From Empty Hands

Don't Tempt Me

2012-02-26T19:41:00.002-05:00

Mother Teresa used to (reportedly) say: "I know God never gives us more than we can handle...I just wish he didn't trust me so much." How true, how true!

First Sunday of Lent B

Readings

A new recruit in the monastery

approached a wise, old monk for guidance.

“Tell me, please: How did you become holy?”

“Two words,” the old monk answered. “Right choices.”

Intrigued, the novice continued,

“And how does one learn to make right choices?”

“One word,” the old monk replied. “Growth.”

So the novice asked, “And how does one grow?”

“Two words,” the old monk smirked. “Wrong choices.”

Every time we recite the Lord’s Prayer, we plead:

Lead us not into temptation…

It’s kind of a curious thing for which to pray, if you think about it.

As if our heavenly Father would intentionally put us in harm’s way;

as if God was, for some reason, actually trying to get us to sin…

The original Greek word used both near the end of the Lord’s Prayer

and in the gospel passage we’ve just heard

can have a couple of related but different meanings:

either temptation or testing.

Let’s start with temptation.

Whether its source is the devil himself,

the wayward thinking of this world,

or the fallen state of our human flesh,

the goal of temptation is always the same: to get us to do wrong.

Giving in to temptation is rarely a matter of knowing good from evil

(we’re all pretty adept at that);

rather, the culprit is usually the weakness of our convictions.

Whatever tempts us can never force us to do something bad;

it can only lure us, hoping we’ll come to want something bad.

Temptation never takes way our free will;

it simply tries to bend and change it. (cf. B. Stoffregen)

Now, while temptation aims

to get us choosing all the wrong things,

testing, on the other hand, has a very different purpose.

Whether it’s an exam at school, or tryouts for a team,

or a particular trial at work or in a relationship,

when we’re tested, the goal is to find out

who we are and what we’re made of.

And, generally, when we’re given a test,

it’s not because somebody wants to see us fail.

Instead, they want to find out our abilities,

to reveal our true character—

and to help us to discover these for ourselves.

A good test seeks more than to find out what we’ve already learned;

it helps us to learn something new.

Temptation or testing? Which is it with God?

There’s great wisdom in using one Greek word with two meanings,

because with the Lord—in a sense—it’s both.

God certainly does not send us temptations,

but he does allow us to face them as a test—

not at all because he’s hoping we’ll fail,

but to give us an opportunity to prove ourselves—

to show who we really are and what we’re really made of.

It’s one of the devil’s many tricks—

an attempt to cover his own tracks—

to convince us that, because God allows us to be tempted,

God is out to get us—

quick to condemn, eager to punish,

constantly setting traps to snare us on our way.

This was a common enough notion

about many of the ancient pagan gods—

and one which manages to hang on still today.

How often have we said or heard

something a little irreverent,

and then waited—

even though tongue in cheek—

for the lightening to strike?

Notice, however, the sign God gives to Noah

when the floodwaters subside:

I set my bow in the clouds.

And when God says, “bow,”

he’s talking about a piece of artillery.

God symbolically hangs up his weapon,

never to fix an arrow on its string again.

In fact, the Lord has hung his bow

pointing toward heaven and away from the earth.

So have no fear of dodging those divine thunderbolts!

Even in his testing, God is for us—not against.

Taking our human condition upon himself completely,

we find Jesus emerging from his baptism in the Jordan River

only to be tempted by Satan.

The desert experience of God’s own Son

is a vivid reminder for all of us who follow him.

Passing through the saving waters of baptism

is a sacrament—not magic.

It’d be nice if it formed an invisible force field around us,

protecting us from every evil;

clearly, that’s not the case.

We find ourselves, as Jesus did,

among wild beasts and angels alike.

But while it’s not magic, baptism does give us grace:

a spiritual shot in the arm,

a good dose of God’s own life, of God’s own strength.

As with temptation, grace doesn’t take away our free will,

but tries to change and shape it—

to lead it toward God and the good,

away from the devil and his empty promises.

Cooperate with God’s grace, and we can conquer anything.

The God who promised

not to flood the earth again to destroy it

has also promised to flood our souls

with his gifts

that he might restore them.

With these forty days of Lent,

as with Noah’s forty days in the rain

and Jesus’ forty days in the desert,

God gives the human race a chance

to start over, to begin again.

Let us not neglect this opportunity

to be renewed in the grace of our baptism.

So, you see, the test God sets before us

is the one every student has always dreamed of:

it’s open book!

God gives us all the answers!

And what’s more, as that wise old monk knew so well:

even by occasionally making wrong choices

when faced with temptation,

we can still grow—by grace—

and learn to make the right ones.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

2012-02-23T09:41:00.000-05:00

One of the most endearing and uniquely Roman customs experienced during my seminary days was early morning Mass in the "station churches" of Lent. A holdover from an earlier age, they reflect a time when there was a roving Papal liturgy: Mass, preceded by a penitential procession, in different parish churches of the Eternal City each day. An article on Zenit from yesterday has me fondly remembering those brisk walks to Mass before classes (and most often before sun-up), and that today would be the day to visit one of my favorite of Rome's hidden churches: San Giorgio in Velabro.

The soldier saints in the stunning medieval apse fresco (St. George on the far left, St. Sebastian on the far right) are a great illustration of the newly-translated Collect (opening prayer) heard at the beginning of yesterday's Ash Wednesday Mass:

Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.

You can follow the "march" of this daily Lenten pilgrimage at a distance (or even up close--maps are included!) on the website of the Pontifical North American College.

What is it about Ash Wednesday?

2012-02-22T14:43:00.001-05:00

In conversation with a recent convert last week, he said, "There's never been a better time to come back to the Catholic Church!" I asked what he meant. "Since we made all those changes in the Mass last fall [implementing the new English translation of the Roman Missal], even the regular Catholics are lost and confused. So if you've been away a long time and are worried that you won't know what you're doing, right now is the best chance you'll ever have of blending in."

I think he may be onto something...

Ash Wednesday

Readings

What is it about Ash Wednesday?

My first Ash Wednesday as a parish priest, I went to make a visit at the hospital. I was quite taken aback as everywhere I turned there was someone else—patient, visitor, doctor, nurse—asking me, “Father, have got any ashes?” Like I just carry a pocketful of them around with me, ready to mark any ol’ forehead I meet! I was even more startled when I returned to visit the hospital that Friday…and got hit with the same question. “But I couldn’t make it to church, Father!” “I know…but it’s Ash Wednesday…”

This is not simply a North Country phenomenon, either. Every year, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral down in Manhattan, the line of people looking for ashes today winds its way right out the door and around the city block.

What is it about Ash Wednesday?

Over the years, I’ve discussed that very question with my brother priests more times than I count. Why does today—like Christmas, like Easter—seem to bring Catholics right out of the woodwork?

The most common theory I hear is that it’s because we’re giving something out for free. It may only be a dirty smudge on your forehead…but there’s no charge. And who among us doesn’t like to get a bargain? I guess I’ve always figured your motives were a little higher than that.

Maybe it’s because, deep down, we know we need a regular reminder of our mortality. Remember—the ashes so poignantly tell us—that you were made from the dust of the earth, and to that earth, to dust, you will most certainly one day return.

Maybe it’s because this conspicuous sign is such a distinctive and visible reminder of our Catholic faith. (Seems every year that some Catholic politician gets called out for wearing ashes while on the job, doesn’t it?) This would be a rather ironic reason, though, since Jesus just warned us in the gospel not to perform our religious duties for others to see, that we might then win their praise. The only attention we should be seeking is that of our Father in heaven.

What is it about Ash Wednesday?

Discussing this very question last night, I came up with my own new theory. Since ashes and Ash Wednesday are all about sin, maybe—just maybe—this is the day that all those whose lifestyle and values don’t quite jive with those of the Church, those who take issue with her teachings, those who don’t regularly get here to Mass…maybe because today is so clearly for sinners, this is the day that all of us sinners really feel like we belong here. This is our day! Today, we're right at home.

My friends, if this is what it comes down to, then I’m more than willing to carry around a pocketful of ashes with me at all times, smearing foreheads whenever and wherever necessary!

We must remember that the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and all the spiritual treasures of the Church—these are not rewards reserved for the righteous, but healing medicine for our sin-sick souls. Just as we don’t restrict our sinning to one day a year, neither does God restrict his mercy to Ash Wednesday. This is where sinners belong not just one day, but all 366 days a year. (Don’t forget it’s a leap year!)

Like St. Paul, I come before you on this Ash Wednesday as an ambassador for Christ, and I appeal to you: Be reconciled to God! Now, indeed is a very acceptable time! Now is the day of salvation! But every day, in fact, can be a day of salvation, if we only turn our hearts back to God.

Ashes to Ashes

2012-02-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

Let us correct our faults which we have committed in ignorance,
let us not be taken unawares by the day of our death,
looking in vain for leisure to repent.
Hear us, O Lord, and show us your mercy,
for we have sinned against you.

Help us, O God our Savior;
for the sake of your name, O Lord, set us free.

Responsory for the Distribution of Ashes
Roman Missal, 3rd ed.

Can't have one without the other

2012-02-20T14:24:00.001-05:00

Fr. Stitt brought a recent YouTube phenomenon to my attention the other night: Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus...

The fellow's engaging enough, and the "vibe" is cutting edge...but there are an awful lot of holes in his arguments for those who pay close attention. (Jesus sure spent a surprising amount of time in synagogues on the sabbath and at the temple for festivals for a guy who "hated" religion.)

Which is why I'm so glad there are some great and thoughtful responses floating around out there to this on-beat but off-base message.

American Magazine has posted a great piece on one of its blogs, making it clear you can't really accept Christ without also embracing his Bride.

And then there's this priest who--to my mind--pretty much says, "Checkmate"...

For the record: I'm pretty much in love with 'em both.

Hail to the Chief

2012-02-20T09:19:00.000-05:00

In the Red

2012-02-19T21:33:00.001-05:00

It's been a joy these last few days--even at a distance--to catch bits of the consistory in which Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new Cardinals for the Holy Roman Church, prominently including among them Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the constantly smiling Archbishop of New York.

Asked to address no less than the Holy Father himself and this new cardinalatial class, Dolan delivered an address on Friday that took me right back to my days at the Pontifical North American College, when Monsignor Dolan would deliver a monthly "Rector's Conference" on a theme of his choosing. Yes, the Pope got a classic Rector's Conference!

Cardinal Dolan's remarks on the "new evangelization" deserve a wide reading:

Fit for a King (Cake)

2012-02-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

As you can gather from the dining room décor, Friday night's gathering with young adults from our parishes wasn't completely a "dinner meeting" ...and tomorrow night's get-together with a few priests from the neighborhood won't exactly be one, either.

Lent is fast a-comin' ...so...

Happy Mardi Gras, everybody!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Through the Roof

2012-02-19T20:54:00.000-05:00

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

I spent this past week on a little vacation,

We had dinner at the rectory the other night

with several young adults from our parishes,

trying to brainstorm ideas for future projects and programs.

In the course of our conversation,

Fr. Stitt shared an old comic strip that he remembered…

A priest gets into a taxi.

The fun-loving, fast-living cabbie, asks,

“So, Padre—I been kinda wondrin’

about this Jesus feller.

