11th Sun ord 08

11th Sunday Ordinary A –7:30 AM Mt 9:36-10:8 2008

The predominant symbol in our gospel today is that of calling. Jesus calling his Apostles.
In the context of our faith, our calls come from the Trinity dwelling within us.
The Father, dwelling within you, calls you to become all he wants you to be. The Son, dwelling within you, calls you to follow him. The Spirit, dwelling within you, calls you to a deeper, more dynamic faith.
Watch how these calls coincide.
You begin with Jesus, God incarnate. In following him you will become all the Father wants you to be which means that your life of faith will be more dynamic and will predominate your relationships with God, others, your world and yourself.
But becoming all God wants you to be through prayer and the action of following Jesus is not just for yourself any more than fire burns without giving off heat.
Jesus not only calls your as he did his first disciples but he sends you forth as he did his first disciples. He sends you into the fuzzy perplexities of your own emotional life. He sends you into the turmoil and the serenity of your intimate relationships, into the festering problems of society’s injustices, into the hazards of a culture that is godless despite its hypocritical claim, In God We Trust.
The death of C. S. Lewis on November 22, 1963, has long been over-shadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the same day. While the anniversary of Lewis’ death rarely makes the headlines, the worldwide impact of this British scholar, teacher, and author continues to grow 40 years after his passing.
His books sell more than 3 million copies a year and the most famous, Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles Of Narnia, have been reprinted scores of times.
Converted to Christ as an adult, Lewis put his keen mind and imagination to work in the service of God. As a well-known writer and speaker, he continued a simple lifestyle. Michael Nelson has written in the International Herald Tribune: “Two-thirds of his book royalties were earmarked for charities. He never traveled abroad, even when fame brought invitations to lecture from around the world.”
Lewis gave us the incomparable gift of a fresh, creative look at our fallen human condition and the timeless power of the gospel of Christ. He lived out the command to serve the body of believers through whatever gift God has given us by His grace (Romans 12:4-6). His example can spur us on to use our God-given gifts for His glory.

Using your God-given gifts is what Jesus expects of you when he sends you into the lives of others: a sensitive and compassionate service as opposed to a service given out of stern duty and unfeeling obligation.
John Shea in his book, The Spirit Master, says, “Compassion is the experience of feeling the other’s life as your own.” Notice the emphasis on feeling.
Adolfo Quezada in his book, Walking With God, reminds us that ”We need courage to express our emotions including affection, compassion and intimacy.”
As you respond to Jesus’ call and his sending you forth into the lives of others with their ravishing pain, their buoyant joys, especially those in your own families, ask him to help you to do so with genuine feelings of sensitivity and compassion that will leap into the hearts of those you have taken time to love.
HUMOR Usually when we think of calling, we are thinking of phone calls.
There was a series about phone calls to travel agencies.
One went like this: A nice lady just called. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am.I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!
THOUGHT Always love with sensitivity.

