Holy Thursday!!!

Up at 5:30 so that I could be on the road at 6:30. That was how my morning began. I started out in St. Paul after seeing an absolutely morally reprehensible play last night and spending the night in the home of a good priest friend. I drove for my priestly support group meeting in a small town named Grundy Center, Iowa. We supported one another and then I went home to Marshalltown for supper, something that would never have happened a couple of months ago (can you believe I've been in Ames for over a month now?). Mom's string beans are the greatest in the world and it's always good to see my Dad and brother, Dave. I got back in my truck and headed back to Ames for what will probably be my favorite experience in this assignment. I had an earlier posting about Wednesday Night Liturgy during this summer. Now that the students, we do it on Thursdays and do it later on in the evening, 10:00. What an awesome experience! The students just gave me so much energy. They are the church...discovering what that means.

Now I'm trying to wind down a little so that I can sleep and get ready for a lot of work tomorrow. That's what I get for screwing around two days in a row.

The images of the pope

This past weekend, I found myself reflecting on the images that go along with the pope. I talked about the chair, the catedra, and how the bishop's chair is a visible symbol of his authority. I talked about how every catholic church has a chair in the front for the priest that connects him back to that chair that the bishop sat in when he was ordained. That chair should remind the priest that he is nothing without his bishop...humility.

I also talked about the keys. The keys were mentioned in the readings this weekend. Peter was given them. I talked about how, in modern times, we tend to see in this a hand over of power to Peter, as though it's his job to determine what the church believes. However, the first reading warned that the keys could get taken away and given to someone else. The Pope's job is not to tell God what he believes but to do what God wants and proclaim that truth to the world. He is to protect the truth that has been handed on to us and keep out anything that is evil.

minimalists and maximalists

In the past couple of years, I've become annoyed by the terms "liberal" and "conservative". Masking them under the titles "progressive" and "traditional" doesn't help either. The members of the church are far too multifacated to put into two categories. That's why I'd like to further add some clarity by introducing two new distinctions that aren't really typical conservative or liberal. The terms I'm using to understand people are maximalists and minimalists. Now, bear in mind, these are not meant to be all encompassing/villify the other group/High School football terms. These are meant to help members of the body of Christ understand differences in some attitudes. They presume that people have an earnest desire to remain faithful to church teachings.

The difference between the two begins with their outlook. A maximalist asks "What more can I do to be part of the church?" A minimalst asks, "What do I have to do to be part of the church." Beginning with these differences in questions explains why one priest wears just an alb and stole and another priest wears amice, alb, cincture, stole, chausable and, during the big celebrations, cassock. But, these differences are not just limited to priests. I think all people ask these questions, which is where religion both thrives and becomes ugly. And, I think most people vary between being a minimalst for one issue and being a maximalst for others.

This helps me when I'm talking to people about the church to find out the way they are approaching an issue. So, for instance, some people think that people need to go to confession every month, if not every week. These people are maximalists. Others struggle to go once a year. They are minimalsts.

Of course, another key is to keep in mind that this is just supposed to offer another category to help us understand people. Ultimately, people's rationale for being a minimalst or maximalist will vary. So, even though it's okay to understand what a person thinks in order to understand where they are coming from, the most important question to ask is why they believe.

Our State Fair is a great state fair....

Ah, the smell of warm fried foods coupled with the slight scent of animal dung...does it get any better than that? That was what I did yesterday. I visited our wonderful state fair. Some people go to the state fair to ride the rides. Why not go to an amusement park? Most people go to eat their favorite state fair particular food - deep fried snickers bars, twinkies, or the infamous corn dog. Then they go to Iowa Methodist Medical center for bypass surgery. I go to the state fair to see the animals. That's what the fair is supposed to be about. It has been overrun by commercialism with people trying to sell everything from mops to siding to colleges. But, in the barns, it is still the fair as it is supposed to be. I saw the biggest boar, the biggest bull, and a milking demonstration. I saw two 4H shows, one involving shetland ponies and another involving milking cows. It was great to see a kid that was half the size of a cow leading her around a show ring without any fear. The highlight of the day, however, was when my grandparents' (mom's parents) farm became a "Century Farm". It was nice to stand on stage and represent the next generation of Schott family reaping the benefits of the earth from this parcel of land that has been doing so for a hundred years. And, it was good to see Aunts and Uncle gather together for something other than a funeral.

