A homily that is very late in coming

I preached this a week and a half ago, before Lent even began. But, I think it was good to help people prepare for lent?

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ
Grace and Peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ be with you in the power of the Spirit that draws us all close to him who made us. Have you ever had one of those experiences in life in which God seemed so close to you that it almost felt like you were being embraced by pure love? For some of you it may have been receiving one of the sacraments, maybe in the midst of confirmation, receiving the sacrament of reconciliation or perhaps during your wedding ceremony. For others of you, it may have happened in the midst of an especially difficult time in your life such as a health crisis or a difficult relationship or work situation that forced you to turn to God who gave you peace in the midst of a storm. Still others may have experienced God on a retreat of some kind like the Antioch retreat that some of our students are on this weekend. In my own life, there have been many such times when God seemed so close that I could only feel privileged at being invited into the relationship. From the high of my ordination to the lows of times feeling like a failure with some grades in seminary, to the great retreat experiences I’ve had at Conception Abbey and St. Meinrads, I do feel blessed because of how close God was to me.
And, yet, if I were to look over my life, and I imagine most of you would say the same thing, there have been more times when God seemed an aloof, remote concept than times when God seemed so close that I could get a hug. It seems to me that our scripture passages want us to focus us in this mystery of transcendence and immanence. In some way, each of the readings warn us against attitudes that can get in the way of our relationship with God. Starting with the first reading, we hear the prophet Isaiah say something remarkable. The job of the prophet is to call people back to holiness. I’ll say this till I’m blue in the face. A prophet usually doesn’t predict the future inasmuch as tell people that if they don’t change, the future will be bad. The prophet usually wants to remind people of how good things were in the past so that they’ll stop doing what they’re doing in the present. But, in the passage we just heard, Isaiah tells his people not to think purely in terms of the past. In fact, something new is happening here! He says that in the past, people still grew weary of God, people still sinned. Isaiah even ties it into the Exodus event by reminding the people that, as their ancestors were being freed, they still complained that God wasn’t giving them enough food or good enough food. But, don’t we all have the tendency to do that; to make the past seem so much better than the present. It was so much easier to be holy in the past. We didn’t have the complexities that we do now. But, if we are honest with ourselves, it’s not the complexities that make it difficult to have a close relationship to God. It’s our use of those things. We cannot use an idealized view of history as an obstacle to God.
Next we hear from Paul in the second reading, a reading that took me a couple of times to understand what he was saying. I kept asking myself what he was talking about with all the “yes’s” and “no’s” and Jesus was all “Yes”. Well, Paul had promised to visit the Corinthians in the first letter and this letter is, in part, answering critics there that are basically calling him a liar. Paul is acknowledging that things didn’t go the way he was expecting but also acknowledging that, if he was supposed to get there, nothing would have stopped him from getting there. In some ways, Paul is having to get past past faults in order to evangelize to the people. Our past has a way of handicapping us from living in the present. We let past failures and regrets stop us from living life fully in the present. And, at times, we can feel most frustrated that, when we were failing, when it felt like we most needed God in our life, God was not there. It was like we were on that beach in the footprints poem dragging ourselves along instead of being carried by God. But, if that’s what happened, it’s only because we couldn’t let go of past hurts in order to have a good relationship with God.
Lastly, we reach the gospel. Last week, Fr. Schatz pointed out to us that we were going to hear another healing and so we did. I couldn’t help but ask this week: which is easier to forgive someone or heal someone. And, of course, it’s easier to forgive someone. But, this question that Jesus asks is really tricky for the scribes who knew the bible in and out. On the one hand, only God can forgive sins. But, on the other, in several places throughout the Old Testament, healing the lame is a sign of God’s presence among us. So, which is easier, something that only God can do or something else that only God can do? Then, Jesus goes on to do both of them. The scribes would have been infuriated! But, the amazing thing is that we know that the scribes view is the real problem. Forgiveness is the desire of God, God wants us to forgive one another. And, God doesn’t desire for us to be sick. He wants people to be healthy so that we can glorify him. The scribes were all too willing to put restrictions on God and what God wants. I think we do the same thing in our relationship to God. We wonder why God would want to love us, and demand a sign from him. Or, we think that prayer and holiness are the job of a few, not the vocation of all the baptized. We cannot let our own limited understanding of God stop us from loving God either.
As we draw closer to the great Lenten retreat that we begin this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, let us not let an idealized view of history, all our regrets, or our limited understanding of God stop us from feeling God’s love but, instead, let us once again turn away from sin so that we can turn towards God.