10th Sun ord 08

10th Sunday Ord A 12:15 Mt 9: 9-13 6/8/08
Mathew, the tax collector, like many other tax collectors, had the sticky fingers of a thief. He would charge more taxes than stern justice demanded and then sweep the extra coins into the folds of his garment.
Besides this, Matthew was branded by the hot irons of Jewish patriotism as a self-serving traitor. He collaborated and worked for the hated Roman occupation forces. And while the peasants were forced to pay taxes from the backbreaking sweat of eking out a living, Mathew sat comfortably in his luxurious home, throwing sumptuous banquets for fellow scheming tax collectors and public sinners, for example, prostitutes who were also condemned by patriotic Jews as traitors because they serviced Roman soldiers
But on this occasion, a man sat at Mathew’s table who was neither a tax collector or traitor. A man who was condemned by Jewish religious leaders as a heretic: Jesus of Nazareth.
And so the religious leaders pushed the whining question with the force of unbridled self-righteousness, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
The religious leaders had deflected Jesus’ merciful proclamation, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
Jesus’ words are translated as gloriously as a decorative, medieval bible in the story of Thomas Becket.
The poet, TS Eliot, dramatized Becket’s life and death in his play, Murder in the Cathedral. You may have seen the movie, Becket. If you haven’t seen this movie, it would be worth your while to rent and watch it.
Young Becket and young Kind Henry II were almost as close as Siamese twins, interlocked in their debauchery, twined in their disdain of the Church’s moral teachings.
Then, through Henry’s influence, Becket was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury. He experienced a radical conversion. After that he began to confront Henry about Henry’s unjust treatment of the Church.
The strain between the two men broke into a split as impassible as trying to bridge the chasm between two huge mountains hundreds of miles apart.
Henry was buried in cascading desperation. His self-righteous words as violent as a terrorist plot rang out like the bell in the Canterbury cathedral: “Will not someone rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Four of Henry’s knights took his words literally. The descended on the cathedral one December evening, murderous intent flaming from their eyes, their swords raised in barbaric butchery, their loyalty to their king now a wild banner of assassination, fluttering in the winds of hatred.
Three priests pulled Becket back into the cathedral and barred the doors.
TS Eliot put these words on Becket’s lips: “Unbar the doors. Throw open the doors! I will not have the house of prayer, the church of Christ, the sanctuary turned into a fortress.”
The four knights murdered Becket in his cathedral in a bloodthirsty, self-righteous act of sacrilege.
Sometimes, like the religious leaders in Jesus’ time who thrust the bitter question about Jesus eating with sinners, you may be tempted to shut yourself up in your own cathedral, be it your home, your community, your school, your church, to keep out those you want nothing to do with.
But like Thomas Becket, Jesus demands that you, if you are to be his disciple, unbar the doors – the doors of your forgiveness to the sinners around you. In finding the strength and love to forgive those who have marred your life, you will find forgiveness for your sins.
Eugene Kennedy in his book Believing says that “an immature faith causes unexplained hostility and defensive cynicism causing withdrawal.” I would add a withdrawal like that of slamming the doors of your cathedral against others.
In other words, you need to be sensitive enough to allow people to get through to you and secure enough not to let them disturb your peace of mind.
Humorous story about sensitivity: Six-year-old Joey’s precious cat, Fluffy, died and was buried in a beautiful spot in the backyard.
That night Joey asked, “Dad, where is Fluffy?”
Dad, a man of compassion and sensitive to his son’s loss, replied, “Son, Fluffy is with God in heaven.”
Joey pondered this for a while and then, puzzled, asked, “Dad, what does God want with a dead cat?”


The thought I leave with you today is this: Always be sensitive to others’ needs.

9th Sunday Ordinary 08

9th Sunday Ordinary Mt 7: 21-27 12:15 6/1/08
It has been said that even the devil can quote scripture. In a Peanuts comic strip, Linus is watching his favorite TV show. Lucy comes into the room and switches the TV to another station.
“Hey,” Linus shouts, “I was here first so I get to watch my show.” Lucy screams back at him,
“Matthew chapter nineteen says, ‘the first shall be last.’” Linus whines, “I’ll bet Matthew didn’t have an older sister.”

