could look beyond the freckles and the grandson could look beyond the
wrinkles, Jesus could look beyond the bread that he took and blessed and
broke and gave, fully aware that he would be taken and broken, and give his
life for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus could look beyond the
crucifixion to this Communion celebration, where he is remembered and is
truly present to us in Sacrament. I wonder if we can see it too? God does
not force this bread of life upon us. To be truly nourished, we must
consciously take and eat.
Jesus was engaging in what is called “consciousness raising”. Jesus
encourages us to move from one level to another, to see beyond and behind,
to see as he himself sees. Jesus could look beyond the demands of the crowds
for another free lunch and recognize the deeper hungers of which they had
yet to become aware. He could look beyond the beggar to the blessedness God
has bestowed on every creature. Jesus could look beyond the shamed adulterer
and acknowledge the repentant sinner. Jesus could look beyond the betrayals
and denials of his disciples and see in them the wounded beggars who would
thereafter help others to find the bread of his word, of his wisdom, of his
very self. Jesus could see beyond skin color, gender, politics, and
socioeconomic status and recognize his brothers and sisters.
So, too, some among us today have shown a similar ability to look beyond.
Mother Teresa could look beyond the filth of India’s poor and dying, and
recognize in them the face of Jesus. John Paul II could look into the face
of his would-be assassin and recognize a brother whom he could forgive. And
maybe closer to home, the ministers at Saints Place can look beyond the
needs of the refugees and see those whom we are called in the Beatitudes to
serve. Or how about the many caregivers in our parish, who care for sick and
aging family members, just as Christ washed the feet of his disciples.
If we are to accept the bread that God gives to us in Jesus -- if we are to
take and receive this Eucharist -- it is essential that we look beyond the
host and the wine, and see where the sign is pointing. Learning to look
beyond in this way remains the challenge of Eucharist. So how can we can
better prepare ourselves for the truly breathtaking reality of the
Eucharist? When during the day, can we pause and ask Jesus to be the bread
of life for us in the situations in which we find ourselves?
Jesus, through this Eucharist, will continue to challenge our seeing and
believing. Just like the Israelites in the desert, just like the five
thousand who were fed with bread and fish, we are invited to listen behind
the words and look beyond the bread – to look beyond skin color, gender,
politics, or just freckles and wrinkles, -- and perceive the mystery of the
sign that is the very bread of life -- God’s life, Jesus’ life, your life,
and mine.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
1 7th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
One of the foundational beliefs of our faith is that God wants a
relationship with humans. This belief fills the pages of the Bible right
from the beginning of creation as God walks in the garden. There is an
intimacy with Adam and Eve which unfolds over time toward the people of
Israel. The reality of the Bible story is that this relationship develops
and advances, culminating in Jesus Christ becoming flesh and dwelling among
us, as the Son of God.
This is the heart of what we do here around the Table of the Lord each
Sunday. We are nourished by God’s living Word and by the food of life that
we share. We renew the covenant with God here---to appreciate this
Eucharist, we need to return to Abraham and Moses. God and Israel made a
covenant, a bond that united them so strongly to one another that it cannot
be broken. This covenant is stronger than any blood kinship. It eventually
takes flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
The human challenge for the people of Abraham and Moses’ time was how to
express this; how to convey this ability to touch the divine. We might say
PRAY or write a Profession of Faith as we do at Mass. But how to express
this in a time before writing and reading; how would this be expressed in a
concrete and definitive way? What the Bible tells us is that the Israelites
made a ritual out of this covenant. Abraham split several animals and set
them out and the Spirit of God and Abraham passed through the midst of them
as a way to express this bond; the Israelites at the time of Moses
sacrificed the unblemished lamb, marked their doorpost with blood of the
lamb and ate the Passover Meal. Then the Jewish people would do this every
year, even today, to make the relationship between God and themselves real
and concrete.
There was also the renewal of the covenant that we heard about back on the
feast of the Body and Blood of Christ: after sacrificing the animals, Moses
splashed half the blood on the altar (representing God) and then sprinkled
the other half of the blood on the people---a blood ritual that expressed
that God and the people were united to one another.
Today we begin to read the Bread of Life discourse from John’s Gospel and
will continue this for the next 4 weeks. For a Jew to be a part of this
miracle of the feeding, it was an experience that took them back to the
manna that their ancestors ate in the desert. Here, in this Jesus, God was
again with them to nourish and feed and deliver them. Jesus’ teaching helped
them to see the ‘more’ of this event; that God was bound to them again. This
miracle is linked to the past, to the desert experience of God; and to the
future---it foreshadows another meal where God is present. That meal will be
the Last Supper, a covenant meal that united God, Jesus, the disciples and
now us---Jesus could call it “the blood of the new and everlasting
covenant.”
In the last 7 weeks, there have been 5 references in the Liturgy of the Word
to the blood of the covenant and the death of Christ. The meal of the Last
Supper is how Jesus gives himself, blessed and broken, shared and poured out
to us. On Good Friday, Jesus physically empties himself ‘so that sins may be
forgiven.’
So the celebration of the Eucharist takes us back to the bond God has made
and continues to make from Abraham through Moses to Jesus into our own day.
We enter into this Covenant, this relationship with our God and are carried
forward to build the Kingdom.
We seal this covenant by eating and drinking at this meal. The blood of this
sacrifice reaffirms God’s unbreakable bond with us. We take in the life
source of our God and commit ourselves to becoming more and more God’s
people. We continue the action of our God today: as God fed the Israelites
in the desert, as Jesus feeds people in the wilderness of today’s Gospel, so
a spiritual miracle continues today. We are healed of our brokenness and sin
through the bread that is broken and the blood that is poured out and
shared.
We affirm this union, this bond, this covenant: Indeed God will be our God,
and we are and will be God’s people!
Father Al
Delmonte
St. Louis Church
1 5th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Can you picture Tiger Woods or Cristie Kerr trying to play a round of golf
dressed in one of those ancient suits of armor? Would you try to swim across
Canandaigua Lake wearing an overcoat? One has to dress for the occasion. In
the gospel today, Jesus is sending the apostles out two by two on their
initial mission of mercy, and the instruction is to travel light. Jesus says
don’t carry unnecessary stuff into the ministerial field. Shoes are okay but
no wardrobe changes. Walking sticks, yes, but a bagged lunch and checkbook,
no. They would have to depend on the generosity and the hospitality of their
hosts to meet some of their basic needs.