What can ya tell me ’bout ’em.”

“Well,” the priest answers,

“Jesus is a pretty amazing guy.

Get to know him, and it changes your whole life.”

“Ev’ryting?” the cabbie asks.

“Everything.”

“Well, in that case,” the cabbie says, “never mind.”

Imagine what it was like being that paralytic man in Capernaum.

Exciting, no doubt, but also pretty terrifying.

Sure, he had to be afraid that the ropes would snap,

that this friends would slip or lose their grip

as they lower him down through the roof to Jesus.

But he must have been apprehensive on a much deeper level, too.

If Jesus actually did what this man’s friends hoped Jesus would do,

his life would be changed completely and changed forever.

His paralysis had become more than a physical affliction.

It was his way of life.

True—it probably wasn’t the life he’d have chosen for himself,

but it’s the only one he’s known.

What would it be like to walk? jump? run? dance?

How would he find a job?

How would his role in his family,

his place in the community be different?

He was on the brink of going from impossible dream to reality.

And that prospect is always daunting, always scary. (cf. R. Veras)

Getting close to Jesus—really getting to know him—

has that effect on everybody.

It changes everything.

I read an interesting article this past week

on why Catholics in their 20’s and 30’s

are so often missing from our churches.

(And I’m not talking about the general exodus of local families

during this week’s Winter Break!)

Amy—a long-time campus minister at a Catholic university—

told this story of a time when she was leading a prayer exercise

for some college students,

inviting them to imagine Jesus right there in front of them.

“Look Jesus in the eye,” she counseled.

After the prayer time,
Amy invited the members of the group
to share their experience.

One described what happened

but studiously ignored
the “looking Jesus in the eye” part.
Amy asked, “What was it like
to look at Jesus face to face?”
“Oh, I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?” gently asked Amy.
Pause. Shuffle of feet. A glance at the floor.

“Oh, I’m not worthy.” …
“And I’m looking around the group,” [Amy adds]
“and all the heads were nodding.
They all felt that way.” (America, 2/13/12)

Though the feeling is not-at-all limited to this age bracket,

many younger Catholics—

for a wide variety of reasons—

find themselves living in ways

which—deep down—the know they oughtn’t.

And they feel stuck there: paralyzed.

How could God—or anybody else—

want me with all my faults and flaws?

I can’t be perfect, so why even try?

And what if I screw up again?

I’ve been gone too long.

So I’ll drink some more

or take another drug to forget.

I’ll keep “hooking up” to avoid the risks

of a long-term relationship.

The cycle of self-destructive behavior continues,

since acceptance and transformation—

things we all really, truly want—

just seem too good to be true…

...or, at least, too good for me.

And there’s another sort of paralysis at work here.

Have you ever come upon someone who’s just been seriously hurt?

Maybe it’s a terrible car crash.

Maybe it’s a screaming child with an injury

that requires more than a kiss to make it go away.

Unless you’ve been trained to do otherwise, most of us freeze.

It’s quite clear that something needs to be done,

but we’re not sure what’s best to do.

We doubt our ability to make a difference,

frightened that we don’t have what it takes.

So instead of doing what we can,

we stand by silent, or turn away, doing nothing.

We end up paralyzed. (cf. J. Welte)

What’s true when we find people suffering physical injuries

is even more the case when it comes to sin.

The four friends in the gospel

show us an altogether different way.

We’re right to realize

that we cannot change the lives of those around us

who seem stuck in their old ways.

But we don’t have to…because Jesus can.

All we have to do is bring them to him,

to extend an invitation, to make the introduction.

We might have to use some unconventional methods—

when you can’t get through the door,

why not go through the roof?

But all we need is the complete confidence

that getting to know Jesus

can—will—make all the difference.

St. Paul writes to the Corinthians

that Jesus is God’s resounding “yes.”

From all eternity, the Son’s very being

has been an unwavering “yes”

to the Father’s will.

Become flesh? Sure!

Die on a cross? You bet!

Christ was—and is—

willing to do whatever it takes

to accomplish God’s plan.

And so we see that Christ

is also God’s “yes” to humanity.

In Jesus, God says to us—

to the whole human race

and to each of us as members of it—

You’re worth it. You’re worth everything!

No one is ever too far gone.

I love you, and nothing can change that!

Despite perceptions to the contrary,

the Church is meant to be a general hospital for sinners,

not some sort of exclusive club for the saints.

None of us are here because we’re worthy…

…but because God determined that we’re worth it.

Do I believe this for myself?

Do I believe it enough to share it with somebody else?

As that hapless cabbie quickly picked up,

getting to know Jesus changes everything.

Admittedly, that can be more than a little bit intimidating.

But if we can bring ourselves to take that first hesitating step—

whether for ourselves

or for another fearful paralytic clinging to his mat—

—the Lord will take it from there.

“See,” he lovingly repeats. “I am doing something new!”

The late Fr. Pedro Arrupe

(international head of the Jesuits from 1965 to 1983)

once made this keen observation while giving a retreat:

Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you will spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

Whither Winter's Weather?

2012-02-16T22:19:00.001-05:00

For those of us who make peace with winter by having fun with it, this has been kind of a rough one. The lack of snow has curtailed most of my outdoor activities. My snowshoes haven't yet left the house; the one time I considered it, we ended up just taking a walk in the woods instead. My snowmobile gear got its first (and, likely, only) use last week during a brief ride in my old haunt of Old Forge. And today was just the second time I took my XC skis for a spin. I headed out to the Paul Smiths VIC (one of the only spots around where trails are open) and for the most part followed the same path I hiked back in October. Conditions weren't tops (alternately sticky because of the temperature and slick because of all the ice beneath), but it was just good--really good--to get out in the woods. I know it's liturgical color is purple, but maybe--just maybe--we can have white Lent?

Not over yet...

2012-02-15T23:04:00.001-05:00

...not even close.

The heated debate over the January 20th HHS Contraceptive coverage mandate goes on. The "compromise" offered by the Obama administration last Friday (which invokes some of the cloudiest thinking I've encountered in a long, long time) doesn't seem to be satisfying anyone. Our Catholic Bishops have renewed their opposition to what they still see as a violation of constitutionally protected religious liberty. And in an interesting piece on NPR this morning, it seems that even the insurance industry is feeling a bit put out by this most recent policy adjustment.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you can call it a swan all you want...but no one will believe you.

As I tried to highlight on Sunday, what's at stake here is much, much more than who's going to pay for a few pills and prophylactics used in the privacy of one's bedroom. (Of course, I can't help but question just what sickness contraceptives--as essential "health care"--are prescribed to cure. When did fertility become a disease?) The working definition of "religion" behind these policies wants to limit it's sphere of influence to what happens within the cozy confines of four church walls. That, however, is not at all how I read the Gospels.

A petition has been posted on the White House website, asking that the mandate be rescinded. (An earlier one drew nearly 30,000 signatures--more than another which supported the opposing view.) Send a message to President Obama and sign it. (I'm #1,338.) And if you haven't already, be sure to contact your representatives in Congress, too. Make your voice heard!

The Caesars of old believed themselves divine, and thus deserving of unquestioning allegiance. The first Christians gave their lives because they saw things differently. Might history be repeating itself?

Look Carefully

2012-02-12T18:17:00.001-05:00

Differences

2012-02-12T18:12:00.000-05:00

Out of the mouths of babes...

At our youth group's spaghetti supper last night, two young parishioners shared their opinions of my beard. The preschooler told me it's "handsome," while her 3rd grade sister said it makes me look "sophisticated." (Guess who's gonna be my Valentine this year?)

And then today, at a luncheon following a baptism, the grandmother shared that one of her other granddaughters (4-years-old, I'd guess) said she'd taken a nap during my homily because "God was talking too loud." (Anytime you get mistaken for the Lord it's a good thing, no?)

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

I spent this past week on a little vacation,

visiting friends and relatives around northern New York.

A couple of observations from my travels

seem pertinent this Sunday morning.

The first.

In the four homes in which I stayed,

I found myself surrounded by children—toddlers, in particular.

And I loved it.

(Fr. Stitt is not nearly as much fun to play with!)

But one particular encounter with little folks stands out.

I ran into a group of preschoolers

who were wrapping up a hard day of coloring, snack- and nap-time,

all bunched up together and giggling

as 3- and 4-year-olds are wont to do.

I instantly noticed that one of the boys

had a rather misshapen face and head.

It was not at all grotesque, but nonetheless quite startling.

I tried my best not to stare,

but observed the scene long enough to realize

that none of his peers seemed to notice anything different about him.

It’s amazing—isn’t it—how children don’t make distinctions?

For our first few years on this earth,

we don’t seem to care much about differences

of gender, age, skin color, or disability.

But how very quickly and dramatically that all changes!

By junior high, much of our time and attention is consumed

by what’s cool and what’s not, who’s in and who’s out:

ready to change our looks or change our behavior—

whatever it takes to fit in, to feel like we belong.

And the second observation.

Driving more than 500 miles over the course of the week

gave me a lot of time to listen to the radio in my car.

And switching between stations as I traveled along,

I noticed a lot of discussion about the Catholic reaction

to the recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ruling

on contraceptives and abortion inducing drugs

as mandated health care services.

Interspersed with sound bites from Catholic Bishops and politicians

speaking in passionate defense of religious liberty,

I heard survey results which claim to show

that 98% of sexually active American Catholic women today

use artificial birth control,

and that nearly half of American Catholics

think abortion should be legal in most circumstances—

regardless of what their Church teaches.

Such data—the pundits argued—show the U.S. Bishops

to be grossly out of touch with the people in the pew.

Why, then, all this fuss over insurance coverage?

The majority of American Catholics are just like everybody else.

So…what’s the connection between these two observations?

The way I see it, in our desire to be accepted, to belong, to “fit in,”

we Catholics in America have—unwittingly—gone too far.

Not wanting to stand out as different from the rest,

we’ve been too willing to compromise.

In order to better understand out current situation,

I want to take you back—way back—

to the second half of the second century.

Among the Church’s ancient treasures is the text of a letter—

known as the Epistle to Diognetus*—

written not much more than 100 years

after the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We’re not sure who wrote it,

though the author was certainly a Christian.

And we’re not sure to whom it was written,

though it’s certainly addressed to a non-believer.

It comes from a time when Christianity was not well understood,

and the predominant culture was increasingly suspicious of it—

a time not unlike today.

Listen to how this letter describes the place of Christians

in the wider world:

Christians cannot be distinguished

from the rest of the human race

by country or language or customs.

They do not live in cities of their own;

they do not use a peculiar form of speech;

they do not follow an eccentric manner of life.

In clothing and food and other matters of daily living,

they follow the customs of whatever city

they happen to be living in…

See—you might be tempted to think—

Christians have always tried to blend in!

And yet [the letter goes on]

there is something extraordinary about their lives. …

Listen to what it says is so distinctive about the followers of Jesus:

Like everyone else, they marry and have children,

but they do not expose their offspring.

It was not only socially acceptable,

but approved and even encouraged,

for unwanted newborns (especially girls) to simply be abandoned:

left exposed to the elements to die.

Roman law actually obliged a father to do so

with a deformed infant.

Abortion—usually induced by poison—

was officially frowned upon (although frequent enough),

not out of any concern for unborn babies,

but because it violated a man’s right to dispose of his own children.