It’s easy to quote the gospel chapter and verse. It’s just as easy to cry out, “Lord, Lord.”
But what about your commitment to your faith?
I don’t know about you but every time I hear or read Jesus’ statement about faith the size of a mustard seed, I stand back stunned into perplexing puzzlement about faith. Almost my whole life has been dedicated not only to living my faith but helping others to deepen and expand their faith.
Yet how much faith do I really have?
A mustard seed is smaller than a fingernail, as tiny as a baby’s eyelash.
But, for example, can I say to myself, Uproot yourself from your lethargy, from your indifference and plant yourself in the sea of God’s infinite love and goodness and my faith will make it happen?
But then, is it the amount of faith or the quality of faith that matters?
Listen to this story about the famous violinist, Paganini.
Paganini was about to give a concert. He came out on the stage and realized he didn’t have his very expensive violin, but an old one. He went back behind the curtain but he couldn’t find his violin. He came back out on stage and apologized for the rickety violin he had to use.
The he proceeded to play with such gusto that the audience was mesmerized. The blew the roof off with their applause. Paganini said, “The music is not in the instrument but in the heart of the violinist.”
This story challenges you to ask yourself, Is my faith firmly planted in my heart. Is my faith
planted like a mustard seed constantly growing and flowering in my soul as opposed to a faith that is brutally chained to externals like clobbering rules and suffocating regulations? Is my faith a love affair or a legalistic bean counting reminiscent of the Pharisees of old?
Somewhere between Jesus’ almost habitual exasperation, O, you of little faith and the spark of hope in Peter’s profession of faith, “You are the Messiah,” somewhere, somehow, Jesus’ disciples come to an enlightening realization.
Gathered off by themselves with Jesus as they often did, the disciples who had been accused of picking grains of wheat on the Sabbath, now feel another kind of hunger.
Out of the crater of their emptiness, they ask Jesus not what’s in it for us? as Peter had but, Please, increase our faith.
Jesus smiles. Finally, at last. It had been a long, hard road like those he had traveled up and down Palestine, but finally his disciples had arrived at the point of no return. There would be no more looking back to what they had left behind to follow him. They had put their hand to the plow; there would only be a moving forward from here on.
His disciples had finally come to the realization that the only way was the way of faith, even if that way led to the crucifixion. If their faith was sustained, the way would lead through the crucifixion to the resurrection.
For example, you may be caught in the crucifixion of a painful separation from a spouse or child or friend. But if your faith is strong you will eventually enter the resurrection of peace of mind and joy of heart.
The way of faith, Jesus tells his disciples, can be difficult. Sometimes your harvest will be a hundred fold, other times sixty or thirty fold. Not everyone you meet who calls out, Lord, Lord, will respond to your call to come to me.
Now I will tell you this, Jesus says, if your faith is only the size of a tiny mustard seed, you will be able to convert hearts to me as readily as saying to this mulberry tree, Uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea.
It’s amazing how much good we can do, especially, for example, in preserving human life from the womb to the tomb, even if the amount of our faith is small, as long as the quality of our faith is pro active and outreaching.
Keep in mind what John Shea says in his book, The Challenge of Jesus: The mustard seed is not so much about the process of growth as it is the contrast between insignificant beginnings and glorious endings. His statement pinpoints the quality of your faith.
Still with the apostles ask Jesus, your indwelling friend, many times each day to increase your faith.
HUMOR
There was a barber that thought that he should share his faith with his
customers more than he had been doing lately.
So the next morning when the sun came up and the barber got up out of
bed he said, “Today I am going to witness to the first man that walks through my door.”
Soon after he opened his shop the first man came in and said, “I want a
shave!”
The barber said, “Sure, just sit in the seat and I’ll be with you in a
moment.”
The barber went in the back and prayed a quick desperate prayer saying,
“God, the first customer came in and I’m going to witness to him. So please give me the wisdom to know just the right thing to say to him. Amen.”
Then quickly the barber came out with his straight razor in one hand and a
Bible in the other while saying, “Good morning sir. I have a question for you..........Are you ready to die?”


THOUGHT Always pray for an increase of faith.

Corpus Christi 08

CORPUS CHRISTI 5/ 28/08 10:30 Mt 7:21-27
During the Vietnam War, some stray artillery rounds hit an orphanage. A number of children were wounded. One little girl was especially severely wounded. An American Naval doctor and nurse
were dispatched to the orphanage. They immediately went to the little girl. She desperately needed a blood transfusion. So they called together the children who had not been wounded and explained to them in halting Vietnamese what a blood transfusion was. Then they asked for a volunteer. The children just sat there in silence staring at the doctor and nurse. The one little boy raised his hand and quickly pulled it down, He did it again. Then finally he raised his hand and kept it raised. The nurse ran over to him. “What’s your name?” she asked. “Tang,” he responded. “How old are you?” she asked. “Ten,” he said. So they took some of his blood to see if it was compatible with the little girl’s.
It was. So they put each child on separate tables and began the transfusion. Suddenly Tang started to cry. The nurse leaned down and if they were hurting him. He shook his head no. Then he began to wail. The doctor and nurse were baffled. Then a Vietnamese nurse came into the room. She went over and in rapid fire Vietnamese asked him what was wrong. He whispered his answer. She bent down and whispered into his ear. Then Tang became still and silent. And the procedure continued.
“What did he say?” the doctor asked. “He said he thought you were going to drain out all his blood and he was going to die.” “Good Lord,” the doctor exclaimed, “how did he have the courage to do this?” She leaned down and asked him. Then she stood up. “He says, ‘Because she is my friend.’”
In our Eucharist you celebrate Jesus who says, I call you my friends. You are Jesus’ friends and Jesus is your friend.
And Jesus said there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friend just as the little boy in our story was willing to give his life for his friend.
Joyce Rupp in her book, Fresh Bread, tells us that “Fear of facing our own inadequacies keeps us communicating on a surface level.” In other words, superficial small talk or chit chat about nothing really important.
I has been said that small minds talk about people; average minds talk about
events; great minds talk about ideas.
.An example of Joyce Rupp’s surface communication is this: a person’s low self esteem impedes genuine self revelation.
Let’s look at Joyce Rupp’s statement in terms of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Can you ever appear before Jesus Eucharistic or come forward to receive him without being aware of your inadequacies? Never! And not only your inadequacies but your sinfulness.
Yet doesn’t Jesus constantly say to you from the tabernacle and the altar, Come to me all you who are burdened? Despite the litter of your sinfulness, your slipshod inadequacies, your lonely failures to improve, your hit-and-miss prayers, should you fear to approach Jesus Eucharistic? Of course not. Jesus says, you are my friends.
Sadly, when you approach Jesus Eucharistic, the word, Judge, looms as huge as a black headline in a muckraking tabloid while the word, Friend, is the size of a microscopic footnote in an encyclopedia.
There is an old bromide that goes, A friend is one who knows your faults and loves you all the same. Isn’t this infinitely true of Jesus Eucharistic?
For example, Jesus knows how you rash judge others, how you have an exceptionally alert and keen eye for clay feet, how you sharpen the edge of your hatchet against the tall tree of another’s reputation.
But Jesus still loves you. And he urges you to hate the sin but love the sinner – in this case yourself. Otherwise you will be involved in a nice-Nellie avoidance of reality.
When you receive Jesus in the Eucharist, don’t you want far more than the surface level of communication that Joyce Rupp talks about? Wouldn’t you rather have what Cardinal Newman describes as heart speaking to heart?
If you receive Jesus with a me-and-my-Jesus attitude, you will be like a self-enclosed fountain in a shoping mall, recylcing itself in a n ever ending gush, never breaking out to water the parched ground around it, but feeding only its own stone statuary.
When you approach Jesus to receive him, you need to bring the full force of your conscious gratitude to the act of receiving Jesus in communion just as a surgeon pays strict attention to the incision she makes.
St. Paul pulls the curtain back on the display case in which rests one of the most precious stones from the crown of glory –the sparkling gem of gratitude.
There is always a lot to be thankful for if you take the time to look for it. For example, when you get up in the morning, you can thank God that your wrinkles don’t hurt. Yet there a many people who are inflicted with inertia like a black hole in a galaxy.
Winston Churchill wrote a note to his wife which read: Thank you for being rash enough to marry me, foolish enough to stay with me and loving me in a way I never thought I could be loved.
Thanksgiving gets rid of the depression of the present and makes hope possible for the future.