Putting limits on God’s love

Oftentimes, when I hear this gospel passage, I hear it referred to as the story of the Canaanite woman, which makes sense considering that one of the people involved is a Canaanite woman. The other, since it is a gospel story, is Jesus. Usually, that’s where our consideration of this story ends. We have Jesus talking to a Canaanite woman sounding, at times, pretty harsh, which has always seemed very contrary to the way I’ve imagined Jesus approaching those who have faith in him. So, I’d like to suggest a change in focus for this parable, a third character, if you will, who played a prominent role. It is, oftentimes, overlooked that Jesus is surrounded by and talks to his disciples throughout this story. And, in fact, I think that the disciples are the real ones who learn an important thing or two from today’s gospel.

I’m a Cubs fan. I have a friend who is also a Cubs fan. I remember talking with him a couple of months ago about how this is yet another rebuilding year. That makes 55 years in a row that the Cubs have been trying to rebuild a World Series team. He said that he was watching them one day and that they beat their opponent by eight or nine runs and then lost by two or three the next day. His theory was that they should have stored up some of their runs from the one day in order to win the next, as though the Cubs were the moral equivalent to Grimm fairty tale about the grasshopper who spent all summer singing instead of storing food and went starving to the ants for food during the winter.

I think there is a part of us that thinks in a similar way about God’s love. We say that we know God’s love is all-powerful and all encompassing but then we tend to put limits on it. After all, if God’s love is all-powerful and limitless then that means that we can’t put limits on our own love. That was what the disciples were doing in the gospel today. When the woman comes professing faith in Jesus, they want him to chase her off. This isn’t the only time they will want Jesus to get rid of people who cry out to him in need but it is the first time that Jesus gives in. I don’t think Jesus really wants for this woman to be sent away. I think he wants the disciples to face their biases, to face those times when they exclude people simply because they would rather believe they are outside of God’s love than within it.

So, Jesus communicates to the woman what the disciples would have him do, like a teenager giving into peer pressure. The difference, though, is that Jesus knows that this woman will stand up to him. Any desperate mother who thinks that a cure is possible for her child will be willing to be called names if it means having a healthy child. Because of her humility, her faith, and her love, her daughter is cured and she can walk back and, with her daughter, grow in the faith that was given to her.

The disciples, on the other hand, are left in a bit of a lurch. They have to face their own prejudices and deal with them. In this lesson, Jesus teaches them that racism and discrimination are the seeds of evil, not the way that leads to everlasting life.

This message will need to be quickly learned and implemented by the disciples. After Jesus death, the disciples leave Jerusalem and Israel and go to other countries to spread the gospel. They begin with what is comfortable. They first go to the synagogue if there was one in town. But, they would inevitably find the gentile audience more open to the saving message of Jesus. They find a common longing for meaning in these new believers, a longing that finds expression in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and allows these people who were not descendants of Abraham to be grafted onto his vine. This all happened because they learned to not let fear of differences drive them away from spreading the gospel.

That is the message the disciples learned and, perhaps, we disciples need to learn it as well. How do we treat people of other races, gender, political persuasion, theological understanding…? Do we let them go their way and we’ll go our own or do we try to get to know them and love them as Jesus loves us?

Living with contradictions...

As a young priest, I think I have a pretty good sense of what the church asks for liturgy, perhaps better than those who were educated ten or twenty years ago. And, as a result of my more contemporary education, I feel it my responsibilty to gently bring "creative liturgical reform" back in line with the church. One great example of this is pouring from the pitcher to the cups. The vatican has clarified that they would like us to do this before the eucharistic prayer and consecration. Since that clarification came out, most priests have bristled at this change. Some refrain out of theological reasons. They want to do it at the fraction rite so that it is the fullest symbol of Christ's body being broken for us and Christ's blood being poured out. Others who are suspicious of authority think that it is Rome's attempt to return to only distributing in one form only.

My reaction was to think of how it could be done and do it. It didn't take any imagination whatsoever and most people appreciate the change. No having to do one thing when the bishop isn't present and changing when the bishop is. No stubbornly ruffling my feathers at the thought of the Vatican telling me how to celebrate mass. Just make the change in as organic a way as possible.