The letter continues:

[Christians] share their table with each other,

but not their marriage bed.

Divorce was easy and common.

Prostitution was legal and widespread.

Erotic paintings decorated the walls of many upper-class houses.

It was acceptable for men—single or married—

to have lovers of one or both sexes,

including those much younger than themselves.

In light of these, marriage and the birth rate

were in such marked decline during the reign of Caesar Augustus

that he imposed higher taxes on unwed men and women

in an effort to reverse the trend.

(Now there’s a government policy guaranteed

to make both liberal and conservative heads spin!)

Given such notable differences, the letter goes on:

Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. …

They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. …

They are reviled, and yet they bless;

when they are insulted, they still pay due respect.

So…the earliest Christians were distinguished

from the surrounding culture by:

(1) the way they treated little children,

(2) the way they treated sexuality and the institution of marriage, and

(3) the way they treated those who hated them for this.

Sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it? Or…at least, it ought to.

My fear—and I’m not alone here—

is that we’re quickly losing our hold on these things

which have made us rightfully different for the last 2,000 years.

Archbishop Charles Chaput has made this observation—

one I heard repeated over the car radio the other day:

The Church in the United States has done a poor job

of forming the faith and conscience of Catholics

for more than 40 years.

And now we’re harvesting the results—

in the public square, in our families

and in the confusion of our personal lives. …

[U]nless Catholics have a conversion of heart

that helps us see what we’ve become—

that we haven’t just “assimilated” to American culture,

but that we’ve also been absorbed

and bleached and digested by it—

then we’ll fail in our duties to a new generation… .

And a real Catholic presence in American life

will continue to weaken and disappear. (Toronto, 2/23/09)**

And what is this “duty”? the purpose of this “Catholic presence”?

Again, from that second century letter…

To put it simply:

Christians are to the world what the soul is to the body. …

It is by the [invisible] soul, enclosed within the body,

that the body is held together,

and similarly, it is by Christians, detained in the world…,

that the world is held together. …

It is to no less a position than this that God has appointed them,

and they must not try to escape it.

Everyone wants to belong—to be accepted, to fit in.

Little wonder the Church has a ritual—as we’ve just witnessed—

to accept and welcome those in the process of joining her ranks,

greeting them right at the church doors.

When Jesus cured the leper,

he restored not only his health, but his human dignity

by making it possible for him to be part of the community again.

We Christians are to continue that work today:

to stretch out our hands to the untouchables,

to welcome in the outsiders,

that people from everywhere might keep coming to Jesus—

their hearts to be cleansed, their wounds to be healed.

But in our efforts to be accepting

and—as St. Paul instructs—to avoid giving offence,

we must not be afraid of being different ourselves—

true to who we are and to what we stand for.

In the vigorous debate over federal insurance mandates,

opposing voices want to characterize it

as an issue of either health care or religious liberty.

In reality, it’s both…and it’s more,

for it comes down—I believe—to a genuine desire

to be Catholic and American, and to be each without compromise.

We serve our nation best, my dear friends

by being faithful sons and daughters of the Church.

God has called us to be this world’s soul!

Which means that—sometimes—we must dare to be different,

and not just like everybody else.

* You can find the full text of the Epistle here.

I used a few different English translations in composing this homily.

**Archbishop Chaput's complete address can be found here

Then of Denver, he's now the Archbishop of Philadelphia.

In Good Time

2012-02-05T14:07:00.000-05:00

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

So you’ve gone off to college and fallen in love

with a girl who just happens to be from the next town.

You come home for winter break and tell your family all about her—

certain she’s the woman you’re going to marry…

…even though you’re not really even going out yet.

Along with some other friends from school,

you invite her over to your family’s house.

And that’s when it happens:

Your kid brother—wearing one of those grins—

comes bounding in and asks,

“So is this the girl you’re gonna marry?”

And as you drag him down the hallway to lock him in his room

(all the while contemplating doing something much, much worse),

he just keeps saying,

“Why? I was only telling the truth!” (cf. R. Veras)

He did tell the truth.

But what your little brother didn’t do

is allow you the time necessary to develop the relationship

on which your heart was set.

Jesus drove out many demons,

not permitting them to speak because they knew him.

Saint Mark’s gospel is full of lines like these:

Jesus telling talkative evil spirits,

the numerous people he’s just cured,

and even his own apostles

to keep a lid on what they know (or think they know)

about his true identity.

It’s not that Jesus fears groupies and paparazzi;

on the contrary, he seems surprisingly at ease

even with the whole town gathered at the door.

But what’s at stake here is allowing for a loving relationship

to mature as it should—all in good time.

Imagine if Jesus had arrived on the scene

boldly introducing himself by saying,

“Hi! I’m the Son of God, and I’ve come to save you!” (cf. R. Veras)

That probably wouldn’t have been a winning strategy.

Ever understanding of our human nature,

Jesus puts actions before words.

He speaks to the crowds with a healing touch

before beginning to preach to them.

Jesus knows they have some preconceived notions

about what kind of Savior God would send them.

(You can be quite sure they weren’t expecting a Messiah

who’d claim victory by dying on a cross!)

So Jesus is careful not to get the cart before the horse.

People will have to trust him,

to know for sure that he loves them,

before they’re willing to follow

and start living the new life he’s come to teach.

If that’s the pattern of how Jesus operated

in seaside Capernaum and throughout the towns of Galilee,

then why should we expect it to be any different today?

Jesus touches our lives in different ways at different times.

Sometimes his presence is strikingly obvious;

other times, it seems more like he’s absent.

Sometimes, we can practically feel his hand,

helping us up as he did Peter’s mother-in-law;

other times, we’re ready to commiserate with Job:

“Isn’t life on this earth a drudgery?”

It could seem that Jesus is simply playing hard to get.

And yet,

if we’re only prepared to recognize the Lord and his action

under one set of circumstances—

if we’re only ready for him to save us on our own terms—

then haven’t we, like a mouthy kid brother,

risked killing a potentially long and beautiful relationship

before it even has a chance to get off the ground?

As with any two people who fall in love,

the relationship Jesus longs to have

with each one of us, his disciples,

takes time—sweet time—to develop.

We often want to race to the finish—

to jump ahead to “happily ever after.”

(Just consider how drastically dating and courtship

have changed in recent years—and the effect on society—

and you can see what I mean!)

But growing in trust, growing in love,

is something which must be cultivated and best grows only slowly.

And no one understands that process better

than the One who invented it

while setting up the rest of the universe.

As Saint Paul would later try to imitate,

in Jesus the almighty God became weak

to win over us who are beset by so many weaknesses;

he’d probably have scared us right off if he’d come on too strong.

Yes, the truth is that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,

has set his heart on you,

and wants to take you to live with him forever.

Among other things,

he keeps inviting you here,

to the family house, to the family table,

to get to know one another better.

Allow the Lord to always be the one

who guides the course of this deepening relationship.

Trust him, and it will mature as it should—

all in good time.

Barbarians on Main St.

2012-02-04T11:52:00.002-05:00

Today Malone revived a long dormant local tradition: it's annual Winter Carnival Parade. Folks from Old Forge know that this would be a hard thing for me to resist, since I love a parade! Of all groups to march with, I got drafted by a group of marauding Vikings (long, long story--don't ask). Of course, I already owned the appropriate headgear (doesn't everyone have such a helmet?) and a long black cape, but what in the world could I carry as a weapon? So I grabbed the scariest thing I could find around here, the sight of which strikes deep fear in every good Catholic's heart...

Here are a few of us on Main Street, near the end of our raiding and pillaging--which included (gentle) attacks on the Franklin County Dairy Princess and Liberty Tax Service:

As you can clearly see, this group desperately needed a chaplain. (There was also both a doctor and a lawyer in the group, so we had all our bases covered.)

Funny thing is, those carrying axes and swords kept trying to "shake down" the people watching the parade from the sidewalks ("Arrrr! What's in your wallet?")...but I was the only one who actually got any money: $2.00! (It's going in the poor box, by the way.)

Let it...snow?

2012-02-03T16:56:00.001-05:00

You know something's not quite right when they're getting almost as much in Rome as I'm seeing here in the North Country...

The Presentation of the Lord

2012-02-02T17:47:00.003-05:00

For those who complain that February only has lame holidays, I say: Au contraire!

While much of the nation (OK, folks here in the northeast, anyway) focused it's attention on a groundhog's shadow, today we Catholics focus instead on the Light...

It is interesting to take a close look at this entrance of the Child Jesus into the solemnity of the temple, in the great comings and goings of many people, busy with their work: priests and Levites taking turns to be on duty, the numerous devout people and pilgrims anxious to encounter the Holy God of Israel. Yet none of them noticed anything. Jesus was a child like the others, a first-born son of very simple parents.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, February 2, 2011

I guess the Light is often found shining gently, quietly right there in the shadows...we've just got to hold still long enough, eyes wide open, to see it.

Happy Candlemas, everyone!

Conscience?

2012-01-31T12:50:00.002-05:00

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' recent ruling on "conscience protections" (or better, the lack thereof) in private health plans has caused a lot of concerned chatter in American Catholic circles for the swipe it takes at both the First Amendment and our moral values as a Church.

You know that something pretty serious is up when you read similar reactions from commentators at both the Wall Street Journal and Crisis Magazine. Each of these articles (neither of them too long) are well worth your time.

But if time is short, then just watch this brief clip from my friend, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, to get the lowdown.

And--whatever you do--call or email your elected representatives in Congress to let them know what you think.

Get informed...and involved!

St. John Bosco

2012-01-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

"How much God has done through us!" the ever humble St. John Bosco (1815-1888) used to say. "But how much more he would have done if my faith had been stronger."

Setting a high bar for himself (and the rest of us), this tireless priest and friend of youth was also of the opinion: "Let us work now; in heaven, we shall have rest. How can I be idle while the devil is working? I did not become a priest in order to take care of my health. Anyone who dies from overwork will attract hundreds to fill his place."

For Goodness' Sake

2012-01-29T13:00:00.001-05:00

Without a doubt, the first time I've cited Bart Simpson in a homily...

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

There are some catchphrases

that just seem to spread like wildfire—

or, better yet, to infect our way of speaking like a virus.

Slogans are picked up from advertisements, movies, music,

and once they take hold, they seem to hang on—

even if we forget where they came from.

“Here’s looking at you, kid,” comes to us from…Casablanca.

“I’ll be back,” from…the Terminator.

“Good grief!” from…Charlie Brown.

“Don’t have a cow, man!” from…Bart Simpson.

One catchphrase that I’ve heard quite a lot in recent years—

although no one seems to know where it came from—

is, “It’s all good.”

You hear it all over the place.

“It’s all good.”

It sounds nice—very encouraging and optimistic.

The sentiment aims to keep you smiling in the face of any difficulty.

“It’s all good.”

But the trouble is…it’s not.

You don’t have to look very long or very far

to see that it’s not all good.

Sickness and pain are not good.

Death and despair are not good.

Poverty and hunger are not good.

Selfishness and wrath are not good.

Oh, some good can be and often is drawn out from any of these…

…but, no—they aren’t good in and of themselves.