We can all agree that these suggestions of Jesus should not be taken
literally. Any travel agent would tell you to travel light, but that light?
No food? No money? No change of clothes? Have you seen the check-in area at
the airport? It’s pretty obvious that we find it difficult if not impossible
to travel light.
Then what is the point of today’s gospel? The main credential of the person
sent by God on God’s business, sent by God on mission as were the apostles
in that gospel story, the main credential is TRUST. The more you stuff into
the backpack, the less room there is for trust. It seems that Jesus wants to
focus his followers attention NOT on what they were to take with them on
their journey but on what they were to LEAVE BEHIND as they moved from place
to place. The Xian missionary is to go out NEEDY and VULNERABLE. Jesus
wanted them to concentrate not on stuff to pick up and carry along but
rather on the GIFTS they were to give (unload) to the people they visited.
And what a load of gifts they had to give! “Authority over unclean spirits,”
the call to repentance, the anointing of the sick w/ oil, and the many cures
of the sick. Even though Jesus’ original missionaries LOOKED like the
poorest of the poor, in reality they were the richest of the rich. Not in a
clutter of stuff, but in spiritual gifts to be given away. And their TRUST
in God would be rewarded by a mutual exchange of gifts between the
missionaries and the people to whom they are sent.
St. Paul said to the Ephesians and to us in that second rdg: “Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ w/
every spiritual blessing in the heavens . . . In him we have redemption by
his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord w/ the riches of his
grace that he lavished upon us.” (Another translation: “so immeasurably
generous is God’s favor (gift) to us.”)
It would be a good time for us to renew our genuine gratitude for sharing in
the gifts that Jesus has bestowed on us so generously. We have to think of
our parents and grandparents and great grandparents who, yes, in many cases
left us w/ a lot of STUFF, but most importantly they gave us a firm
foundation in our faith in Jesus Christ who has been the source “of every
spiritual blessing in the heavens.” People my age can be grateful to the
Sisters or the Brothers or the priests or the catechists who supplemented
the knowledge we gained from our parents about our gift of faith, about
God’s goodness and fidelity. Please God, we will be conscious of the mission
as truly given to us as it was given to the apostles.
Mark starts the gospel passage today: “Jesus summoned the Twelve and began
to send them out . . .” As baptized Xians we are ALL summoned to
discipleship. No matter how young or how old, no matter how rich or how
poor, no matter our race or gender or occupation, Jesus SUMMONS us NOW.
Doubt might creep in when we think of it. Jesus is calling me? We have to
remember that the apostles were unlikely candidates themselves – ordinary
people, sinners all – one of them would betray Jesus. The same is true of
the prophet Amos whom we hear of in the first rdg. He never wanted to be a
prophet. He was a shepherd and dresser of sycamores, about as common as one
could be. Yet, God called him. And Amos responded. God calls us. Xian
missionaries are not self-appointed. It’s part of every Xian’s baptismal
call. You have to ask yourself the question: “What is it that weighs me
down, what baggage am I carrying that slows me, or altogether prevents me
from responding to God’s call?”We are sent to be God’s presence in the
world. Most of us are not sent by Jesus to drive out demons and cure the
sick. More often we are sent to do the ordinary things: to be kind and
forgiving in our own homes, to refrain from gossip, to smile and greet a
stranger, to make time for daily prayer.
The world in which we live HUNGERS for what is good and holy. People hunger
for the treasures given to us by God – love, reconciliation, forgiveness,
compassion, joyful generosity, hopeful mercy. They might not even realize
it, but they hunger for these gifts.
Today we really need to consider if not the letter, then certainly the
spirit, of Jesus’ travel tips for the ongoing journey of life because there
will one day be a new phase of our journey, the phase that begins when we
stand before our God stripped of all our stuff. God is really not going to
be interested in the inventory of our personal possessions. God will simply
want to know what we left behind us that helped other people find God.
Deacon John
Payne
St. Louis Church
14 th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
A man whispered, "God, speak to me," and a meadowlark sang.
But, the man did not hear. So the man yelled, "God, speak to me."
And, the thunder rolled across the sky. But, the man did not listen. The man
looked around and said, "God let me see you." And a star shined
brightly. But the man did not notice. And, the man shouted, "God show me
a miracle". And a life was born. But, the man did not know. So, the man
cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are here."
Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man. But, the man brushed the
butterfly away and walked on disappointed in God.
Today’s Gospel warns us of
the danger to our faith when the messenger is too ordinary. The friends and
neighbors of Jesus rejected him precisely because they knew him. They knew
that God had spoken to them many times through the prophets. What they
rejected was the very possibility of one of their own having a message from
God for them. After all, Jesus was one of them: he was nobody special.
Didn’t Joseph teach Jesus to be a carpenter, didn’t Mary teach him to make
bread, and didn’t Jesus run and play in these very streets? What could Jesus
possibly know that they didn’t know? What could Jesus possibly add to their
knowledge of God? It is the old mystique of the so-called “expert.” People
do not trust their home-grown wisdom — we have to hear it from an expert.
We believe that an “expert” is simply anyone from out of town with a
briefcase — it seems like the actual credentials of the expert are
secondary.
The same was true about
Jesus. He was seen as an ordinary man, a layman, one whose diaper they had
changed. He could not have been an expert on anything, least of all an
expert on God. The people would have listened to Isaiah or Ezekiel or
Jeremiah, because they were from out of town, and lived a long time
ago, and warned of disasters and monumental events. Yet here was Jesus, the
local carpenter, talking about lilies and sheep and the kingdom of God. The
people anticipated that God would rule the world in person someday. They
would have expected a word of God from the high priest in the Jerusalem
temple; but not a carpenter, especially one from Nazareth. “He was
amazed at their lack of faith.”
Times have not changed in
that respect. Why are we more impressed with experts and programs and
almost anyone else’s wisdom than our own experience? Why do we think
that nothing good can come from Rochester or Pittsford? Why do we
imagine that God would find somebody better or smarter or richer or
holier to deal with us? Why do we believe that our little lives are
too insignificant for God to get involved?
Jesus was God-in-the-flesh.