So, I tend to be an advocate of doing what the books tell us to do and doing it well. Yet, in the middle of distributing holy communion, I became annoyed with myself. I have added something to the mass. Most priests do this and I have a good reason for doing it, but I have nonetheless added something. If people bring children to mass who cannot receive communion, I will give them a blessing. I do it because it recognizes the child who is present rather than pretending the child is not there or important and I do it because I think it is important to acknowledge children at mass. In an era in which each priest is a sexual abuser and each child a potential victim, I think it's imporant that I visibly interract with children in a loving way that makes it clear that I'm not a sexual abuser. I bless them. And, just as important, I look at these children as gifts. They are the next generation of faithful catholics to carry on the message of Jesus.

But the church doesn't say that I should distribute communion and bless children. It just says I distribute communion. Now, I have to decide if the absence of a rubric means tacit disapproval.

A God who gets disappointed with us

Last week, I kept reflecting on the image of an angry God. I know that probably seems silly to reflect on that. It doesn't square with the common picture of Jesus laughing with his head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth wide open as though someone had just told a golfing joke (or maybe that one about not finding a lawyer in heaven). The difficult thing, though, is that scripture sometimes seems to hint at God being mad. And I'm not just talking about the Old Testament. Think of the God who won't let the rich man repent of his sins despite coming to the realization that he has not lived a life of holiness by seeing Lazarus in heaven.
I kept thinking about how hurtful family can be to one another. I had two friends, very close friends that are more like family to me than friends, who exchanged exceptionally mean emails. One of our friends was worried that it would ruin our friendship. I told them that I thought it pointed to how strong our friendship was. The emails, though exceptionally mean, were really honest. One person stated very plainly some concerns she had about the choices another was making. This helped me understand God's anger a little better. God gets angry our of love. Those biblical images of God taking vengance out on other people show how much he cares about us. He cares enough to be disappointed in us when we do stupid things.

God works in this world to convert it

As I was reflecting on this reading, I couldn't help but be drawn to two interconnected conclusions. In the Twin Cities, there's a parish of 5000 families. Most priests in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recognize it as a reality and even a good. When I talk to priests about that parish in this diocese, most of them say that it's too big. They have an idea that two thousand families is the largest parish they can comprehend. Then, we turn to our gospel today and realize that our Lord had five thousand parishioners relatively early on in his career and he was able to work miracles with those folks. It should give us hope.

I also couldn't help but reflect on the change in interpretation that has happened with this particular passage. Ten or fifteen years ago, there appeared a novel interpretation for it, an interpretation I like to call "potluck supper" . The general way this bit of isogesis works is to say that, when the disciples found this little boy (mentioned in other gospels) with his five loaves and two fish who was willing to share his food, suddenly others in the crowd were willing to share what they had as well until they had left-overs. The implication of this interpretation is definitely true; most of us have more than we need and are unwilling to share what we have with others.

But, despite the fact that, in general, I think this is a good social message, it is not what our readings today intend to convey. It is tantamount to what Benjamin Franklin did with the Bible when he removed all that he felt was miraculous. I think there are other passages that make us reflect on the value of charity in putting God first and stuff second. The real message our gospel is inviting us to reflect on is entirely different and may be described by the following story.

There once was a little boy named Billy. Billy was a very quiet and shy little boy who liked to hide behind his mother's leg when company came over. One day at his Catholic school, Billy's teacher asked his class for a volunteer to read at mass the next week. Billy made his eyes drop to the ground to avoid the teachers gaze and did whatever else he could to not look like he had any interest whatsoever. But, the teacher was quite wise. She called Billy's name to get his attention and then asked him to read. Billy, being a quiet and shy little boy, knew he couldn't say no to his teacher regardless of how much he wanted to. So, when he got home, he turned to his mother to ask if she would write him a note excusing him from reading. Billy's Mom, however, was also wise. She told him that she wouldn't write the note but would, instead, help him to prepare and even take time off from work to come to mass. So, Billy had no choice but to turn to his Dad. However, Billy's Dad and Mom worked like a team so, when Billy asked, dad, who had been warned by Mom that Billy would probably try this, also told Billy that he would help him practice and would take time off from work to come to mass. So, when the day of mass arrived, Billy didn't have any excuse. His mom, dad, and teacher had all helped him to prepare and made sure he'd be ready. Billy stepped up to the microphone, hoping that the kids wouldn't laugh at him too loudly. Then, the amazing happened. Billy not only read the reading well, he was perfect. He didn't pop any "p's" and read slowly and clearly in order to convey the meaning.