It’s not all good out there in the world,

and it’s not all good here in this sinner’s heart,

and it can be downright dangerous to try and fool ourselves

into thinking otherwise.

Ruins of the Synagogue in Capernaum

Jesus’ encounter with the unclean spirit

in the synagogue at Capernaum

is just one of many episodes in his life and ministry

where he confronts the not-goodness in the world.

And if driving out evil was such an essential part

of what Jesus came to do among us and for us,

then how do we propose to carry on that same battle today?

English author C. S. Lewis—

who returned to the Christian faith in middle age—put it this way:

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is.

Christianity is the story

of how the rightful king has landed,

you might say landed in disguise,

and is calling us all to take part

in a great campaign of sabotage.

When you go to church you are really listening-in

to the secret wireless [communications]*

from our friends:

that is why the enemy is so anxious

to prevent us from going.

He does it by playing on our conceit and laziness

and intellectual snobbery.

I know someone will ask me,

‘Do you really mean, at this time of day,

to re-introduce our old friend the devil—hoofs and horns and all?’

Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know.

And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns.

But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do.

I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance.

If anybody really wants to know him better

I would say to that person. ‘Don’t worry.

If you really want to, you will.

Whether you’ll like it when you do

is another question.’ (Mere Christianity)

Now, to think of evil only in terms of devils and demons

does tend to keep the whole matter at a respectable distance.

And the evil, the not-goodness, with which we’re more familiar

is of a rather less-overtly-diabolical sort:

the personal evils of greed and of lust,

the societal evils of discrimination and of apathy,

of warfare and famine, addiction and disease.

“The devil made me do it”

can seem a rather too convenient excuse for these or any other ill.

But I don’t suspect the Son of God

would have wasted so much time and effort

facing off with a mere figment of our imaginations.

As was once so wisely observed:

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled

was convincing the world he didn’t exist. (cf. C. Baudelaire)

Much like certain catchphrases eventually spread far and wide,

we human beings have long understood

that contact with the bad can infect the good—

that one rotten apple can spoil the whole bunch. (cf. B. Stoffregen)

A fear of uncleanness, of becoming spiritually defiled,

preoccupied the Jewish religious leadership of Jesus’ times.

But it clearly didn’t preoccupy Jesus.

Notice how he reacts in this Sunday’s gospel.

In the synagogue—a holy place—

and on the Sabbath—a holy day—

an unclean spirit dares to enter and to speak.

But Jesus does not flee—just as he won’t flee

from the lepers or the prostitutes or the caskets of the dead.

Jesus isn’t worried that he’ll catch a fatal case of evil.

No—Jesus knows that his goodness is even more contagious.

He is the Holy One of God, and his holiness rubs off.

The miracles and exorcisms of Jesus

not only challenge the laws of nature, but the laws of society

which tend to keep the sick and the sinner safely at arm’s length.

Jesus, instead, keeps reaching out to the outcast, the untaouchables,

and pulling them back in.

The people of Capernaum recognized

a particular power, a particular authority in Jesus:

his words matched his actions;

what he said came to pass.

He would not be controlled or intimidated by the unclean spirit—

or anything else, for that matter.

It should be likewise for us who follow him.

We do not have to be controlled by the forces of evil—

whether they emerge from within us or without.

Like Jesus, we can—we must—take firm command,

for he has shared his power, his authority, with his Church.

Before ascending to the Father, Jesus tells the Eleven:

These signs will accompany those who believe:

in my name they will drive out demons,

they will speak new languages.

They will pick up serpents with their hands,

and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.

They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mk 16:17-18)

Do we really believe this?

Are we ready to rely totally on Christ’s divine authority

rather than any human power?

Do we trust that, by staying in close contact with Jesus,

we can catch a strong case of the all-goodness of the Holy One of God?

Yes, the devil is real…

…but that should be no cause for anxiety.

By his own dying and rising,

Christ has conquered him once and for all…

…it’s just that evil has a terrible time admitting defeat.

It’s claimed that Helen Keller once wrote,

It is wonderful how much time

good people spend fighting the devil.

If they would only expend the same amount of energy

loving their fellow men,

the devil would die in his own tracks of [boredom].**

How true!

If, then, in Jesus, God was sneaking behind enemy lines

(behind the lines, I might add, of a particularly sneaky enemy),

then maybe our best plan of attack is not to charge in head on.

Is not the work of sabotage best accomplished through the back door?

So let us combat the evil found around and within us

by increasing the amount of goodness there

until that day when, at last, we can truthfully say,

“It’s all good.”

*I added "communications " to the Lewis passage

since "wireless" means something rather different now

than it did when written back in 1952.

**The quote credited to Keller actually says "ennui,"

which is a really great word...just not used much in these parts.

Goldiblogger

2012-01-27T19:48:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week, without any fanfare, this not quite 7-month-old blog passed its 5,000th visit. (Not too bad for a small town priest sharing a few scattered ideas, if I do say so myself.) To mark the milestone, I put on a lovely new T-shirt I got for Christmas...

...only to discover it contained a secret message, revealed when I saw it reflected in the mirror:

I think this blogging business suits me just right!

Thanks for visiting...and come back soon!

Outdoors, In God

2012-01-24T09:57:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty sure I was 18 when I first read Walden and entered into my most fervent "outdoorsy" phase...so I was both chuckling and deeply touched when I read this during my morning meditation:

Only the person who contemplates the beauty of nature in God and is accustomed to regard it as his voice, his sphere, the mirror of his countenance, can, even in his mature years, experience nature as naïvely and ecstatically as in his eighteenth year, without a drop of melancholy.
--Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar

I think I hear the woods calling...

I heard it on NPR

2012-01-24T09:35:00.000-05:00

This seems particularly appropriate on today's feast of the patron saint of journalists...but let me just warn you: if you're not a total NPR junkie (like me), then don't even bother, because you probably won't find it the least bit funny. I--on the other hand--think this is absolutely hysterical! (Please don't be alarmed by the title.)

St. Francis de Sales

2012-01-24T09:22:00.001-05:00

Ever both practical and wise,
the gentle bishop St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
once advised:
"Each Christian needs
half an hour of prayer each day,
except when we are busy;
then we need an hour."

The Power of Words

2012-01-24T09:12:00.000-05:00

This may be an advertisement...but it still shares an important truth.

Choose your words wisely.

A Widow's Weeds

2012-01-22T17:38:00.000-05:00

How cold was it?

2012-01-22T17:23:00.000-05:00

It was so cold in Chasm Falls this morning (still -1º F when I got there a little after 8:00am), that when I picked up the Book of the Gospels from the altar, it felt noticeably frosty in my hands...and when I'd finished reading the Gospel, I was worried my lips might stick as I kissed the page.

Stay warm!

Ordinary?

2012-01-22T14:02:00.002-05:00

What we consider to be "ordinary" has a tendency to change with the times, doesn't it?

Once upon a time, the ordinary way to get around was on foot, maybe on horseback. Nowadays, we think nothing of getting in the car to go to the other end of the block. Once upon a time, the ordinary way to make a call was to use the telephone down at the corner store--the one the whole neighborhood used. Now most of us carry a cellphone in our pocket. (Sometimes, one in each pocket!)

39 years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision which legalized abortion in this country. Since then, it's become a fairly commonplace procedure--one which has resulted in more than 50 million innocent human lives ended before even having a chance to be born. But let us never, ever come to think of this as something "ordinary." Let us recommit ourselves to working and praying together for an end to abortion and all its tragic causes.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

Pondering the greatness of God, a man once asked,

“What is a thousand years like for you, God?”

“Oh,” said God, “for me a thousand years is like…one second.”

“Hmm,” thought the man.

“So, God, what’s a million dollars like for you?”

“Well,” said God, “for me a million dollars is like…a penny.”

“Hmm,” thought the man

“Then, God, could you spare a penny?”

“Sure,” said God. “In just a second.”

Time.

It’s certainly a central theme of our readings this Sunday:

Forty days, says Jonah, and Nineveh shall be destroyed;

I tell you, writes Paul, the time is running out;

This, announces Jesus, is the time of fulfillment.

It’s long been a human hobby
to mark and record time.

Various cultures have developed calendars

based on the natural cycles
of the sun and the moon.

We measure time with units
from millennia down to milliseconds.

And as careful as we are to keep track of time,

we nonetheless relish
breaking the regular rhythm of things

both with public holidays
and private anniversaries.

It should come as no surprise, then,

that the Church has a calendar of her own.

At its center is Sunday—the Lord’s Day—

a day to be kept holy,
according to the Third Commandment.

Early Christians adopted the Jewish week of seven days,

transferring their Sabbath rest to the week’s first day—

gathering for Eucharist on the day of Christ’s resurrection.

(In case you didn’t know,
in the Jewish tradition

a new day doesn’t begin at midnight,
but at sunset;

that’s why you can go to Sunday Mass

late on Saturday afternoon!)

Not only does every week
begin with a special observance,

but two principal annual feasts
arose rather quickly:

first Easter and then Christmas,

each one growing to include

a season of preparation beforehand

and a season of ongoing celebration to follow.

That covers 18-19 weeks.

But what distinguishes the rest of the year?

Once upon a time, the period we’re in right now

was known as the Sundays after Epiphany.

Before Lent begins, we keep basking in the light of Christmas

as its great mystery continues to unfold:

the Word became flesh and dwells among us still,

even as we await his return in glory.

And also once upon a time, the summer and autumn months

were known as the Sundays after Pentecost.

Until the start of Advent, we keep attending to the work of the Spirit

and looking forward to our own resurrection—

all the while, the risen Christ remaining with us,

as he promised, to the end of the age.

But since 1970, these in-between times have been renamed:

in Latin, the tempus per annum—literally, “time through the year,”

and in English usually rendered as Ordinary Time.

That word, ordinary, can be a little problematic.

In popular usage, to describe something as ordinary

means that it’s regular or plain, uninteresting—

maybe even tedious and dull.

(Just try telling a lady, “You look very ordinary today,”

and you’ll see what I mean.)

That could give the impression

that these 33-34 weeks—the bulk of the year—

are basically unimportant:

a boring lull between the fasting and feasting of other seasons.

As you might well guess:

nothing could be farther from the truth.

The “ordinary” in Ordinary Time

doesn’t mean “common” time,

but “numbered” or “counted” time;

we might do better to call it Well-Ordered Time.

This may not be a period for focusing in

on a particular episode from the life of Jesus

or a certain aspect of the mystery of our salvation,

but this is time for looking at the big picture

and making sure everything is progressing as it should.

So the Church wears green during this well-ordered time.

The color of orchards and forests, of gardens and grass,

green is the color of growth,

the color of hope—especially for us living here with cold and snow.

Ordinary Time is a time for us to mature—

to come out of the deserts of Advent and Lent,

to come down from the mountains of Christmas and Easter,

and to graze heartily in the level, green pastures of the Lord.

You can lead a horse to water,

but you can’t make it drink.

And God can put us in lush meadows,

but he can’t make us eat.

As a member of the Lord’s flock,

what am I doing to feed my faith

during these weeks of Ordinary Time?

Are my heart and mind already filled up with junk food?

Or are they starving for lack of nourishment?

As with our bodies, so with our souls:

they can’t grow or be strong without a regular, healthy diet—

not to mention the exercise of putting our faith into daily practice.