HUMOR A little boy wanted $100 badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing
happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, USA, they decided to send it to President Bush. The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill. President Bush thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 and sat down to write a thank you note to God, which read: Dear God, Thank you very much for sending the money, however, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington D.C. and, as usual, those crooks deducted $95.00.
When you gather to celebrate Eucharist, come with an attitude of gratitude
so that your Eucharist will be truly a feast of thanksgiving for Jesus’ friendship and the friends with whom you celebrate Eucharist.


THOUGHT: Always strive for an friendly attitude of gratitude

PENTECOST 08

PENTECOST 5/11/08 7:30
A few years ago, I read a novel entitled Mosaic by John Maxim. The plot centered on trying to use people with so-called multiple personalities to train one of those personalities to become sociopathic assassins, feeling no remorse, no regret, no prick of conscience at all.
(I do read spiritual books too).
What made me think of this novel is St. Peter. I thought of Peter because he seems to hve been a man with, a split personality, a split which, I’m willing to bet, you can identify with. I know I can.
For example, there is Peter who, like a gypsy, left everything to follow Jesus but who whined like a spoiled child, “Now that we’ve left everything, what’s in it for us?”
There is Peter whose faith was as dynamic as lightning so that he dared to walk on water but whose doubt had the magnetic pull of quicksand so that he sank.
There was Peter whose confidence was as sturdy as a oak tree so that he bragged toJesus that even though everyone would abandon him, he (Peter) would be there supporting Jesus. Yet his confidence crumbled like a sandcastle in a high tide so that he ended up denying Jesus three times in a row.
Yet with the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the split was healed and Peter was made whole so much so that, a few verses down from where our first reading ends today, as he stands up and addresses the huge crowd, 3,000 were converted and baptized that very day! It must have been as noisy as a livestock auction. Or as someone remarked, St. Peter must have had a water hose to baptize that many in one afternoon.
But the point of the story is the power of the Holy Spirit in Peter’s words.
(Makes me wonder about the impact of my own homilies).
That’s what the Holy Spirit did for Peter and does for you: the Spirit makes you whole.
Remember, for example, when Jesus was in the Garden of Olives, he said to his three chosen disciples, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”? And St. Paul echoed these words when he said, “That which I want to do, I don’t do and that which I don’t want to do, I do.”
There is a split in all of us, like two scorpions in a bottle turning against each other, and that split needs to be made whole. I suspect that there is a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in all of us.
And the Holy Spirit who comes into you as a fire, cauterizes this psychic wound in you and merges your flesh and spirit until you become whole.
For example, Bob Hulteen in his essay, “Nouwen’s Symphony of Movements.” quotes the wonderfully insightful spiritual writer Henri Nouwen, “The often painful paths to wholeness come in movements from loneliness to solitude, from hostility to hospitality, from illusion to prayer.
And John Navone in his book, The Jesus Story, reminds us that “through the Holy Spirit we can internalize the values of the Jesus story.”
Isn’t this what you want to do? Make the values of Jesus your values?
For example, Jesus’ value of sacrifice even to the cross substituted for your annoyance at the slightest inconvenience. Or, for example, Jesus’ value of compassion replacing your icy indifference. Or, for example,Jesus’ value of forgiveness supplanting your steel-hearted grudge-bearing.
On this Mother’s Day, aren’t these the values you want to inculcate in your children as you try to bestow on them the gift of wholeness; a gift that is a challenge for your children to strive after even greater wholeness?
Jesus’ values are not a goal you strive after; rather Jesus’ values are paths to Christ-ientification. As St. Paul proclaimed: “I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.” Jesus and we are one.
On this feast of Pentecost and every day, ask the Holy Spirit, dwelling within you, to help you to put into effect his inspirations, his power, his stamina, his energy so that you will live the values of Jesus as perseveringly as someone running a 26 mile marathon, that you will live his values as a whole person, keeping in mind the holiness is wholeness.