Billy might not have known that he had been given the gift to proclaim the word, but he had and others could see it in him. That is, oftentimes, the way that spiritual gifts work, whether they are gifts like reading of the word of God, the gift of faith, or a vocation. They aren't merited. In other words you can't earn them. God gives them to us freely in order to build up the kingdom. And, oftentimes, we don't recognize the gifts that God has given to us. Certainly, the disciples didn't realize the gift that they had in Jesus or they wouldn't have tried to send the crowds away to get food. They would have just asked Jesus to give them food instead.

What is needed, instead, is a bit of initiative on our part to recognize the gifts that have been given to us. That why Jesus started out with five loaves and two fish in the first, because he works with us to save us. We need to be open to recognize the gifts that have been given to us and not run away from them. I see this many times in the area of vocations to priesthood, diaconante, and religious life. I have met so many men and women who have incredible gifts for ministry who seem to turn away from priesthood and religious life out of fear of loneliness. I always find this to be an ironic response when I think about how many times in a day that I want to get away from people for a while because I've been talking to so many. Plus, I've met an awful lot of people who say they don't feel like they have enough time for the studies surrounding becoming a deacong even though they are already involved in a million things in church that they could give up in order to be a deacon and give other people the oppertunity to do the things they were doing.

Now, you may be wondering what the connection was between the parish of 5000 families and the idea of vocation. When we see something we believe to be a problem, there are a number of ways to deal with it. We can either worry and fret about it and do what we can to turn away from it, like the disciples wanted to do in the gospel or we can see in the problem an opportunity for growth in the gifts that God has given to us. Where is God calling you to grow in the gifts he has given to you?

A new website

I've talked before about a very influential thinker in modern catholic history by the name of George Weigel. I just found out that he has a web column. I'm not saying that I agree with everything Mr. Weigel says but I find him very thought provoking. Here it is....

http://www.archden.org/weigel/index.php

WNL

Last night we had a usual summer phenoeonon at my current parish (from now on referred to as STA = St. Thomas Aquinas) called Wednesday Night Liturgy or WNL. It's a smaller version of what takes place on Thursday nights here and is less dealing with mass and more with different forms of prayer.

I couldn't help but be astounded at the number of college students who were willing to gather together and pray. There was probably a lot that they could have been doing instead but here was a large group of young people gathered together to call upon the Holy Spirit for her gifts. I find that incredibly powerful.

though you are master of light you judge with clemency

This past week British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a shocking discovery: most of the terrorists that caused the bombings in his country were natives of his country. In other words, unlike the September 11th tragedy in our country, the enemy was from within. Up until this point, each time I heard about the London train bombings, I would immediately go back to the only real referent our country has had for such terror, certainly the only experience I've had had in my lifetimes. On the morning of September 11th, I remember thinking to myself, “Let’s just go blow them all up. Let’s find out who did it and just carpet bomb the entire country. Maybe innocent people will die in the process but it’s a small price to pay if we can feel safe again.”

The more I think about and ponder that selfish reaction, the more illogical it seems. In some ways, it is only logical to want swift retribution after an injustice. It’s easy to understand why the mother of the girl lost in Aruba is speaking out to reporters and calling the government there incompetent and corrupt. Her daughter is lost and no one can find her. It’s understandable to feel frustrated and want to take that out on other people.

Aren’t we all lucky, however, that this is not the way that God operates. Our first reading today reminds us that the fact that God doesn’t act like that when some terrible sin takes place is a sign of his power. This may seem like a contradiction to say that God’s clemency is a sign of his power but the truth is that wreaking havoc and causing destruction is the easy thing to do. Any brute can destroy. And, repaying terror with violence is just as easy. The real challenge is not to overreact, to hope in the face of hatred and anger that the person will realize that their actions are wrong and that they must stop them. This is how God reacts to our sins; to those times when we hurt other people.

He knows already who are the wheat and who are the weeds. He could go throughout the church and the world to pick out those people who are headed towards death and save those who are headed towards light. But this is not the way he operates. Even though it might seem that a perfect world without sinners is the best type of world, especially since this is the way God intended it from the beginning, sin still has a role to play.