As he did with the fishermen Simon and Andrew, James and John:

Jesus calls us away from what the world considers “ordinary.”

This is the time of fulfillment, he says.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

We mustn’t wait
for some extraordinary occasion—

to find some “greener pasture.”

Jesus echoes the prophet Jonah:

now is the time to repent,

to change the things in our lives
that most need changing.

And now is the time to believe:

not as some sort of mental exercise
or purely emotional affair

but, as St. Paul encourages,
to make faith spring into action—

yes, in how we think and how we feel,

but even more in our words and our deeds.

If we choose to follow Jesus,

then we no longer belong
to this passing world;

we belong to the eternal Kingdom of God,

and that Kingdom challenges us

to leave the old behind

and live in an entirely new way.

I suspect that we human beings

are so careful about measuring time

because we know it’s a limited resource:

we can never be sure just how much of it we’ve got,

and yet we know that, with every moment, we have less.

With the strength this Eucharist gives,

let’s make sure our time is well-ordered.

With Christ, none of it can ever—really—be ordinary…

…and we haven’t a second to spare.

Model Child

2012-01-19T17:15:00.003-05:00

What a cute kid...and inspiring story...

St. Anthony of Egypt

2012-01-17T18:00:00.003-05:00

The St. Anthony commemorated today isn't the one who helps us find our lost things. That St. Anthony (of Padua) is most generally depicted holding a lily in one hand and the Child Jesus in the other; this St. Anthony...well...depictions of him tend to be a bit more colorful. We generally either see him being "tempted" (attacked?) by a motley crew of rather fantastical demons...

...or with...a pig.

Yup: he's usually got a little piggy peeking out from under his robes or hot on his heels. Whence his constant porcine companion? Well, that's a little complicated...

Around the age of 20, Anthony (251-356) sold his property and gave away his inheritance, opting for the life of a hermit in the desert wilderness. In this solitude he wrestled with the devil (hence the first picture), attracted numerous admirers and disciples (earning him the title "Father of Monks"), and gained a reputation for healing the sick...which leads us to porky.

It seems that Anthony--even from heaven--proved particularly adept at healing those with skin diseases. And, once upon a time, certain skin diseases were treated with--are you ready?--applications of pork fat to reduce itching and inflammation. (Maybe Lady Gag was onto something with that--yuck!--infamous meat dress.)

Anyway...this connection between cures and cured meat began to be depicted in art by means of a little porker snuggled up close to good St. Anthony. Of course, they could have just shown him with a box of this very creative addition to your medicine cabinet...

Who knew? Bacon has its very own patron saint. And being a poor, (likely vegetarian) desert hermit, he probably never even touched the stuff.

Making Tracks

2012-01-17T17:22:00.001-05:00

A belated Christmas visit from my dear friend Michelle got me out XC skiing in the new snow midday yesterday. What a treat!

We checked out the trails at the Malone Fish And Game Club, which were wonderfully groomed and well marked.

It was much warmer than the -12 degrees F of the night before...but the wind was a bit more brisk than I had bargained for, hence my red ears.

As to the red on my chin: that's just my "winter coat." (For those who only generally see me online, I started that little project on Christmas Day.)

Thanks to Michelle for sending me these photos! (I'm still amazed how you can take such good shots without ever loosing your stride.)

Come & See

2012-01-15T16:18:00.001-05:00

Wherever Jesus is staying, I hope it's warm. Brrrrrr...it's sure cold out there!

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings

“What would you like?”

That’s a common enough question, isn’t it?

In fact, I find that I ask it fairly often of Fr. Stitt around the rectory—

usually in the kitchen.

“What would you like?”

His frequent answer: “World peace and Christian unity.”

And I was expecting something simple like,

“A cup of coffee,” or, “A little more meatloaf”!

What would you like?

Lots and lots of people are expressing

their big-picture, long-range desires at this time of year.

Turns out that Fr. Stitt isn’t the only one looking for Christian unity;

next Wednesday is the start

of the 104^th annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Also quite dear to Fr. Stitt’s heart,

that’s hot on the heals of the National Vocations Awareness Week.

Which directly coincided this year with National Migration Week.

Of course, tomorrow we have a holiday

commemorating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

challenging us all to work for an end to racism and bigotry.

Then a week from Monday, on the sad anniversary

of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade,

we’re asked to pray and do penance for an end to abortion.

And in the midst of all these important January observances,

a quick look through my email inbox

reveals messages drawing my attention

to the dangers of “fracking” for natural gas,

to clergy sexual abuse, to bullying, to homelessness,

and to the tragedy human trafficking.

So very many causes worthy of our time and attention!

What would you like?

A dangerous question, indeed!

Beyond wanting just another glass of orange juice,

the list goes on and on and on…

In the gospel,

two disciples who heard John the Baptist

begin to follow Jesus.

So Jesus turns and asks them,

“What are you looking for?”

Or, to put it another way,

What do you want? What would you like?

A deceptively simple question!

And they give a deceptively simple reply:

“Rabbi, where are you staying?”

They wouldn’t be following if they believed Jesus

to just be one more teacher like all the rest…

…so they’re probably not looking

for a private tour of his accommodations.

Show us—they’re asking—the place where you dwell,

show us where you can be found—

where we can get near to you,

where we can remain and abide with you.

“Come,” Jesus responds, “and you will see.”

Which could, I suppose, mean, “Come and check out my really cool pad!”

But it more likely means,

Come to where I dwell—come to dwell with me—

and I’ll open your eyes so that you can truly see—

see me and see everything else in my light.

Especially during the current, seemingly endless presidential campaign,

when the candidates’ religious convictions—along with so much else—

are carefully scrutinized and repeatedly picked apart,

we can begin to think that being a person of faith

is essentially about espousing a long list of important causes.

But notice that the invitation extended by Jesus

is not to come and sign a petition,

not to come and join a movement,

not to come and rally for change.

No, Jesus says, “Come and see.

Come and stay awhile.

Come and get close to me.”

The late Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador—

who was himself, in fact, killed for his efforts

in defense of human rights—

once said in a sermon,

How I would like to engrave this great idea

on each one’s heart:

Christianity is not a collection

of truths to be believed,

of laws to be obeyed,

or prohibitions.

That makes it very distasteful.

Christianity is a person,

one who loved us so much,

one who calls for our love.

Christianity is Christ. (November 6, 1977)

That our Catholic faith is centered on a person—

not an idea, not on a moral code, not even on a sacred book—

makes our approach to everything else so very different.

To be pro-life, or to be concerned about the environment,

or to build bridges between people of different cultures

is virtuous and noble in and of itself.

But it’s not enough for us to be good humanitarians;

our motivation must be truly Christian.

We must look at things through the eyes of faith—

and, seen through the eyes of faith,

the sweatshop worker, the unborn child,

the family without clean water, the immigrant without health care:

these are not problems to be solved, but people to be loved;

they’re not “issues” deserving of our attention,

but Jesus…in disguise. (cf. Catholic Relief Services)

When we’re ready to right a wrong we’ve perceived

and climb atop our soapbox,

it’s wise of us to ask, Is this what God wants?

The answer is something best discovered sooner than later. (cf. P. Cameron)

But we must not forget that, in Christ, God has also asked us,

What do you want? What would you like?

What are you looking for?

Certainly, we keep answering with our personal needs.

And certainly, we keep rattling off that long list of requests

on behalf of the whole human race.

But before we express our desire for world peace and Christian unity,

let’s take a cue from those very first disciples and remember to ask,

Where, Lord, are you staying?

Where can I get near to you?

Where can I find you in the midst of the world?

in the midst of my daily life?

Come—Jesus still says—

come to me in the Sacraments and the Scriptures;

come to me in the life of my Church;

come to me in its outreach to hurting, troubled people;

come and you will find me;

come and you will see.

Memory Lane

2012-01-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

Blogging to you from a snowy Plattsburgh today, were an afternoon walk through the back fields and woods of Dad's farm took me right through some childhood haunts. Just me, the falling snow, and a flock of fat turkeys (who were too shy to appear on camera).

He Doth Protest

2012-01-09T20:38:00.001-05:00

I received this email from a parishioner yesterday:

Hope this finds you well. I wanted to share with you a dinner conversation we had tonight. My parents were over and they told us a cute story about my nephew. He was one of your "protesters" at Christmas Eve Mass. (The tall blonde holding the sign to stop fleecing our shepards). Sorry we missed it, we went to Mass Sunday morning. He was very interested and influenced by what you had to say in your homily. Afterwards, he asked my brother and sister-in-law a lot of questions about protests and why people participate in them. Over his vacation, he decided that he needed to start a protest at his school. Apparently, the lunch room monitor doesn't let the children talk while they are having lunch and he didn't think this was fair. He discussed it with a few of his friends and they agreed. So, he started a petition and got four pages of signatures. (He had wanted to picket outside of school, but his parents advised against it.) He took the petition to his principal and she agreed with him. They are now able to have conversations during lunch. (This is basically how the story goes--hopefully my parents have all the details correct.) Anyway, life's lessons learned by a nine-year-old.

What a hoot! Maybe it's easier to start a revolution than I thought...

Refreshing

2012-01-09T19:44:00.002-05:00

Not quite the same as getting out there yourself, but a mighty fine substitute for those times you need to get out but can't leave your desk.

What a beautiful corner of the world God has given me to live in!

Arachis Classicis

2012-01-09T17:17:00.001-05:00

...at least that's the best I could come up with for "Classic Peanuts" in lingua Latina. (Just don't call my old Latin professor!)

For Latin lovers out there, the comments have been amusing.

Speaking of language issues...I'm realizing "Latin lovers" can mean more than one thing without even being translated...

This Little Light

2012-01-08T18:17:00.002-05:00

And now, back to un-Christmasing the rectory. Sigh...

The Epiphany of the Lord

Readings

Malone Catholic Parishes Priests' Residence
Notre Dame Rectory, Malone

It’s been a Christmas custom for some time—

a tradition, I guess you could call it—

to have candles in the windows

of the priests’ residence in Malone.

That’s a whole lot of windows,

which means a whole lot of candles.

And since we don’t have a butler

to go around and light

all those wicks each evening,

for years that’s also meant

a whole lot of extension cords

and a whole lot of timers.

What looked so lovely to all those passing by

was kind of scary looking

to those of us who called the place home.

The "Over-Achiever"

So this year, I decided to take advantage

of the wonders of modern technology:

battery operated candles with built-in timers.

They’re the best!

They come on for six hours at the same time each night.

So promptly at 4:00 one Friday in mid-December,

we turned them on and set them on the window sills.

Then we got up on Saturday morning,

and out of the sixty candles

scattered all over the three floors of that big, old house,

there was this one…

I’ve named it “The Over-Achiever.”

Further testing proved: it won’t shut off—ever!

Today’s feast of the Lord’s Epiphany is a feast of light.

What we celebrate is the radiance,

not of a candle, not even of a star,

but a light of revelation:

that God’s love for both the poor and the powerful,

for the people of Israel and Gentiles alike,

has been made manifest in Jesus Christ.

We see this in the visit of the magi:

these star-led strangers from the East who,

unlike the (presumably) Jewish shepherds

we encountered back at Christmas,

were not from among God’s chosen people.