He laughed, cried, suffered, slept, ate, and worked to help us appreciate
the value God invests in these mundane activities. One point of the
Incarnation was to get God physically involved in earthly doings. God is
our neighbor and our friend. Why do we keep ignoring God all around
us -- in the song of the bird, the rolling of thunder, the shining of stars,
the miracle of birth, the touch of a butterfly, or in the eyes of our
children? Why to we continue to look for God on some throne, or on a
mountain-top, or in a kingdom in the sky? God is among us. The
people in Jesus’ time were expecting something extraordinary, and only saw
the ordinary – and they hung him on a cross. And it’s easy for us to blame
those people for their ignorance of who Jesus was, but unless we can see
Jesus in the person next to us, or in the Sacrament that we celebrate
today, then aren’t we just as ignorant?
We celebrate our country’s
independence this weekend. We look up to the skies and marvel at the beauty
of the fireworks exploding above us. These overarch the pollution of our
rivers and lakes, and the poverty and hunger of those living in our towns.
The reports of the shells deafened the cries of the poor and the gunshots
sounded daily in our cities. Through our chains of materialism, and
inaction, and blindness to war, and to what’s going on around us, do we
lack the courage and faith of our forefathers, who challenged the wrongs of
their times? Through their sacrifices and their blood, we received freedom
-- which we have defined as the right to choose, to abort hundreds of
thousands of babies -- no wonder we are ignorant to the miracle of birth.
We have defined as freedom the right to have our own religion. Yet we
aren’t free to pray in our schools, or to talk about God in our workplaces,
but we are free to stay in bed and not to go to church. And we could all
go on and on with similar examples. God bless America. I wonder at
times why He does.
There was a man who wanted
to see God, who wanted to hear God, who wanted to witness God’s miracles,
and feel God’s touch. He was disappointed because he couldn’t see that God
was all around him in the ordinary people who surrounded him and in the
ordinary life he lived. Let’s not miss out on a blessing because it
isn't packaged the way that we expect. Let’s find God and God’s wisdom
in each other. Let’s remember that God is all around us. As our children
learned at VBS this week , we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and remember
that Jesus loves us every day.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
13 th
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Limits are a part of the human condition. We know we
personally have limited energy and time; we see the Speed
Limit signs on our highways; our credit cards have lower
limits today; we are becoming more conscious of the limited
resources that our world environment provides. We live within
limits in a lot of ways.
When we come to faith, it seems that the Bible is full of
people who do not fit within the lines; people are asked to
take a step beyond, to not be limited in believing. The Gospel
passages of last week, today and next week give examples of
faith demanding that people stretch beyond their expectations,
beyond their limits.
Remember last week, on the lake of Galilee a storm arises and
the disciples wake Jesus who then calms the sea and the wind.
They are afraid and that fear locks out the faith and trust
that the situation required. Next week Jesus will return to
Nazareth, his hometown. Even though his words stir the people
and they recognize the wonders that he does, they still are
locked inside the lines of knowing who Jesus is and where he
comes from and so can not take the step out in faith to
believe in Jesus.
In contrast to these two stories, we have today’s Gospel. Here
St. Mark weaves two stories of healings where people draw from
deep within to find a faith that confronts the limits of
life’s experiences. In both situations, the facts would speak
against any change, let alone healing. In the first case, the
older woman had endured her illness for 12 years, long enough
so that one would never expect a change; in the other, the
child had died and so who could imagine that there could be
any other outcome. Yet in both cases, the faith carries the
women to new-found places. The older woman and the father of
the child break out of their limits. Desperation forces them
beyond what anyone would expect. They discovered new life when
the facts were so confining.
Mark weaves these together to challenge and inspire us---to
encourage us to believe and trust even when life seems
desperate. The common threads here are that the women with the
hemorrhage had suffered for 12 years, the same as the age of
Jairus’ child who was so gravely ill; both are at the edge,
the woman only got worse and was in a hopeless situation, the
girl dies, what is possible; both are daughters, Jesus calls
the woman cured “Daughter”; Jairus pleads for his daughter and
is told ‘do not be afraid, have faith’; both are healed
through touch: ‘if I just touch his clothes, I shall be
healed;’ Jesus took the child by the hand; there is a mix of
fear and faith in the main characters.
The challenge is for us to believe that God can bring
something new out of the ordinary, out of the pain, out of
even death. The Good News of Jesus’ life and mission is that
suffering and death are not hopeless situations, but out of
them come life. All we need is faith and trust in Jesus.
Where do we find this in life today? In the parents of the
physically or mentally challenged child who persist beyond
what seems to be human strength to help the child achieve to
the best of their ability.
In people like Evan Cummins who suffered a severed spinal cord
before he graduated from McQuaid and is confined to a wheel
chair and yet pursues a career in the theatre.
In the parishioner who suffers from a serious form of Cancer
and has to re-learn basic human functions.
In the unemployed who because of the economy and their age
realizes the very demanding climb ahead of them, but still
begins.
The 2 Gospel daughters who stand in opposition to others in
the Gospel are an inspiration for us to believe and hope
beyond the limitations and normal expectations of life. Like
the woman and Jairus, we need to ask in faith. In this section
of the Gospel Jesus invites us to that kind of faith and trust
that is beyond our limits and that work miracles.
There is an inscription over the main door of St. Francis de
Sales Church in NYC. It reads: The same everlasting Father who
cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and
everyday. Either he will shield you from suffering or He will
give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace then and
put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations. “Be not
afraid, have faith!”
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST BLESSED TRINITY
Deut 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:
14-17; Mt 28: 16-20
People sing of their loneliness, and they are not songs
of joy. Sometimes the mere presence of another is enough to
bring our anxiety to peace. For those of you who followed the
astronauts in their early days of space flight, you may
remember when Ed White became the first human being to float
outside a space vehicle (the suit he wore became his vehicle)
with nothing but a small life line to keep him tethered. For a
fleeting moment, however, he lost sight of earth and the space
capsule, and in that totally free moment and out of touch with
everyone, he panicked because he lost the comfort of
orientation – of relationship.
A terrifying moment for Jesus during His passion came on Holy
Thursday as He spent the night in the pit which passed as a
retaining cell beneath the high priest’s house. In total
darkness He had no contact with the outside world except the
occasional look of the jailer peering down through a small
opening near the top of the pit just to be sure his prisoner
was still alive.
Loneliness of itself is terrifying for any one of us, because
it is of our nature to live in relationships. We are meant for
relationships; we are born into relationship. We began this
life looking into the face of another: that of our mother or
one of those attending our birth. Relationships are a
necessary part of life from our earliest moments. At the other
end of life, we can see how hard it is for someone to be the
last of a family, or even worse, to have outlived family,
friends and all who had been close to them.