This is the point of our gospel. God’s patience despite his power plays itself out in a world filled with temptations to sin. God sees all the sin and allows it to exist in the hopes that someone who has sinned, even just one person, will repent. But, patient hope for conversion is not the natural way to react to sin. The easiest way to react to sin is to throw the wheat out with the weeds, to remove the sinners from one’s life. The truth is that we must follow Paul’s advice from the second reading and call upon the Spirit in these difficult times. Even if we don’t know what to pray, the spirit intercedes for us to make us holy. In the midst of conflict and division, we may feel conflicted. Part of us may want to call upon God to carry out retribution for what has happened, like sending some SARS or AIDS or cancer or something awful like that to attack those who hurt us. Yet, as Christians, we are called to not hope that something bad will happen to them but, instead, to hope that they will repent and believe in the gospel. And, the more we analyze these situations, the farther we step away from our immediate reaction, we may even find some blame in it is our own. We may have done something to them that seemed to provoke their mean-spirited actions or we may even have misunderstood something that happened and believed we were wronged when, in fact, we were in the wrong. Morality is often shaded by such areas of gray instead of clearly delineated in black and white.

One great example of this is when a child or a brother or sister or someone else close to us comes and tells us they are gay. As a Catholic, we may feel conflicted about the whole issue of homosexuality. On the one hand, we may be tempted to react angrily and throw the person out of our life, despite knowing that they didn’t choose to be gay. Even though this is, for some of us, the natural reaction, I believe it is also the most unchristian, the most sinful. Yet, on the other hand, we may be happy that the person actually told us and find ways to support and love the person because it is what Jesus would have done. But we may struggle to help them understand the catholic teaching that homosexual acts are the sin, not the homosexual.

In the midst of this chaos, we who have ears ought to stop talking and listen. Ask for the Spirit’s guidance. Remember that learning how to live a moral life is not just an act of modeling the community but is also an act of God. And, most importantly, remember that when God was given the choice to punish or allow for repentance, to throw out the weeds with the some of the wheat, he gave us time to repent.

New Parish...new life

I have begun that life that most priests dream about. I live in an apartment about a block away from my parish. I have a separate phone number from the parish. I wake up and walk to my office. I'm still a priest all the time, I just don't live in the store.

I think this is why I'm not frustrated that the flooring in my kitchen isn't done. I've not had "my kitchen" since I was here as a seminarian. I'm taking my time getting settled in. My first goal is to get accustomed to sleeping past 6:00 in the morning and going to sleep later than 10:00 at night. Once I get used to that, then I'll be set.

Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest

Have you ever had a problem that only seemed to get worse the more you work on it? I’m not a good driver. I realize this but there’s not much I can do about it. In the words of the Red Green show, “I’m a man…But I can change…If I have to…I guess.” My biggest fault when driving is not speeding. As some of you may have experienced, I tend to travel at exactly the speed limit. And I’m pretty good about not talking on my cell phone or finding other ways to distract myself from paying attention to the road. The main reason that I am not a good driver is the most stereotypical female criticism of men; I get lost easily and refuse to ask directions. Let me give you an example. Last week, I went to Cedar Rapids to hear the Dubuque Colts drum and bugle corps perform. I got the address and directions off of the colt website and headed down with plenty of time to spare. I found the street it was supposed to be on and couldn’t find a football field. There were people around but, of course, I didn’t stop to ask any questions. I even found one of the corps practicing on a field. I could have asked them where they were performing but, instead, I decided to drive all over the city of Cedar Rapids with my windows open listening for drum sounds. After an hour of searching with ever increasing tension and impatience I found myself on the other side of town on the exact same street. Someone had written down southeast when it should have been southwest. The only bright spot was that the performance was about forty-five minutes behind schedule so I was right on time.

Driving is not the only thing that can cause us to work way too hard for something that should be a lot easier. Most of us would like to have more money so that we could afford more stuff and have an easier life. But, in order to earn the money necessary, we work long, exhausting hours and find that, when we come home at night, we have just enough money to survive and no energy to go do something exciting. And my favorite example of this happens when you get a new piece of technology. Have you ever got a new computer, cell phone, VCR, or something else and spent all day trying to figure out how it works only to have your teenage daughter or son come home and have it working in ten minutes? Now that’s frustration! Let’s face it, oftentimes life can seem like more of a burden than it’s worth.