But we also see it in Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River,

when the heavens are opened, the Spirit descends,

and the voice of the Father is heard.

We see it at Cana, at a wedding feast,

when—as his first public miracle—Jesus changes water into wine.

We see it, in fact, throughout his ministry.

We see it in Jesus’ Passion and Cross.

We see it—above all—in his Resurrection from the dead.

And we continue to see it in the Scriptures,

in the Sacraments, and in the life of his Church.

Over and over again, God’s love for us is revealed,

his presence is made manifest,

shining out like a beacon in the night.

The three shining co-stars of this morning's Epiphany Pageant
at St. John Bosco Church in Malone

Which makes me think of this candle.

The mystery we celebrate at Christmas—

that God has come in human flesh to dwell right here among us—

is not something limited to a few weeks around the turn of the year.

Like this candle, it’s something we should never shut off.

We are to continually make God’s presence manifest

like that star over Bethlehem:

to keep leading people to Jesus.

And not just the obvious ones, either;

we need to reach out to those from outside the usual circle.

You see, the gift that Jesus most desires

is not a coffer rich with gold,

not a temple filled with clouds of incense,

not a funeral fragrant with myrrh,

but that which these precious offerings represent:

what Jesus wants are hearts that are bowed in homage,

a great number of souls laid prostrate at his feet—

the gift Jesus most wants is you and me.

Like the magi gathered before the child cradled in Mary’s arms,

we who gather at the altar Sunday after Sunday, season after season,

should be overjoyed at seeing his light and finding him.

Just think: how much joy it must bring to Christ

when we lead others to seek and find him here, too!

In the next few days,

I’ll carefully label this candle as “The Over-Achiever,”

and then pack it away with all the others,

their nightly glow shut off till next December.

But let’s be sure not to tuck away the heart of this holy season

right along with our Christmas decorations.

All year long, we are called to give flesh

to the great mystery of God born as man in Bethlehem,

of heaven’s light and love made manifest on the earth.

Crèche at St. Helen's Church in Chasm Falls

As good stewards of God’s grace,

strive to make your whole life

an epiphany of the Lord—

a revelation of his continuing presence among us.

Let your light shine!

Let it always shine!

Let it shine during the winter,

and during the summer, too.

Let it shine in the night,

and all throughout the day.

Let it shine close to Jesus,

giving glory to God,

and so lead others

to seek, find, and adore him.

Twelfth Night

2012-01-07T14:11:00.002-05:00

On the 12th Day of Christmas the parish staff gave to me...a really big pile of dirty dishes!

Some shrapnel (now all cleaned up) from last night's staff Christmas Party. Only four courses...just 23 of us for dinner...and, clearly, a good time was had by all. (Sadly, I didn't take a single shot of the tables before we sat down to eat. They were lovely!) Many, many thanks to my Mom and Mother Stitt for coming to help!

Feeling Elfish

2012-01-01T13:11:00.001-05:00

So...last night--thanks to the generosity of my brother and sister-in-law and the persistence of Fr. Stitt--I finally watched the Christmas movie "classic" Elf. (Now you know how I spent my New Years Eve.) And, yes, I very much enjoyed it!

But I didn't ever suspect it would have this sort of effect on me...leave alone on the Bishop. I didn't know he could move like that! (He, he, he... Thanks, Eileen!)

Again: Happy New Year!

Substantial

2012-01-01T12:53:00.001-05:00

It's much, much funnier coming straight from Mr. Colbert, so be sure to watch the clip.

Happy New Year, everybody!

The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

Readings

In the very first hours of this New Year,

it seems only appropriate to invoke the wisdom

of one of America’s most well-respected thinkers: Stephen Colbert.

For those of you who don’t stay up that late,

Mr. Colbert hosts a satirical news program

on the Comedy Central TV network.

In the midst of his many antics,

he makes no secret of the fact that he’s a practicing Roman Catholic.

In fact, given his Catholic faith,

he claims that viewers look up to him as the “Pope of Basic Cable.”

So it should come as no surprise

that Colbert has had some rather humorous commentary

on the new English translation of the Mass.

On his show just about a month ago,

he had this to say about the changes he’d seen in church on Sunday:

Get a load of these so-called improvements.

The new Nicene Creed,

the seventeen-hundred-year-old profession

of what all Catholics must believe,

has been tweaked.

It no longer describes Jesus

as the—understandable—“one in being with the Father,”

but as, “consubstantial with the Father.”

Really? Consubstantial? What the [heck] does that mean?

We’re trying to get into heaven here, not take the SATs.

And for the record: Consubstantial is now Istanbul.

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Yahweh or No Way - Altered Catholic Mass, Papal Seat Belt & Offensive Vodka Ad

www.colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor & Satire Blog

Video Archive

Consubstantial.

If there’s one word that sticks in the craw of American Catholics—

even those who have otherwise been quite accepting

of the changes in the Mass—

it seems to be that one.

I’ve watched many of you make funny faces

during the Profession of Faith,

and not a few of you have asked me the very same question

raised on The Colbert Report: What the heck does that mean?

While the word “consubstantial” is not found in the Bible,

the belief which underlies it most certainly is.

And while it may seem new to us, it’s anything but:

the word has been used by Christians since the year 325

when the original text of the Nicene Creed was adopted.

The big question at the time was,

Who is Jesus, really? How is he related to the Father?

What does it mean to call Jesus the Son of God?

This may seem like a very theoretical question—

something best left to be hashed out by the experts.

But believers at large began to take sides,

and the debate moved into the streets—

where it went from being just heated to genuinely violent.

With not only of the unity of the Church

but the stability of the empire at stake,

the emperor Constantine stepped in

and called together all the bishops of the realm to settle the matter.

Even after the final decision of the Council of Nicea,

the battles—fought with both words and weapons—

raged on for decades.

You see, some had been teaching that Jesus the Son

was only similar to the Father—

and, therefore, not exactly equal to God.

Just this past Friday, a well-intentioned young man—

taking note of my age, I can only presume—

asked, “So…are you a full-fledged priest?”

As if I could somehow be one by halves!

But neither can Jesus be God by halves.

If Jesus isn’t really and truly and fully divine,

well—there are a number of serious consequences.

Not only would it make this and every Mass

a complete waste of time,

but if Jesus is not God, and only God can save me,
then I am not saved—I remain stuck in my sin:

destined for death, destined for hell.

It’s hard to think of a much bigger deal than that!

So the Fathers of the Church saw the need to be very precise

in speaking about the relationship between the Father and the Son.

Unlike human fathers and sons,

we’re not dealing with two separate beings

who share a common gene pool, or are very much likeminded,
or are even united by strong bonds of love.

The Father and the Son—and the Holy Spirit, too—

share the same substance.

They are more than “similar,” more than “practically alike.”

They have a common essence—

that deepest, truest part of something which makes it what it is.

God the Father is eternal, all-holy, and almighty…and so is the Son.

The Greek word for this idea is homoousios.

(And you thought “consubstantial” was bad!)

The Latin text of the Creed states that Jesus is consubstantiálem Patri.

To profess that Christ is consubstantial with the Father—

that the Son is of the same substance as the Father—

is to say that he, too, is God—

not merely God-like,

and not a second God, but one and the same.

The Father and the Son are not simply “one in being,” but one Being.

As Stephen Colbert went on to point out,

[W]ith these weird new changes [at Mass],

now when I’m sitting in the pew,

I have to stop and actually think about what I’m saying

instead of mindlessly reciting words

while playing [games] on my iPhone.

Belief in one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—

in three persons in one divine Being—

is the central, foundational mystery of the Christian faith.

Continuing in this holy season of Christmas,

today we celebrate the motherhood of Mary.

Saint Paul reminds us that

when the fullness of time had come,

God sent his Son, born of a woman,…

so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And thus we realize that one newly translated word in the Creed

does not only make us more attentive at Mass,

nor just encourage us to get better educated about our Catholic faith.

What we say about Jesus affects what we believe about Jesus,

and what we believe about Jesus

affects what we believe about ourselves.

Note that we do not simply refer to Mary

as the “mother of Jesus”—the mother of a man.

According to ancient tradition,

we call her—and rightly so—the Mother of God.

Likewise, affirming that the child

who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary

is indeed true God from true God

means that we, too, can rightly call God, “Abba, Father!”

What Jesus is by nature, we have become by adoption:

children of God and heirs of his kingdom.

From all eternity, the Only Begotten Son

has been consubstantial with God the Father;

but from the moment he was conceived in Mary’s womb,

that divine Son has also been consubstantial with us.

So…is “consubstantial” a technical term? You betcha.

A tongue twister? Without a doubt.

Tricky both to spell and to understand? Absolutely.

Consubstantial is clearly an unusual word—

one we don’t use for anything else.

But as it attempts to describe Someone

who is not like anyone or anything else,

it provides us with a small (if imperfect) window

into the very nature of God

and the promise of salvation held out to us

in that infant found lying in a manger

who is Son of God and Son of Mary.

Perspective

2011-12-25T12:39:00.002-05:00

Sorry it's been a little quiet around here lately...

Occupied

2011-12-25T12:36:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it? Some protesters showed up at Christmas Mass this year...

The Nativity of the Lord - Christmas

Readings

You’d practically have to have been living under a rock

to miss the near constant news during the last three months or so

of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Inspired by popular uprisings in the Middle East,

what began in lower Manhattan with a young people’s protest

of social and economic inequality,

of high unemployment rates and corporate greed,

has spread to major cities and small towns alike

across the U.S. and around the globe.

Tonight / Today, I’d like to take the movement

to one more location: to the city of David.

That’s right—we’re going to Occupy Bethlehem.

I’ve asked a few young people to help me out…

Have you ever been part of a protest before?

There’s a first time for everything…

From what I can tell,

there are two essential elements to any good Occupy demonstration:

signs and tents.

So we have signs…

Stop Fleecing Our Shepherds	Who You Calling Your Beast of Burden?
This Will Be No “Silent Night”	No Child Should Have To Sleep In A Manger!

And we have a tent…

Let’s make this a sit in…and you have a seat.

The signs seen on Wall Street have one basic theme:

things aren’t right; the world isn’t as it should be.

The precise problem can be a little tricky to put your finger on.

We’ve been told that God set this up as a paradise for us…

…but how come it doesn’t quite seem that way?

If we can recognize the need for some changes around here,

then just imagine the view from heaven!

On the outskirts of Bethlehem,

the angel announces to the shepherds:

And this will be a sign for you:

you will find an infant…lying in a manger.

In response to this world’s many troubles,

a savior is born for us who is Christ and Lord.

Yes, he will ask us to take responsibility

for the part we ourselves have played in making a mess of things.

But he has come not just to file a complaint

about all that’s gone wrong;

no, he’s come to help us see what’s right—

what’s true and what’s good and what’s beautiful.

He has come not just to raise difficult questions or take us to task,

but to teach a new and different way of living.

He has come not just to bring

people of good will together for a common cause,

but to unite earth to heaven—

and by a new bond of love so tight

that it can never be broken.

(Talk about possibilities for upward mobility!)

And that’s because his ultimate purpose

is not economic reform or political transformation,

but to liberate us—once and for all—

from the death-dealing power of sin.

As our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI,

said so well a few Christmases ago:

God’s sign is simplicity.

God’s sign is the baby.