This feast of Trinity is a feast of Divine Relationship: of
Father, Son, and Spirit; of Creator, Redeemer (also Creator)
and Sanctifier (equally Creator); of Lover, Loved, and the
Love between them. Only comparatively recently did this feast
find its way to the Church’s calendar of Feasts. Originally it
was probably thought to be unnecessary because the doctrine of
Trinity is so central and so constantly acknowledged. The
feast became a celebration for the universal church only in
the 15th Century at the direction of Pope John XXII and was
raised to a major feast only in the 20th Century by Pope St.
Pius X.
The mystery of Trinity is revealed to us within the love of
Jesus who lived His love for the Father, His Abba, centering
His life in the Father’s will. He tells His apostles: “My meat
is to do the will of him who sent me.” In those portions of
the gospel of John describing Jesus’ confrontation with the
Pharisees, Jesus constantly affirms His identity with the
Father and the Father’s constant affirmation of Him. Jesus
dies with the prayer: “Father, into your hands I commend my
spirit.”
The circle of Divine Love is the relationship for which each
of us is destined. St. Paul, in today’s reading makes it more
explicit: “you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we
cry, ‘Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are children of God.” In the midst of that
wonderful almost monologue at the Last Supper, Jesus promised
the Paraclete, the living love between Father and Son; the
gift of the Father at Jesus’ request, and the ever-present
companion of our souls.
In that same monologue Jesus prays: “Father, may they be one
as we are one; may they be one in us.” In a real sense, heaven
is the eternal revelation of this love of Father, Son and
Spirit. The Trinity is the model for all relationships; it is
the basis for our love for one another. The Trinity provides
the basis for that complete love that must reach even our
enemy, whom we are commanded to love even as they are in the
very act of harming us.
Would that all our lives were the living out of today’s feast
with an awareness of the relationship that is the basis for
all relationship! What different headlines, what fuller lives,
for us all!
We are required to begin to provide those headlines. Jesus
sends His apostles and all of us to bring the reality of His
relationship to all peoples with the command: “Go, therefore,
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In the
name of the Trinity we become members of Jesus’ Church; we
come into a relationship with Almighty God and with one
another, with people of all nations.
We began this Eucharist as we begin all prayer in the name of
the Trinity – of Father. Son, and Holy Spirit. May our lives
be a constant doxology, a constant prayer of praise to the
Trinity! In that divine reality of relationship may we find
the basis for all our relationships! May we find a more
profound way to see one another, to respect one another and to
serve one another in the name of that magnificent Trinity.
Please join me in that doxology which will, in fact, carry us
into eternity: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to
the Holy Spirit NOW and forever.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
PENTECOST
One of those popular expressions
that we hear in many places today is “we need to think outside the box.” It
does capture a meaning that can lead to new and creative actions. Today we
celebrate the great Feast of Pentecost and maybe we can apply that
expression to the Spirit.
When I was growing up, in the Catholic Church we did not speak of the Holy
Spirit, but of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost was that mysterious person in
the Trinity who somehow helped us to carry on the work of Jesus in the world
today. The Ghost was not a scary presence but more of a daring and undefined
gift that was given to the Church and to its members. We were made Temples
of the Holy Ghost at Baptism, confirmed with the gifts of the Ghost at
Confirmation and were blessed in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost.
It was in the early 1960’s when Pope John XXIII convened the Vatican Council
that we began to call this third person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit.
However, to be honest with you, the mystery continued for most Catholics
probably even for many of us today.
In the book, The Shack, the author, W. Paul Young, presents the Trinity in
images that are definitely outside the box. He speaks of the Spirit as an
Asian woman, Sirayu, who looks like a groundskeeper or gardener. She is
dressed in plain jeans with ornamental designs at the fringes, knees covered
in dirt from where she has been kneeling, and a brightly colored blouse with
splashes of yellow, and red and blue.
But perhaps the most interesting element that Young accomplishes is that he
presents the members of the Trinity as persons with whom people can have a
living and growing relationship. They are not the philosophical characters
of the Nicene Creed, but the Spirit wants to interact with us and show us
the depth that life holds. It is a way to discover something more about one
of the more difficult parts of our faith: Who is God? How do you understand
and appreciate God as a living presence?
I saw a similar thing about 2 weeks ago when our candidates for Confirmation
were confirmed by Bishop Clark and Frs. Mulligan and Condon. In the personal
care that Bishop Clark and the other ministers showed, one could sense that
the Holy Spirit was being shared in a deeper way with each candidate.
I wondered if the candidates woke up the next morning different. A tough
question to answer for 46 people, but I think the answer is both yes and no.
This leads me to reflect on the ways that the Spirit is shared. Even in the
SS the Holy Spirit comes in various ways: there is the noise like a strong
wind and visible sign as of tongues of fire. The Spirit comes as a strong
force that turns things and people upside down. People of foreign tongues
hear the same message in their respective native language. This is the image
found in the writings of St. Luke. On the other hand, in the Gospel of John,
the Spirit is given in a different way: Jesus breathes on them on Easter
night and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. This is a different Pentecost for
John. Then Paul in the letter to the Galatians speaks of the fruit of the
Spirit, being love and peace, joy, gentleness and generosity.
The Spirit comes in different ways: sometimes more aggressively, other times
more gently; sometimes by us growing in virtues of care and goodness. So
back to our candidates: perhaps there has been a shaking at the depths in
some of them and they experience God in a dynamic way. They have been caught
up in the Spirit. Others have sensed the gift of God that has gently touched
them like a gentle breeze so they know deep within that their God is close
to their hearts. Maybe others are slowly growing those fruits of the Spirit
so that those around them each day, their brothers and sisters, their Moms
and Dads, their class mates and teachers and coaches sense a mature faith
opening to others.
We have once again called down the Holy Spirit of God upon the Church and
upon us on this Pentecost. May the Spirit find ways into our lives that
bring us to new insights and discoveries that are outside the box and good
for our world and our lives.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
SEVENTH SUNDAY of
EASTER
It can seem that the Easter season is very long and drawn out. The season
has gone from April 12 this year until this weekend. It can over these 7
weeks become less clear what we are celebrating and how the truth of the
Resurrection of Christ is to effect us today. Next Sunday we celebrate the
Feast of Pentecost when we commemorate the coming of Jesus’ Spirit on those
first disciples and pray for such a rebirth to happen to us. We pray looking
back, but also looking forward---we pray that we as disciples of today will
be inspired by the fire of the Holy Spirit. We pray that such a fire will be
built not so much over us, as under us enabling us to proclaim in word and
deeds the power of our God.