In the face of this tension, our Lord calls us to himself saying, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” I find it fascinating that one of the introductory things that we say on the telephone is, “What did you do today?” We usually say this at some point earlier in the conversation unless if we are calling for a specific purpose. And the response the person gives, especially if it deals with relaxation or rest, can often lead to criticism. We are a very pragmatic country. In other words, we tend to expect people to be productive. If they aren’t productive, then they aren’t worth anything. That’s the mistake so many people made surrounding the Terry Schiavo case. The reason that Terry Schiavo deserved to be fed according to the Pope and most of the bishops wasn’t because she could have recovered. That was the politician’s response. The reason her feeding tube shouldn’t have been removed was because her life was worth something in and of itself. She didn’t need to produce anything, any emotion, any action, to have dignity. She had dignity because she had life. Life in and of itself has dignity.

We need to remind ourselves of this every day. That’s at the heart of what our Eucharist is about. We don’t come to mass to be entertained. If you do, you’d certainly be disappointed each week. We don’t come to mass because it makes us feel good. In fact, there are times when we leave mass without any comfort at all. We come to mass in order to come to know the Son so that the Son will reveal his Father to us through the Spirit. We come so that, for a few moments, we can hand our problems over to our heavenly Father and find some peace, even if the only peace that we receive is just knowing that we aren’t in this all alone. God is pulling for you and I am too.

Clustering Part Four

For the past week, I’ve been telling you about what a cluster of parishes is all about. With this posting, I begin a series to conclude these reflections by offering ways that you can help in this endeavor of clustering. The first and most important thing you can do is not panic. There will be some changes in the future that will need to take place. When they happen, there are natural reactions that people seem to have that hinder rather than help the situation. People tend to bristle at a change that is happening because of the relationship to the other parishes. For instance, if mass times change in order to ensure that we have a different time than the other two parishes. Or if we have a change in the way mass is celebrated in order to be “in line” with the other two parishes. You may feel tempted to complain but, in order to help the situation, it is better to adjust and trust that the change is necessary.

Another way that people panic when they hear about clustering is what some pastors and administrators call "shared suffering". The idea of shared suffering is that if one parish has to do something, all the parishes should do something. On the surface, this looks like it would actually be at the heart of the clustering process because you are trying to make sure one parish is not getting cheated out of something or being unduly rewarded. Yet, exceptions always seem to happen for one reason or another.

Having said that, the best thing a cluster can do to avoid panic is try to avoid making exceptions. Given the large number of events that already take place and the increasing number of meetings that will be taking place, it’s important that we all work to make the schedule as it already is set up be maintained. Next week, I’ll give you some ways that you can help facilitate the clustering process as it is proceeding and I will conclude the by looking at more long range suggestions.

Clustering Part three

In the past couple of days, I've been taking some time to describe what it means to cluster parishes together. I said that my parish, Holy Ghost, is in the process of clustering with a couple of other Dubuque parishes. Now, I hope to give you one example of what it means to cluster in an orgainic way.

Earlier this spring, the Director of Religious Education (DRE) for Holy Trinity Church, Sr Mary Kivlahan, retired. Shortly thereafter Holy Ghost's DRE, Peggy Swift, also retired. This seemed like a prime oppertunity to share in the area of Religious Education so the issue was brought to the cluster planning committee. In those meetings, we set up a sub committee of experts to bring together the needs of the parishes and propose scenarios for the larger committee as to how we should handle this monumental staff change. After the sub committee did our job, the larger committee determined that a good next step would be to hire one director for the three religious education programs and hire as many part-time Coordinators of Religious Education (CREs) as the DRE thought necessary. This will mean that one person, the DRE, will oversee helping the three programs to cooperate while CREs will be responsible for much of the "leg work" involved with the individual programs. In the interim, representatives from the three parishes have begun putting together many of the programs that are easily consolidated: baptism preparation, confirmation, adult faith formation, RCIA, etc. This is the beginning of the process that the DRE will continue in a short time when she or he is hired.

One of the other areas that the cluster planning committee has worked on is maintenance. All three parishes need someone to oversee our large structural maintenance needs. The maintenance sub committee presented the need for a full time maintenance/custodial person to work equally among the three parishes. We are in the process of hiring this person, the second "cluster" person to be employed. There will, undoubtedly, be many such oppertunities for sharing in the future including sharing priests, deacons, and (possibly) office staff. And, at some point, we will need your help to name our new entity. The goal is, as I said last time, to share resources when the opportunity presents itself. This, hopefully, propmts you to ask what you can do to help our newly forming cluster succeed. I will finish in the next three days talking about that very thing.