HUMOR ; An artist asked the gallery owner if there had been any interest
in his paintings on display at that time.
“I have good news and bad news,” the owner replied. “The good news is that a gentleman inquired about your work and wondered if it would appreciate in value after your death. When I told him it would, he bought all 15 of your paintings.”
“That’s wonderful,” the artist exclaimed. “What’s the bad news?”
“The guy was your doctor.”
THOUGHT: Always strive for wholeness.

Ascension 08

Ascension 2008 8:45

The story is told of how once Frederick the Great, one of the most
eccentric sovereigns who ever graced a European throne, was selecting a
court chaplain. He advertised for a number of candidates, who ascended the pulpit and preached before the court on successive Sundays. But the requirement was that
each preacher should not know in advance what text he was to preach
upon. As he was ready to ascend the pulpit, an officer of the court
would step up and hand him an envelope; within that envelope was a slip
of paper bearing a gospel text; and from that text the candidate must preach.

On one Sunday the candidate for the day was handed his envelope; he
ascended the pulpit; he opened the envelope, and took out the slip of
paper. But it was blank. He examined it carefully to see if any markings
had eluded him. But the scrap of paper bore not a single line.

Looking calmly at his audience, the preacher said, "The slip in my hand
says nothing. Now, my brethren, God made the world out of nothing!" And
he went right on to preach a stirring sermon on the creation.
Today on Ascension Thursday, we emphasize the word, ascend.
The feast of the Ascension teaches us a very important lesson.
The lesson is that we must spend our lives ascending from what is inferior to what is superior.
For example, we must ascend from seeking external pleasure to living with interior joy. We must ascend from accumulating things and wealth which never really can satisfy us to a stripping of ourselves of greedy egotism. We must ascend form routine even thoughtless prayer to the ecstasy of mystical prayer.
What is necessary is that we realize our need for these and other ascensions in our life.
Even more important is our faith awareness that Jesus’ ascension power is always available to us and always at our disposal.
For example, when we have inferior feelings about ourselves, Jesus’ ascension power is there to raise us above these feelings to the recognition of our priceless ness in God’s eyes. But through prayer we must open ourselves to Jesus’ ascension power.
Or another example: it is Jesus’ ascension power that helps us to ascend form a lack of self-esteem and self-confidence to a happy self-acceptance because Jesus accepts you, warts and all.
We need to use Jesus’ Ascension power, for example, to ascend from warmaking to peacemaking;
From prejudice to all-embracing acceptance; from selfishness to gracious generosity. This is your challenge of Jesus’ Ascension.
Ask Jesus your ascended Lord to help you to always rise above the inferiority of your sinfulness and enter into the superiority of holiness.
HUMOR
``` An Indian chief ascended a high mountain. All day long he drank gallons of tea. The next morning they found the chief dead in his teepee.

THOUGHT: Always ascend to a higher level.