Easter is to celebrate the New Life that Jesus shared. It is to convince us
again that no evil can conquer good; that not even death can hold one born
of water and the spirit. This is a truth that flows over Jesus and into us.
The power of the Holy Spirit keeps this understanding alive and allows us to
see new ways of living and sharing the Good News. It is what we have taken
in again this year and which we are about to be sent forth to live afresh.
It is like the earth itself that has been changed from gray and dreary to
fresh and green; the City that has been swept clean. Here we see a sign of
what we pray happens in our hearts and inmost being. We are made new and
because Easter and the Spirit have come once again, we are reclaimed by the
love of the Lord Jesus.
Our first reading tells the story of choosing the replacement to Judas. What
the remaining disciples were looking for was someone who had walked with
them as Jesus ministry grew and someone who was a witness to the
Resurrection. Think about those two criteria for a moment and could we not
apply those to a true disciple today. Who is the person who walks with the
Lord….who is the person who has witnessed the New Life of Christ. Those two
criteria should be able to be applied to every one of us, to every one of
us!
Are you ready to take this on? The Easter season is coming to an end: the
time of reflection and awareness of the gift that is ours in the faith of
Jesus Christ is about to move into a period of action. A new season is about
to begin: next Sunday the Holy Spirit will empower us with gifts and signs,
with courage and strength to carry on, to carry on the ministry of Jesus.
Is this a challenge? Surely it is. That is why this Gospel is so good. It is
a prayer that Jesus prays for all disciples. We get to eavesdrop on what is
an intimate and loving embrace that Jesus gives to us and to all disciples.
He prays for unity, for sharing joy, for protection from evil, and that they
may be made strong in truth.
Stop to think of this prayer not as one being said for Peter or Thomas or
any of the others. Hear it as a prayer that Jesus says for you! Jesus sees
your abilities and your gifts. He sees where you can preach and touch others
where no one else can; he sees that you will be a presence that will lift
the spirit of a fallen and broken sister or brother. Jesus is with you so
you can be his words; you can be the hands of Christ; you can be the heart
of Jesus; you can be the compassion of Christ.
The Easter season is almost over. However, before it ends we have to open
ourselves to the gift of Jesus Christ. It is what we celebrate and what we
ask for this day. May the Lord fill us with the deep belief that we, each of
us, is loved by our God.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
FOURTH SUNDAY of
EASTER
The Easter season is about the new life we have in being immersed in the
life and death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We have become children
of God, people who have been adopted into the family of God’s love. This
brings with it both blessings but also responsibilities. One of the
blessings is that we are called “Christian,” one who lives under the shadow
of Christ. Peter in the first reading speaks of the power of that name which
can even heal a cripple. So many of us know the power of that name: we have
been forgiven, strengthened or healed at various times. Indeed that name
continues to lift and transform us. This whole notion is summed up in the
image that our Gospel presents today: The Lord as the Good Shepherd.
This image was the most popular image of Jesus in the early Church. While we
may not find as much vitality in this image today, the image still offers us
some insight.
For parish staff members, it is a reminder that they are meant to serve the
larger community. It speaks of the giftedness that staff members offer to
serve and assist others in the parish. These are leaders who are meant to
provide guidance and vision beyond the day-to-day.
For priests and deacons, it is an image that calls us to take seriously the
charism of preaching and leading in prayer. Ministry among the community
will demand sacrifices and an ability to give fully of oneself. Service will
be demanding and will require a continual love of all God’s people, both the
faithful and the less than faithful.
The image of the Good Shepherd should remind all of us that we are meant to
foster the work of the Gospel in deepening the personal relationship each of
us has with Jesus Christ.
Let’s take Good Shepherd Sunday one step further. How are we, individually
and as a parish, Good Shepherds? I think of how crucial parents are not only
in forming their children in good character, but also with Christian
character. Sometimes I hear parents say that this is why I send my children
to Catholic Schools or to Faith Formation programs. However, unless the
spirit of Christ is fostered at home, unless children see that prayer is
part of a family’s life and Sunday worship is a true commitment, that
development will fall short. There can be no dimension of life, at home, in
school, and in society, that does not reinforce the life we have with our
God. We are not children of God, to use the image from the second reading,
only in one part of life. We are children of God in the whole of life! I
would add to this importance of parents, the role of grandparents today. You
play a vital role for your grandchildren.
How do Mary and Joe Parishioner act as Good Shepherds? When we stop to
realize that each of you touches so many people in the course of a week, you
begin to understand how important this attitude of being Good Shepherds is.
There are neighbors, co-workers, family members, and people at Canal town
Coffee, at Wegman’s and Barnes and Noble to whom you can bring the comfort
and challenge of the Gospel.
In this day and age when so many struggle, we must all be a part of the Good
News that Jesus has shared with us and share it with others, here and
beyond. There are so many who are sick, a growing number who are unemployed,
people searching for their sexual identity, inactive Catholics, teens
confused and lonely, parents and children working through ADD or autism,
even the hassled parents with one or two little ones at Mass---there is no
limit to those who need a Good Shepherd in their lives.
I would hope that as a parish community, we could continue to develop that
sensitivity among us. We can be a community that knows the gift of Jesus as
our Good Shepherd and in turn be Good Shepherds to others.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
Second Sunday of
Easter
Acts 4; 32-35 I Jo 5: 1-6; Jo 20: 19-31
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the
presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But
these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have
life in his name.” These are the closing words of the Gospel of
John. Did you ever wonder about the rest of the story? What about
those “many other signs”? The infinite love of God replayed in
countless lives can hardly be contained by the gospel narrative or
by the individual imagination. It’s important to remember that with
every person born there is a story that speaks of infinite love that
has been repeated countless times.
On this closing day of Easter’s Octave, it is not out of place to
ask ourselves how we live with resurrection – with the Easter glory.
Traditionally today is referred to as Low Sunday or Dominica in
Albis (White Sunday), the day the newly baptized put aside the white
garments of their baptism and resumed their everyday clothing. The
normal turn of life resumed but now as it had never been before. The
reality of resurrection, the reality of new life in baptism, changed
everything, and the normal would never be normal again.