Clustering part two

Yesterday, I started explaining what clustering has meant to me these past three years of priesthood. I believe clustering is not all about "priesthood shortage" but is, in reality, a part of what it means to be catholic. Today, I hope to explain some things that I've learned about the process that goes with clustering. Members of Holy Trinity, Sacred Heart, and Holy Ghost parshes met with St. Mary Montgomery about two years ago and determined a parish leadership team. After a few introductory meetings, the process stalled for a few months because the leadership at Sacred Heart and Holy Trinity changed drastically. I became involved in meetings beginning in January of this year when St. Mary helped us begin coming up with a four-step plan to go from where we currently are to where we will be when we are clustered. We have finished step one which dealt with eight areas of where we are today in terms of staffing, proframs, and events as entirely separate entities. Now we are in the process of discussing step two which is based on what we can do without prompting a lot of changes for our parishes to combine a few things. In the future, we will be discussing the next step which will involve even more cooperation. Step four will envision the completed cluster. It became obvious, in the course of the meetings, that we didn't want to rush the process even though we all recognize that it is a necessary process for keepng our parishes alive. In general, we have a orgainic viewpoint toward clustering. In other words, we don't want to force a lot of changes on anyone but, instead, we wan to use opportunities as they present themselves to promote greater cooperation.

clustering part one

In the Archdiocese of Dubuque, there was once a situation in which we had a very large number of priests. I heard that we had, per capita, the largest number of priests in the world. This meant that we had too many priests for the population in Dubuque. One solution among many to this problem was to create more parishes, even ones that served very small communities that were very close to larger towns. In the last thirty years, our priest population has declined making it difficult to maintain all the parishes that we once maintained. This has caused a couple of difficult situations. The first is being forced to close down some smaller communities that can no longer be maintained. The second is something called clustering.

At my parish in Dubuque, Holy Ghost, we have begun the process of planning for future clustering with two other parishes here in the city, Holy Trinity and Sacred Heart. We are still some time away from it actually taking place because of the size of the parishes involved but, in the past several weeks, I've been giving some information about clustering in order to dispel any false rumors that go around and, in the next couple of weeks, I hope to duplicate that information here.

As I said before, part of this has to do with the decline in the number of priests. But, I believe that, even more fundamental than that, clusetering is an exercise in what it means to be Catholic (a word which means universal). In other words, clustering is God's gift to us in recognition that our churches really are connected all over the world. We were not baptized into Holy Ghost church or any particular parish. We were baptized into Christ Jesus who gave us the church as his earthly body.

Many people become afraid when they hear about clustering because they think about other more frustrating situations that have involved consolidation, especially with catholic schools and hospitals. While no one can guarantee that everything will be easy in clustering parishes, there is a HUGE difference between consolidating schools and clustering parishes. You probably already have a sense of the principle behind clustering. Have you ever gone to a different catholic church on a Sunday? If so, you heard the same readings, same prayers, and received the same body and blood of Christ that you would have if you had been at your own parish. There may have been some small differences but, for the most part, Mass is the same in all the churches throughout the world. Yet, your child would not go to a different school expecting that everything be the same there. We who are catholic trust that what happens in our church is what happens, for the most part, in all of them. With God's help, in the coming years, we will model this universality for the rest of the city of Dubuque.

love God and love your neighbor

I begin my homily today on a very hopeful note. This morning, our church ordained a new priest, Fr. Brian Dellaert. In one of the most beautiful and moving ceremonies, Fr. Dellaert was blessed by the church through the imposition of the Archbishop’s hands and giving of the Holy Spirit. Fr. Dellaert beamed with love as he received three standing ovations throughout the ancient ritual. It was a profoundly beautiful end to what was, otherwise, a very difficult week.