Olberman on children

I like Keith Olbermann. I listen to his show each morning while working out. I agree with him on finances. I think that a flat tax would be terrible for this country and that trickle down economic theory is why this country is bankrupt. I'm not a socialist but I don't think democrats are either. They just believe those with more need to contribute more and those with less...well you follow right.

Okay, then he starts talking about moral issues and I get uncomfortable. In particular, last night he said, "...and yes, oh ye Puritans among us! Americans will pay for CONTRACEPTIVES. Taxpayer dollars for evil condoms and horrible birth control pills. Contraceptives for states that already have the option of providing for low income fornicators, fornication that would otherwise lead to untold, unwanted pregnancies, unwanted babies, unwanted abortions, unwanted drains on families, unwanted drains on the national economy. Yes. The congressional economic office estimates two hundred million dollars saved over five years for contraceptives and family planning...."

Here's my issue. I'm not being puritanical when I worry that contraceptives will destroy the world. I'm being Catholic. And I worry when children are seen as "unwanted". A child isn't some thing that you want or don't want. A child is a person that you get the privilege of raising. But, let's not miss the most insidious part. He said, "Contraceptives for states that already have the option for providing for low income fornicators..." You may have thought he was deriding the Republicans for their dislike of the poor. But, what I heard him saying is that the best thing the poor can do to be rich is prevent the expense of children and contraceptives will do that.

Margaret Sanger, founder of planned parenthood, thought that the way to get rid of minorities was by having them kill their babies. That's why planned parenthood is so abortion happy. Their founder was, why wouldn't they continue that on. I think Olbermann is echoing the sentiments of a lot of liberals, and it's what annoys me. To get rid of the poor, we need to have THEM kill their babies so they don't have a second generation.

Until we learn to see sex in its appropriate place within marriage and confined to that relationship and that marriage is the only place where new life should be introduced, we will continue to get this wrong. Sex isn't just one aspect of dating and abortion isn't the only way we've managed to hurt life. It all started when we devalued sex to the level of a recreational sport.

Marriages...and stuff

I was pretty proud of this homily I preached a my friends' wedding.