The early Christians lived their Easter life with a radical giving
up of worldly possessions and a deliberate, constant sharing with
the poor. They introduced a completely new basis for economy. They
lived a form of communism which was not atheistic but actually had
the presence of God at the heart of their motivation and life. “The
community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed
that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in
common.”
Interestingly, this day of beginning to live the wonder of Easter in
daily life is the context for Pope John Paul to establish today as
the Feast of Divine Mercy. The lives of the newly baptized and of
all of us are sustained by that which God refers to as the virtue
above all His works. Daily life in Christ, hopefully your life and
mine, will be lived in the merciful and constant love of a
wonderfully provident God.
We begin to live the Easter life then with a concentration on the
needs of those around us – not at all a bad way to survive economic
downturns or tragedies of any variety. It may not involve selling
our homes to contribute to a common fund, but it can certainly be an
effort to live life with a priority for the poor and a willingness
to be of service before, or at least along with, care for our own
needs.
For the early Christians their way of life was a testimony of their
belief in the reality of the resurrection – the resurrection of
Jesus and their own rising because of Him. It really must be the
same for all Christians – including us, especially, including us.
Easter comes alive in us in accord with the time in which we live.
St. John, in his first epistle, speaks of it in terms of victory
over the world. “For the love of God is this, that we keep his
commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever
is begotten by God conquers the world. and the victory that conquers
the world is our faith.”
If all this seems a bit heady, we have Thomas the Apostle to bring
us down to earth as we read of him in the gospel where he becomes
our spokesman. Not present for the first appearance of the Risen
Savior to the apostles, Thomas sets terms for believing Jesus’
resurrection: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and
put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I
will not believe."
Thomas will believe in the resurrection, but he has set his own
terms for belief – maybe not too unlike some of us. As the gospel
continues, Thomas is present with the disciples the following week
as Jesus again appears to them and now accepts Thomas’ conditions:
“Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand
and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe."
With Thomas’ reply comes the act of faith which we hope will also
typify all of us: “Thomas answered and said to him, "My Lord and my
God!"
As we concentrate on living the reality of resurrection in our daily
lives we must see how much we need that deliberate faith of Thomas.
If we insist on calling him “doubting Thomas”, we must remember that
his doubt was overcome in his wonderful prayer of faith: “My Lord
and my God!” That faith must motivate our daily life; it must be the
basis for our constant care for one another and especially for the
most needy among us.
The risen life of Jesus can make headlines; it can change cultures
as it changes individual lives – as it changes our daily life. As we
begin now to live in the Easter Season liturgically, may we live the
Easter reality.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
EASTER
Acts 10: 34a, 37-43 I Cor 5: 6-8; Jo 20: 1-9
Have you ever stood at the edge of a pool, shivering with the thought of the
chilliness of the water – just standing there hesitant to jump in? We are
left with two alternatives: just stand there and shiver or dive in and then
wonder why we wasted so much time in fear? Our response to Holy Week and
Easter time, indeed the experience of the practice of our faith, is not
unlike the time spent at the edge of the pool. The intensity of the
experience of Holy Week calls us to a more profound approach to Jesus Christ
and a far deeper expression of our faith.
Through the liturgy we relive the events of the First Holy Week – present at
the Last Supper, the First Eucharist, standing at the foot of the Cross with
His mother Mary and the apostle John, and at the tomb with Mary Magdalene,
John and Peter on the first Easter morning. In last evening’s Vigil liturgy,
we heard the story of creation, the release from slavery for the Jewish
people, and our own redemption through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We are part of that gospel story which really has no ending but reaches down
through time and space to each of us.
The first reading today is from the Acts of the Apostles, the second volume
of Luke’s gospel and the story of the life of Jesus in His Church. It is a
gospel that will continue as long as the Church exists. By extension it
includes the story of the life of every Christian, of every person who has
the grace to hear of Jesus Christ and the love to follow Him.
Last evening we celebrated in the Easter Vigil a very recent chapter of that
story with the entrance of three candidates and a catechumen into the full
life of the Church. These new members of our faith community continue the
story we just heard from the Acts of the Apostles of the reception of
Cornelius, the pagan centurion, into the faith community of the early
Church. With our baptism we each make our contribution to the story of
Christ’s continuing presence among us. We are part of a continuum tracing
our roots to the Creator, to Jesus, to Peter and the Apostles, and to all
who entered into the mystery of Church on Pentecost and beyond.
Our stories need not be spectacular, but each story contains the wonder of
God’ grace begun at our conception, sanctified in baptism and carried
throughout life beyond the moment of death. In the life of the Church we
live out the mystery of Christ’s resurrection. To celebrate this feast of
Easter fully, we must be profoundly aware of the consequences of Jesus’
resurrection in our own life. Every aspect of our life must be deeply
touched by our awareness of Jesus’ resurrection which is the promise of and
title to our own.
It is so important that we live our lives not simply at a superficial level
of religious practice, but that we live, through our religion, the profound
reality of faith. True religion is simply the living out of faith in accord
with the Lord’s gift to us of His presence in the Church. It is far too easy
to live at that superficial level of simply practice and little, if any,
faith. It is that level at which we are satisfied simply “go to church” or
“make our Easter duty” rather than living the Eucharist where Jesus is
present to us in the Scriptures and in the transformation of the elements of
bread and wine.
We must experience that presence and sense the profound love of Jesus Christ
for us as He bids us share Eucharist in His memory. We must hear with
renewed awareness those words following the consecration at each Eucharist:
“Do this in memory of me.” Wonderfully we realize Jesus’ promise: “I am with
you all days, even to the end of the world.”
St. Paul in today’s epistle to the people of Corinth calls us to be
completely renewed like the fresh batch of unleavened bread, “the bread of
sincerity and truth.” We don’t need the stale witness of cynicism and
constant judgment, the pettiness of selfishness and the shallowness of
practice which has little faith to support it.
We need the faith of a Magdalene who comes seeking to offer reverence to her
Lord at the tomb and becomes the first herald of His resurrection. We need
the response of a Peter and John who rush to the tomb to find the truth of
Mary’s words. We need the reverence of the younger John for the authority of
his older brother, Peter, whom Jesus had named as the Rock foundation of His
Church. John waits for Peter to enter the tomb first and then follows him to
find the foundation for faith. Our lives must enable us to preach a gospel
that requires no words. We must see and believe as did the apostles and come
with them to learn that Jesus had to rise from the dead.