At the beginning of this week, I was worried that our national media would, yet again, be reporting one of those frustrating stories; one that doesn’t really have an ending. When I heard about eleven-year-old Brennan Hawkins being lost, I feared that he would end up in the same category as Johnny Gosh and Eugene Walsh, two kids that were abducted here in Iowa in the eighties and never found. I was especially suspicious when they said that he was rappelling with someone else who left early to get to dinner. I kept asking myself how a boy could get lost in a Boy Scout camp and kept thinking that it probably would be a prime target for a sexual abuser. And I imagine we were all relieved when we heard that the little boy had been found two days later. I’m still a little confused as to how he got lost but it makes a great deal of sense how he stayed lost. After all, even I’ve talked in a homily to grade school children about how important it is to avoid strangers. I could imagine this scared little boy reverting to the core values his parents and teachers taught him: stay on the trail and don’t talk to strangers. Yet, these core values were the very things that almost got this boy killed. He may avoid being sexually abused or abducted but what good is that rule if it ends up killing the kid?

I think a similar tension is also present in our gospel today. On the one hand, Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” And, a couple of sentences later, Jesus says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward.” So, which one is it? Are we supposed to cut off our relationships to other people in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven or are we supposed to be hospitable and open our doors and hearts to other people in order to enter the kingdom of heaven? Are only secluded cloistered monks going to enter the kingdom of heaven or might the rest of us have a chance too?

I think one way of solving this is to talk about, in general, the way that a high school kid wants to date and the way that a college student dates. Now, I’m going to make a sweeping generalization with this comparison so please don’t apply this literally to your own children or grandchildren. Nonetheless, when I worked in High School, I noticed a lot of kids starting to date exclusively for the first time. In the process of starting to date, I noticed a lot of kids that defined their whole high school world around their boyfriend or girlfriend. Their other friends and family take a back seat to the beloved. After a couple of these exclusive relationships, I think kids realize that something is wrong. By the time they head off to college or a job, they realize that our world gets too small if we focus all our attention on one other person. We need to allow others into our relationships in order for them to succeed.

I think this is what Jesus is warning us about in the gospel. If we are so closely connected to our family that we leave out God or God’s people than we have missed the point of what it means to be a follower of Christ. We need to keep nurturing our primary relationship to God and his church even as we are good members of our individual families. And it is important that we teach our children this lesson as well. We should involve our children in conversations with other adults and be interested in our children’s friendships by getting to know their friends. Let them know that an unhealthy relationship is one that excludes other people. Yet, I believe this applies to our parish families as well. We cannot become so comfortable with this building or these people that we lose track of the larger church. Rather than being afraid of strangers, we need to reach out to them in love because, on the cross, Christ reached out to us in love and promised to take us with him into everlasting life. Part of taking up our crosses means extending our relationships outside of what is comfortable in order to show love to a stranger.

Being inspired by our Archbishop

I don't really like what my life is like right now. I'm not going to spell out the specifics because I'll keep that for the confessional but I don't really like some of the things I do. Basically, I'm not sure that this is what I'd have expected my life would have been like a few years ago. And the frustrating thing is that I've had this feeling before and felt like I could just change this and do that and it would be much better. Then a couple of weeks or a month later I'll realize that I haven't really changed anything and that I'm still the same SOB I was a few weeks earlier.

But, what I have going for me that most people don't have going for them is that I get to sit down with my brother priests and talk about and learn about what priesthood is all about. These past three days, the priests of northeast Iowa, the archdiocese of Dubuqe, have been in dialogue regarding certain issues. In the middle of it, there were times when the person said just exactly what I expected and other times when I felt frustrated by what my brother priest was saying. But, all along, I felt uplifted to hear from them. It was good to have the archbishop do what the very thing that I believe is one of his gifts, both empower us and challenge us. I felt like he wanted to hear from us and wanted our comments AND hoped that we would listen to his. I feel so blessed to have a shepherd who cares for his sheep, even the ones that act a lot like goats sometimes.

Three years

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will celebrate my three years anniversary as a priest. This might seem like a strange thing to celebrate but, in the Catholic church, we have a three year cycle for our Sunday readings and it just happened that the same readings that I used for my mass of thanksgiving (first mass after ordination) came up this past weekend. It was a strange feeling to celebrate this anniversary in many ways because I had switched with another priest for the sunday so I wasn't even with "my people" in "my parishes", but that was okay. I talked about hearing the readings remind me again that we cannot fear. Pope John Paul the second was so good to remind us that we aren't supposed to fear. I had so many reasons to be afraid when I approached the altar that ordination day. There were so many people who told me that I wasn't going to be a good priest and so many doubts that went through my head. Yet I kept reminding myself that if God is for us, who can be against us. I still take consolation in the fact that, even if I'm not a perfect priest, I am at least doing what God wants me to do.