God’s sign is that he makes himself small for us.

This is how he reigns.

He does not come with power and outward splendor.

He comes as a baby—defenseless and in need of our help.

He does not want to overwhelm us with his strength.

He takes away our fear of his greatness.

He asks for our love: so he makes himself a child.

…God made himself small

so that we could understand him, welcome him,

and love him. (Homily at Midnight Mass, 2006)

So God’s sign in occupying Bethlehem is a little baby.

What about God’s tent?

In sending us his Only Begotten Son—

who is “God from God and Light from Light,”

“born of the Father before all ages”—

God gives us his Word.

Now, to say that God “gives his Word,”

is not to say that he seals a spoken deal with a handshake

or signs on the dotted line—

as we might expect in business or politics…

…arrangements all-too-easily broken,

as the Occupiers are quick to point out.

Rather, God’s Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us

or, as the original Greek text literally says,

the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.

In the mystery of the Incarnation,

God comes to us in person—in human flesh and blood—

to establish a new and eternal covenant,

fulfilling his promise to renew this weary world,

to deliver a people who have walked too long in the darkness.

And God continues to give us his Word

in the words of the Scriptures, in the life of the Church,

above all in the mystery of the Eucharist.

Christmas, my friends, is not just a look back,

as if God paid us a brief, passing visit long, long ago.

No—the heart of Christmas is something that remains present.

You see, the Lord is the most resolute Occupier of all;

our God has come to stay.

And if God has “pitched his tent” right here among us,

then shouldn’t we make every effort to stay right here with him?

After all, what God most desires to occupy is not a manger,

but our deepest thoughts, our daily words and deeds—

to dwell always in our hearts.

So…Occupy Bethlehem?

In that tiny child born to Mary and guarded by Joseph,

the baby boy announced by angels and adored by shepherds,

the God who made heaven and earth,

who will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

came not to occupy only one tiny village in Judea,

nor to save a single nation.

His appearing is meant not for a few, but for many—

for 100%.

That, my friends, is good news of great joy…for all the people.

Like the shepherds,

let us praise and glorify God by our lives

that we might be signs for others

that the King of Heaven has come to occupy the earth,

that the true Light has shone in the land of gloom,

that God has pitched his tent among us—and dwells with us still.

Who's on first?

2011-12-20T12:34:00.001-05:00

I can see where this is going...and I like it.

Updated...

I Confess

2011-12-18T14:04:00.001-05:00

Hail, full of grace!

2011-12-18T12:01:00.001-05:00

Our deacon is preaching this Sunday, giving me a little late-Advent break...

Fourth Sunday of Advent B

Readings

"Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,

and you shall name him Jesus." Luke 1:31

Christmas Cookies...Revised (3rd Edition)

2011-12-17T12:00:00.001-05:00

Fr. Stitt just forwarded this sweet little gem to me. You can find the original here and some great commentary here. He, he, he...

Christmas Cookie Recipe
(New, Corrected Translation)

Serves: you and many.

Cream these ingredients, that by their comingling you may begin to make the dough:
1 chalice butter, 2/3 chalice sugar

In a similar way, when the butter is consubstantial with the sugar, beat in:
1 egg

Gather these dry ingredients to yourself and combine them, so that you may add them to the dough which you have already begun to make:
2 1/2 chalices sifted all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the precious dough with your venerable hands.

Into the refrigerator graciously place the dough so that it may be chilled, for the duration of 3 or 4 hours, before the rolling and cutting of the cookies.

When, in the fullness of time, you are ready to bake these spotless cookies, these delicious cookies, these Christmas cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out the dough and, taking up a cookie cutter or stencil of your choosing, fashion the cookies into pleasing forms.

Sprinkle colorful adornments over cookies like the dewfall.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the cookies have just begun to manifest the brownness that is vouchsafed to them by the oven’s heat.

May these cookies be found acceptable in your sight, and be borne to a place of refreshment at your table, there to be served with milk or hot chocolate, or with your spirits.

Merry Christmas!

Let there be light

2011-12-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

Last night saw the high solemn lighting of the lamps here in the rectory: 60 battery-operated, self-timed, flickering candles for the windows (replacing an equal number of antique electric ones with equally aged timers that had me living in fear of house fire last Christmas). Before and after:

I'm not sure which to sing: Twinkle, Twinkle or This Little Light of Mine...

Gifted

2011-12-14T09:21:00.000-05:00

My front porch right now. No...not gifts for the clergy, but just one of several HUGE piles of presents for needy neighbors brought in by parishioners. Human kindness is overflowing...

txt 4 xmas

2011-12-13T15:59:00.001-05:00

Funny as a joke...sad because it's just a little too true. (And, no, I don't know these people!)

Change for a Dollar

2011-12-12T17:11:00.000-05:00

Well worth 10 minutes. If only we all made such good use of whatever we've been given...

The Nation Rejoices

2011-12-11T21:15:00.002-05:00

...the Colbert Nation, that is. An extra note of joy for your Gaudete Sunday.

Folks: please don't try this at ~~home~~ church.

Joy? Make mine a double.

2011-12-11T12:19:00.001-05:00

Last evening, Brianna (one of our altar servers) said, "True men wear pink."

I've never felt so manly.

Third Sunday of Advent B

Readings

I’ve had a hard time getting in “the mood” for Christmas this year.
Now, I’m not exactly ready to declare, “Bah, humbug!”
but when I look at the next two weeks
and think about signing cards, decking the halls,
and shopping for—leave alone wrapping—presents…
…well, I tend to feel not so much merry as stressed.

I suspect I’m not alone.

This Third Sunday of Advent comes right on time.

Rejoice!

That’s the clear message today—

from the Scripture readings we hear

to this rose-colored vestment I’m wearing

(which—I could see—instantly brought smiles to most of your faces).

There’s a smile-inducing movie in theatres right now

that I very much look forward to seeing: The Muppets.

(I grew up on their show,

and it’ll be a nice trip down memory lane.)

From a review I just read, it seems that the film

finds none other than Kermit the Frog also in a funk.

Attempting to pull him out of it, Walter, a longtime fan,

tells him, “You give people the greatest gift of all.”

“Children?” Kermit replies.

“No.”

“Ice cream?”

“No. Laughter,” Walter reveals.

“Laughter is the third greatest gift of all.”

While he might quibble with that ranking just a bit,

there’s another world-famous figure

who made a similar point a few years back: Pope Benedict XVI.

In the course of a rare 2006 TV interview,

the seemingly serious and scholarly Pontiff said:

I’m not a man who constantly thinks up jokes.

But I think it’s very important

to be able to see the funny side of life and its joyful dimension

and not to take everything too tragically.

I’d also say it’s necessary for my ministry.

A writer once said that angels can fly

because they don't take themselves too seriously.*

Maybe we could also fly a bit

if we didn’t think we were so important. (August 5, 2006)

There are plenty of misconceptions about joy.

One of the most common among us Christians

is that our faith shouldn’t leave much room for it.

The work of paving a straight way for the Lord

that he might save our souls from hell

is, in fact, about as serious as it gets.

But spend too much time choosing to be miserable here on earth

and…well…I think you’ll find yourself a bit uncomfortable

adjusting to heavenly bliss.

As the great Saint Teresa of Avila once prayed,

“From sour-faced saints, O Lord, deliver us!”

Another mistaken notion about joy

is that it can’t coexist with struggle.

“Only after I work through all my problems,

only after I’m free from all trials and tribulations,

can I expect to find any gladness in life.”

So the thinking goes…

But notice how Saint Paul writes to the Thessalonians:

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing.

In all circumstances give thanks.

Some of the most joyful and prayerful and thankful folks I’ve ever met

were living in deep poverty or confined to their sickbeds.

As the Pope reminds us,

living with joy comes from keeping things in perspective.

I know that my not yet being “in the spirit”

isn’t because I’m lacking for cookies or carols,

and can’t be fixed by a favorite TV special

or an extra cup of eggnog.

What I need is not to revive a holiday tradition,

but to refocus my attention

on why I’m doing any of this in the first place.

At this halfway point of Advent,

the Church encourages her children to rejoice,

not because Christmas is getting close,

but because Christ has come close:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.

Indeed, the Lord is near. (Entrance Antiphon/Phil 4:4-5)

Christ is close—not above or beyond the fray,

but right here in the middle of all our turmoil,

that his joy might be in us

and our joy might be complete. (cf. Jn 15:11)

Experience has taught me that my doldrums will pass.

They’re a sign that I’m taking myself—

and my Christmas preparations—too seriously

and that—like those who questioned John the Baptist—

there is One among us whom I do not always recognize.

The trick, of course, is to let go of passing things

so that I might then cling more closely to Jesus.

In God—and God alone—is the true joy of my soul.

That’s a happy lesson,

not just for this special season,

but for every circumstance of life.

* "The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly."

G. K. Chesterton

Interplanetary

2011-12-07T21:55:00.001-05:00

Last evening, another priest and I headed up to Montréal to enjoy a performance by the Montréal Symphony Orchestra. A last minute, generous offer of two tickets from a parishioner had us enjoying a performance of Gustav Holst's, The Planets. (I'm a rather big fan of both Mars and Jupiter. But do note that these YouTube recordings are nowhere near as good as what we got to hear yesterday.)

We both knew that if we had tried to plan this ahead, it probably would never have worked out...but on 24-hours notice, everything just seemed to fall into place. The orchestra recently completed construction on a new hall, which is both visually and acoustically stunning. A perfectly delightful evening...except for a slight unplanned detour on our way out of the city. (We always seem to get just a little lost on our way home!) Now, it's back to earth...

Patched

2011-12-05T22:12:00.000-05:00

Buried somewhere in the small print of my assignment as pastor here in Malone is that it included becoming a Boy Scout. I never was involved with scouting while growing up (farm chores didn't leave much time for that sort of thing), but I now find myself as the Executive Officer of Boy Scout Troop 61, sponsored by the Malone Catholic Parishes. Last Monday I went to the Cub Scouts Pack meeting, and last night it was a Court of Honor for the Boy Scouts. To help this officer look more official, a while back they gave me my own shirt. The trick was, I had to sew my own patches. I didn't get them all on before yesterday's ceremonies (it took more than a few tries to get some of those patches on straight), but I wore the shirt anyway...and then stayed up late to finally the finish the job. Trouble is, when some of the other adults who work with the troop saw me in my new scout duds, the said they'd be getting me some more patches to fill in the blanks...

Wink

2011-12-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

I'm just a sucker for "Happiness is..."

Diet

2011-12-04T14:25:00.001-05:00

I don't care who says they taste like chicken...

Second Sunday of Advent B

Readings

It seems that every so often a new fad diet goes around.

In recent years, lots of folks have been trying

the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet—

everybody going low-carb or even no-carb.

Stretch back a bit and some might remember the Grapefruit Diet.

One that never caught on too widely

was the Cabbage Soup Diet.

You can surely understand why…

Here’s another diet that’s a hard sell:

He fed on locusts and wild honey.

That’s the John the Baptist Diet, of course.

But he wasn’t marketing a weight loss plan,

so why the odd menu?

Let’s start with those locusts.

Where else do these insects—

and their other grass-hopping cousins—

show up in the Bible?