May you know the profound joy of Easter to find the reality that, because
Jesus lives, so do we. In Him we have life and have it in abundance. Happy
Easter!
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
FOURTH
SUNDAY IN
LENT
This week has given us all a hint of Spring. The greens at Oak Hill are
being prepared, Spring training for baseball is winding down and even the
hint of the crocuses and tulips can be seen in many yards.
It is a wonderful time of the year, as we are surrounded by signs of the
resurgence of life, both on the earth around us as well as within us. This
weekend our readings remind us of the Love of our God, the purpose of Lent
and what lies before us as we journey these 4o days with the Lord.
The theme of God’s love runs strongly through all 3 Scripture readings. It
is not by accident, but to convince us of the Love and Mercy of our God.
Even in our sins and failures, God is there extending a hand of love and
forgiveness. God is rich in mercy, has compassion on his people even when
they pile infidelity upon infidelity. The Gospel reinforces this message
with the quote that is seen on Sunday afternoon at every NFL game: John
3:16; God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so everyone who
believes in him might have eternal life.
Isn’t this the lesson of life that we are meant to learn again and to
understand more deeply? In the midst of the struggles, whether because of
our sins or our addictions, whether from fear or anger, whether life is a
shambles because of illness or misfortune, God is still there reaching out
and offering us the Passover of the Lord. We can move from pain and
suffering to new life and hope; we can overcome any burden with the grace of
God; we are even promised that death is not the end of life, but the passage
through to resurrected life.
I want to personalize this today. As you know, my left foot has been a
problem since September. It has not been as serious as so many people
experience, but when it is your foot, it is serious for you. This has been a
struggle over the past 7 months: including hospitalization and a number of
different treatments. It has not been pleasant to be unable to fulfill one’s
responsibilities, to depend on others for coverage of weekend Masses and
weddings. I am not use to being unable to do what I expect to do. It has
been demanding, at times depressing and has made me tired of the constant
appointments and procedures.
However, I have learned again that every cloud has a silver lining. That
lining may not be immediately evident, but it is there. I have found some of
the flaws in the medical system, but also have found wonderful people who
care and want to do the best for me. At times I have felt that I was
developing a new social network in the staff who work in Doctors’
offices---that a new circle of friends was forming. And I have felt the
prayers and support of so many, from the other priests and staff to you.
So while I wish my foot was not so demanding, this struggle has been filled
with much grace. There are some things we only learn through the hard knocks
of life. This is the stuff that opens us to the love and mercy of our God.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
THIRD
SUNDAY IN
LENT
Do you know what the word Lent means? It is from a German word meaning
SPRING. It is used for these 40 days between Ash Wed. and Easter not so
much to pray that winter may be over and the warmth of Spring and new growth
would be more evident. Rather the word reminds us of what we hope will
happen inside of ourselves. These days are an opportunity for us to
experience new growth and movement toward new life---not just on the earth
around us but in the belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection and within
ourselves.
So it is appropriate that this passage of the Gospel about the cleansing of
the Temple is offered for us in Lent. The message of this cleansing is not
just about the stone structure that was the center of worship in Jerusalem
for the Jewish people. This Temple symbolizes more. When we are baptized we
learn that we become Temples of the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it true that life
symbolized in the Temple of Jerusalem can become cluttered? Various
activities and involvements, demands and expectations can turn life into a
burden. This is the symbolic meaning of the cleansing of the Temple that
Jesus acts upon. We must look more keenly at life within and get the broom
out and clean the clutter and dirt away. I think for myself of the clutter
that we can allow our parishes to get caught up in. We can allow Church to
become too much of a business and try to be efficient and well run. What
happens is that we forget the focus on the Gospel and the message of Jesus.
We need to get the broom out and sweep out some of the add-ons of life.
For us to examine what burdens life and what has covered over the center of
life is a good task for Lent. It is why we are asked to do Penance and to
simplify our lives during these days. Hopefully by taking time to re-focus
and to unpack our daily activity, we can discover once again the deeper
reality of what life is meant to be. As a kid growing up, I remember how
difficult it was to do the annual Spring cleaning of the house. It meant
washing windows, both inside and out, moving the furniture and vacuuming
under where the sofa and the chairs were; it meant discovering things that
had been lost for months, coming upon popcorn that had fallen through the
cushions and even coins that had fallen out of pockets. My Mom was forever
re-arranging the furniture to get a different look and feel for the living
room. This was perhaps the hardest part----moving the furniture around to
different places in the living room---and then getting use to the new
arrangement.
Is the Spring cleaning of our lives going to be any easier? What has
cluttered our lives? The present economic times, while so difficult for many
of us, offers us a time of grace to re-define what will foster the treasured
values of life. There may be less to do and fewer activities to be involved
in; there may be a greater awareness of how we use the resources of the
earth; we may have to depend on one another more as we grow forward.
We can get set in our ways, comfortable doing this or not doing that, and it
is unsettling to change. But there are few of us who don’t need to open the
windows of our souls, to let some fresh air in and to resettle into new ways
of acting. This may lead to a simplifying of life, more home and family
centered activities and a deeper awareness of the gift that we can be to
each other.
One final thought: the first reading which reminds us of the 10 Commandments
are not just a listing of those 10 rules of life. The passage describes them
in the context of God acting for the good of creation and of salvation. They
are wrapped up in the telling of the story of how God has been active in the
creation and the saving of God’s people. Too often we hear them as just
rules or commandments to be obeyed, while the telling in Exodus is a
reminder of how God has been active in our lives. That is the heart of the
message of today---clear away the clutter, open the windows and sweep out
the burdens and discover again that God is for us and for our salvation.
Monsignor Krieg
St. Louis Church
SECOND
SUNDAY IN
LENT
Gen 22; 1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 Rom 8:
31b-34; Mk 9: 2-10
You can understand a certain prejudice if I find it particularly
significant that today, the Second Sunday of Lent, is a day of
mountains. Notice the number of times throughout the Scriptures when
an event of great significance occurs on a mountain.
The Genesis account we just heard takes us to the top of Mount
Moriah (the future site of the temple in Jerusalem) where we hear
the story of Abraham’s profound faith in Almighty God, a faith so
strong that he was willing to sacrifice his only son, if that is
what God asked of him. God stays his hand, and Isaac is spared, but
the faithfulness of Abraham is legend, and he has become the Father
in Faith for Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Mark’s gospel brings us to the top of Mount Tabor and the awesome
event of the Transfiguration. In the vision, Moses and Elijah are in
conversation with Jesus regarding His coming death and resurrection.
Both readings bring us to an awareness of still another mountain
where all figures are fulfilled – Mount Calvary, where, in Christ,
our own lives find fulfillment in death and resurrection.
Finally, as we move in a few moments to the celebration of the
Eucharist, we are reminded of yet another mountain, Mount Zion,
where, in the Upper Room on the night before His death on Calvary,
Jesus gives us the gift of Eucharist. In today’s liturgy these
mountains become the setting for our realization of the infinite
love of God – a love that spans centuries and reaches into the
intimacy of our daily lives.
Isaac was the child of promise, conceived when Abraham and Sara were
far beyond the age of childbearing. In God’s ultimate promise
Abraham was to be the father of many nations, and Isaac was the
child through whom that promise was to be fulfilled. Though
everything was at stake in Isaac, somehow God was calling Abraham to
offer it all up and sacrifice his son. Out of the madness of it all,
God spares Isaac, receives Abraham’s unquestioning faith, and the
world is given a hint of the gift of God’s own Son in sacrifice in
Jesus.
In the gospel we follow Jesus up Tabor, the Mount of the
Transfiguration, a gentle mountain that rises above a fertile plain.
At a spot overlooking the entire plain, Jesus is transfigured; His
face gleams as bright as lightning; His clothes are whiter than any
bleach can make them. And He is not alone; Moses and Elijah, symbols
of all God’s revelation in prophecy and law, flank him. They are
speaking with Jesus of His coming passage of suffering, death, and
resurrection.
Peter, not knowing what to say, blurts out: “Lord, it is good for us
to be here.” Peter wants to build tents for honor and remembrance,
but the cloud that envelops them and all of us strikes him silent.
And then the voice speaks from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son.
Listen to Him!” “Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone
but Jesus alone with them.”
It is that Jesus with whom we are now alone on the mount of the
transfiguration, that beloved Son to whom we must listen, who is, as
St. Paul tells us today, the only Son whom God the Father has handed
over for us all. He is the divine victim symbolized by Isaac, but
whose life is not spared, but who dies on Mt. Calvary. He is the Son
now given to us today in Eucharist.
How do we make a return for such love? We cannot simply ignore it.
Oh, we can and do, but only at the peril of losing our human heart.
How do we change, as Jesus called to us at the opening of Lent? What
effect does God’s love have in our lives? Lent is that God-given
time for change – change that begins in our own hearts and leads us
constantly to enable constant change, constant growth, in ourselves
and the world around us. It is so easy to miss this foundational
element of Church only to get lost in a concern for our human
failings and those of everyone around us.
Certainly we might see, for example, in our own relationship with
our children that we should be willing to allow them to dedicate
their lives to that love God continually reveals. This is the
fundamental motivation for parents to acknowledge a church vocation
in their child - to point out to their children that they are not
really complete until they have responded to the God who has given
His only Son to be our redemption and who now calls us to live with
Him in that wonderful reality.
We climb our mountains these Lenten days, Moriah, the mountain of
unquestioning faith, Tabor, the mountain of transfigured joy and
listening to Jesus; Calvary, the mountain of Love beyond death, love
leading to eternal life, and Zion, the mountain of the Eucharist.
The invitation comes today in the Lenten Liturgy; it comes each day
in faith. How deliberately do we respond to that invitation and
attempt to bring our world to these mountaintops? It is why we live
Lent each year. It is why we live our lives as Christians in a world
that needs to be reminded of mountains and everything we can find at
their summit. Enjoy your climb.
Father
Kevin Murphy
St. Louis Church
FIRST
SUNDAY IN
LENT
The Rainbow---what a beautiful sign to begin Lent with. I am sure each of us
remembers that first awesome time when we saw a rainbow painted across the
sky. Perhaps it was at Niagara Falls or after a warm Spring rain.
Of course we all know that a rainbow is an optical and meteorological
phenomenon that causes the spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the
sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the earth’s atmosphere. They take
the form of a multi-colored arc, with red on the outer side of the arch and
violet on the inner section of the arch.
Many people and groups have used the rainbow to capture the spirit of their
effort---there is a Rainbow Day Camp in Ellison park each summer for
children with diabetes; Jesse Jackson founded the Rainbow Coalition to serve
the needs of a rainbow of children in the inner city of Chicago; the Rainbow
Alliance is a gathering of Gay and Lesbians; the Irish Tourist Board uses
the rainbow and the leprechaun to entice us to travel to Ireland where there
is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow.
The Book of Genesis wants us to see in the rainbow the symbol of God’s
bonding with Noah and all of creation. The rainbow is to remind us that God
has preserved life despite the flood and despite the evil in the world then
and now.
As we begin this 40 day journey with the Lord Jesus, a foundational fact for
us is that God has covenanted with us, has connected with us and made that
connection both vertically and horizontally. We do not walk this road alone,
but with the guidance and support of one another and with the light from
Jesus’ own journey lighting our way.
Where does this journey lead? It will lead us to the meaning of the
Baptismal Font and its water that immerses us into the Death and
Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The power of this water is to transform and
change us---we can leave behind the old self and embrace the new person---we
can enter into the Christian life, the life of Christ, and see life with all
its colors and possibilities. It may be a radical change. I am sure there
are some among us who need to let go of serious faults in life or serious
baggage that we carry from 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. Others will make a
change that is more like a bend in the road when we become less
self-centered and more open to others and what we can do to make our world
and other people more blessed.
Between here, our beginning of the journey and where we will end up is the
desert of the Gospel: Jesus was driven into the desert after his baptism. So
we are invited to recognize where the desert of our own life may be:
As a nation we certainly sense the desert in the economy and in the wars
that continue to fester and take so much of so many.
But also more personally, the desert may be: the fear that we have because
of the instability of life right now; or the physical, emotional or mental
health or lack thereof; or our desert may be in the family relationships or
our personal relationship; or it may be in that area of personal integrity
as we grapple with something deep within our self.
The desert is not in the Sahara of Africa or in Arizona, but within. The
Gospel tells us that this is the time of fulfillment and change: will we use
this time, this opportunity, this grace of Lent as a new opportunity to
repent and believe the Good News of Jesus Christ?
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