Well, we find them in the Book of Leviticus

on a list of kosher foods. (11:21-22)

Yup—seems that John the Baptist

wasn’t the only one eating bugs!

But we most famously find locusts in Exodus:

the eighth of the ten plagues God’s visited

upon Pharaoh and the land of Egypt. (10:1ff)

The locusts descended so thick that they covered the ground,

eating up whatever crops were left

after the seventh plague of hail. (cf. Psalm 105:34-35)

In the Scriptures,

locusts are an instrument of the Lord’s judgment;

they’re a not-so-subtle reminder of the need to change your ways.

How about honey?

It seems that every time

God speaks to his people about the Promised Land,

he describes it as “flowing with milk and honey.” (cf. Ex 3:8, Deut 6:3)

Honey is gathered when a people

are settled, secure, and prosperous.

Thus honey is a symbol of peace and plenty:

the comfort and consolation which God promises

to those who walk in his ways. (cf. Magnificat, 12/2011)

John’s unusual diet plan, then,

is one meant more for our souls then for our stomachs.

We have a hankering for spiritual honey.

When things turn sour,

we turn to God asking for something sweet.

Lord, let us see you kindness,

pretty well sums up the majority of our prayers.

Comfort, the Lord says to Isaiah,

give comfort to my people;

speak to them tenderly.

Doesn’t that sound good?

We’re rather taken with this idea

that God is there to reassure and soothe us—and he is.

But left on its own, this can lead to the lopsided notion

of spirituality as a sort of relaxing spa treatment

or a comforting diet which lets us continue

to eat anything and everything we want—

no calories, no consequences.

Yet notice how Isaiah lays out the path

which leads to this land of milk and honey:

Make straight a highway in the desert;

fill in all the valleys;

level the mountains and bring low hills.

This is not a gentle, soothing pastime;

it’s a job, rather,

which calls for a bulldozer. (cf. A. Giambrone)

Instead of comfort food and a massage,

this is a spirituality

of heavy-duty construction.

Thus the Messiah’s final messenger arrives on the scene

wearing camel’s hair and dining on grasshoppers to teach us:

if we want to taste the honey’s sweetness,

then we must first face the locusts;

if we want to truly enjoy the good things God promises,

then we must first submit ourselves—

submit our way of thinking and our way of life—

to God’s judgment.

We can’t reasonably expect the Lord and his glory to get though

if we’ve put up roadblocks and left obstacles in his way.

Not a fad in the least,

Christ has given us a tried and true menu on which to feed our souls:

the menu of the Mass, of his Body and Blood.

John the Baptist’s unusual diet of locusts and honey is an apt reminder

that we need to be properly prepared

to even approach the Lord’s table,

leave alone profit to the full from the nourishment it provides.

Once upon a time—not really all that long ago—

every single Catholic who intended to go to Holy Communion

would first go to confession.

That—admittedly—may have been a bit excessive.

But nowadays, the vast majority of Catholics

come to Communion Sunday after Sunday,

but never, ever confess their sins.

Now, I’d like to think that’s because

people just sin a lot less in the twenty-first century.

Yet what we’ve lost is not our sinfulness,

but our willingness to face and acknowledge it.

And if we’ve lost our sense of sin,

then the coming of One to save us from our sins

becomes really rather meaningless. (cf. M. Casey)

Unrepented, serious sin is a road-blocking obstacle

to the spiritual nutrition God has prepared for us in the Eucharist.

When was last time I openly, honestly examined my conscience?

How long has it been since I received the Sacrament of Penance?

And just what am I waiting for?

John’s urgent message of repentance

is echoed by Saint Peter.

God is immensely patient with us, he writes.

And God has promised a new heavens and a new earth.

But since this world will pass away with a mighty roar

and be dissolved in flames,

what sort of persons ought we to be while we’re waiting?

We are to be holy people, devout people—Peter tells us—

people eager to be found without spot or blemish,

people at peace.

We are to be a people who find the courage

to straighten out what is crooked,

to level our excuses and flatten our pride,

to fill in our valleys of idleness and unbelief. (cf. A. Löhr)

We are to be a people who prepare

an unobstructed way for the Lord into our hearts.

Locusts and wild honey.

Judgment that opens us to joy.

Conversion that paves the way for comfort.

That’s a well-balanced diet for Advent, and always.

Marching In

2011-12-02T20:40:00.001-05:00

Given my early life experience on the farm, I know just what they're thinking: Will there be refreshments after this? (Expect, maybe, the bull...who's hoping none of his ladies decide to run off with the band.)

Blessed Charles de Foucauld

2011-12-01T08:00:00.003-05:00

"As soon as I believed there was a God, I understood that I could not do anything other than live for him." So wrote Charles de Foucauld. Born a French aristocrat, he passed early adulthood as a fun-loving playboy and military officer. But by way of a brief stint as a Trappist monk and then as a carpenter in Nazareth, he ended up a priest leading a solitary life among the Tuareg people in the Sahara desert of Algeria. It was there that he was shot by Bedouin marauders on this date in 1916. Despite his "hidden" life (not unlike the early years of another carpenter from Nazareth), his profound writings and humble example have had a wide influence. His "prayer of abandonment" (composed in Nazareth in 1897) captures well the heart of his spirituality:

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only you will be done in me,
and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Shaken & Stirred

2011-11-27T17:02:00.004-05:00

Well, today we "launched the Missal"*--the full implementation of the long-anticipated 3rd edition of the Roman Missal, that is. It wasn't too explosive, only a few misfires, and very few casualties. It did shake things up a bit...which is only appropriate.

*True confession: I borrowed this clever turn of phrase from a deacon in the neighborhood.

First Sunday of Advent B

Readings

The Nazis were already on their steady rise to power
when Fr. Alfred Delp entered a Jesuit seminary in 1926.

He could see where the Third Reich was heading—

and he was troubled that many of his fellow Germans did not.

Because he dared to speak out, Fr. Delp was arrested

and eventually hanged on February 2, 1945.

On scraps of paper smuggled out from a Nazi prison,

he wrote this reflection on his final Advent:

There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more

than to be genuinely shaken up.…

Many of the things that are happening today

would never have happened

if we had been living in that movement and disquiet of heart

which results when we are faced with God, the Lord,

and when we look clearly at things as they really are.…

Here is the message of Advent:

faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake.…

It is time to awaken from sleep.

It is time for a waking up to begin somewhere.…

[T]he great question to us

is whether we are still capable of being truly shocked

or whether it is to remain so that we see thousands of things

and know that they should not be and must not be,

and that we get hardened to them.

How many things have we become used to

in the course of the years, of the weeks and months,

so that we stand unshocked, unstirred, inwardly unmoved.

Advent is a time of being deeply shaken,

so that man will wake up to himself.

Are you a deep sleeper? Or maybe you live with one?

I certainly was Thursday night with a tummy full of turkey!

When it’s time to wake up,

the gentle approach just won’t do;

more drastic measures are called for.

And so it is with the slumber that overcomes the human soul.

When our hearts sleep, they tend to sleep deeply.

Blanketed by false securities,

they settle in for the spiritual equivalent of a long winter’s nap.

Advent comes along each year sounding like an alarm.

Or—at least—it should.

We’ve rather tamed Advent over the years.

A mere shadow of its former self,

Advent is now more like a clock radio set to easy listening,

playing ever so quietly to gently rouse us

for a sentimental celebration of Christmas four weeks hence.

But the Advent we really need

is more like a trumpet blaring in your ear,

or a firm hand gripping and rattling your shoulder,

or a big splash of cold water in your face—

a wake up call which simply cannot be ignored.

Not only is the feast of Christmas coming,

but we profess to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ

will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Faced with Christ’s return,

and with a world that’s clearly not as it should be,

we do well to pray with Isaiah,

not for comfort and joy, but for a cosmic disturbance:

Oh, that you would tear open the heavens, Lord,

and come down with the mountains quaking before you!

But, why all the quaking and shaking?

To what do we so urgently need to wake up?

First, we must wake up to the darkness—

the darkness that so often surrounds us,

the darkness that’s so often found within us.

Am I really satisfied with the state of this world

and the state of my own soul?

Advent’s promise of a Savior doesn’t mean much at all

if I don’t recognize that I’m powerless

and need saving in the first place:

helpless before my own sinfulness,

helpless before my own death,

helpless to give my life ultimate meaning and purpose.

Advent is wrapped not in shiny paper and bows,

but in the somber purple shades of penance and conversion.

What’s at stake in Advent is not being prepared for a beloved holiday;

what’s at stake is being prepared for eternity,

being receptive to salvation and its demands—

like clay in the hands of the potter.

But we don’t wake up to then just sit around in the dark.

Despite the need to face the darkness—

actually, because of it—Advent is joyful for,

as we’ll see in the increasing glow of this wreath of candles,

its promise is the coming of the Light.

We are weak, we are limited…

…but the Most High God

has assumed the lowliness of our human flesh.

In Jesus Christ, the Lord has come,

the Lord has overcome, and the Lord is coming again.

It is for this return, for this bright new dawn,

that we are to remain ever awake, watchful, and alert.

Would that you might find us doing right, Isaiah continues,

that we were mindful of you in our ways.

Am I well prepared to meet God face-to-face?

And not in some distant future—

after all, we know not the time—but even now?

That, of course, is the truth before which we ought to tremble.

Suspecting his death to be imminent, Fr. Delp wrote:

I see Advent this year

with greater intensity and anticipation than ever before.

Walking up and down in my cell,

three paces this way and three paces that way,

with my hands in irons and ahead of me an uncertain fate,

I have a new and different understanding

of God’s promise of redemption and release.

May we allow the Lord to do likewise

and truly shake us up this Advent.

Nuts & Berries

2011-11-26T20:37:00.002-05:00

Just a couple of scenes from the recent Thanksgiving festivities at my sister Jen's new home.

We begin with a bit of the Thanksgiving spread...

That's cranberries, four ways: (clockwise, from the right) homemade whole cranberry sauce, cranberry-maple chutney, cranberry tapenade, and--well--you know... Yes, I'm responsible for three of these. Can't a guy like cranberries?

And then my other sister, Cori, snapped this classic shot of her crazy brothers...

Good times, good times...

Shimmer

2011-11-23T21:07:00.000-05:00

I heard this song tonight on NPR's World Cafe. It's not exactly new...but it's new to me, and I rather like it. Hope you do, too!

Gooble, Gooble

2011-11-23T16:00:00.002-05:00

Whether you're eating some turkey or just happen to be acting like one, I pray that you and yours have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

That's me and the First Grade down at Holy Family School the other day. Near Thanksgiving last year, I was invited to read the Kindergarden a book about the first Thanksgiving. Needless to say, I arrived with the appropriate headgear. Which meant that for the rest of the year, those kids called me "Fr. Turkey Head." When they did so at their Kindergarden graduation last June, some of their parents and grandparents nearly popped a gasket at their apparent disrespect for the clergy...until they saw the slideshow of the year and discovered what all the fuss was really about.

Somehow, the name still seems to stick...

Defeat

2011-11-20T21:16:00.001-05:00

At least, that's what it felt like this afternoon to take the rack off the top of the car, the gear out of the trunk, and to get everything stowed away in the garage for a long winter's nap.

But with a low of 18º F forecast for here tonight...it seemed like it was about time. Sigh.