My Dear Friends in Christ
Let me begin with two apologies. The first is to Misty and Jacob. I lengthened the gospel that you chose and didn’t tell you. You had just chosen the end, the section called the “Great Commandment” and I decided to include the part about the Sadducees asking Jesus about resurrection by talking about the poor woman married seven times to seven brothers who has no children. I hope that in the course of this homily, you’ll see why I did that.
Also, I want to apologize to our Protestant brothers and sisters who are with us today in case you didn’t recognize that first reading. It’s one of those books that is in catholic bibles but was eliminated during the reformation. It’s one of my favorite books of our Old Testament, to be honest. It’s a story of intrigue, suspense, Angels, Demons, and even a fish that manages to give its life to save some people. If you’ve never heard of this story before, let me try to briefly summarize it. There was a righteous Jew named Tobit who was in exile in Babylon. Tobit was one who, when his fellow Jews were killed, would go out and bury their bodies in order to follow the prescripts of the law, despite the fact that the king didn’t like him doing this. But, this shows Tobit’s bravery and his faith. Unfortunately, Tobit goes blind and this causes strife between he and his wife, Anna, causing him to pray for death. Meanwhile, in a distant land, there was a young woman named Sarah who was also praying for death. She had been married to seven different husbands and none of them managed to live a single night with her as his wife. Thankfully, God heard the prayer of both Tobit and Sarah and sent the Archangel Raphael to help them. Tobit decides to settle his accounts with his relatives and sends his son, Tobiah, on journey and Raphael is his guide. Raphael not only proves to be a trustworthy guide but a God-send as he teaches Tobiah along the journey a way of curing his father’s blindness and driving the demon out of Sarah who is killing her husbands using the guts of a fish, a symbol of Christ for us Christians.
All of that precedes the present passage. Tobiah, newly married, has burned the incense to drive out the demon but he knows that, for the marriage to be sealed against further attack, they need to pray. So, Tobiah and Sarah get out of bed to pray before they lay their heads down to sleep. It’s a reminder of how important praying together is in any relationship, but especially in this most mysterious relationship of Marriage, a relationship that Paul talked about as being like Christ’s marriage to the church.
I think that you have to know about that story to know what the Sadducees are referring to in the gospel today, which is why I wanted to include it. Even though they are trying to use it to show how absurd the resurrection is, Jesus turns it to show something profound about human beings and something profound about himself. About human beings, Jesus says “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage…” Now, I’m not trying to say that what we’re doing here has no effect in heaven. I don’t think that’s what he was saying. I think he was saying that either the marriage sticks here on earth or it won’t matter in heaven. In other words, either we get married here or we stay single for the rest of our eternal life. I was going to go around last night at the rehearsal dinner to get some examples of relationships that both of you have had that you’re now really glad they didn’t end in marriage but I decided that that could get a little too personal. Plus, you never know! They could be here. But, I imagine we all have had relationships that we give thanks to God each day that they didn’t end in marriage. It seems to me, Misty and Jacob, that God is saying that when it’s the right one, not only will you know but he’ll let you know that it’s the life-long one as well.
But, as I said before, Jesus is also trying to say something profound about himself. In that passage, Jesus is also showing himself to be the authoritative interpreter of scripture, which somewhat challenged the Sadducees but especially challenged the Pharisees who kind of felt like they had the market cornered on scripture interpretation. So, they approach Jesus and ask him to interpret scripture, basically boil down all 600 plus commandments to one. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy and Leviticus to Love God and Love neighbor. By combining these two commandments, we see Jesus putting forth another profound truth that a different evangelist, John, is infatuated with. He is basically saying that the same love the we show to God is the love that we need to show to each other. We need to be lovers of God and lovers our neighbor to truly show our faith. John will say that God is love, so the love we show each other is God himself. To quote Paul again from the second reading, this is a great mystery! It’s the mystery that, in some ways, draws us here. The love that the two of you show one another is the presence of God. It’s why we are so privileged to be here: Because in seeing you profess the love that God has given you that connects you together for the rest of your life, we see God. Thank you for the privilege.
With most couples, that’s where my reflection ends and I sit down. But, Misty and Jacob wanted us to go further and I would be remiss if I pretended like the only thing that was said in that second reading was that marriage is a mystery. Because, let’s face it. It’s a reading that is often misunderstood. It’s used by physically abusive husbands to subject their wives to hell on earth. It smacks of abuse if it’s not properly understood. The only way that you can understand it is in the way that Misty and Jacob have presented it to us: with an eye toward the profound sense of God’s love for us, the love that is Christ. Only if we see Jesus death and resurrection as the center piece of humility, only if we see Christ’s incarnation as the humbling of the exalted one so that we who are humbled might be exalted, does any of this make sense. Wives, die for your husbands just as the church must take up our cross daily and follow Christ. Husbands, die for your wives just as Jesus died for the church. Die to the need to be in charge. Die to the need to have power and authority, that original sin that plagued. Die to the idea that you are only worthy if you are successful in your job. Die to the idea that you are only successful if you have more stuff than your neighbor. Let love be the only thing that lives in your heart and then live in love.
Indeed, St. Paul was right, this is a great mystery, or sacrament to use a slightly different translation of the same word, a sacrament that we are privileged to witness today. May you draw deeper into this sacrament each day of your married life through the humble prayer of loving service that we see modeled in Christ.

Will the real St. Thomas Aquinas please stand up?

I have to admit that, historically, I've not been a person that worries too much about the history and lives of the saints. It's only been recently (since going to the Benedictine Monastery) that I've felt really connected to the saints as arbiters of God's love for us.

I'm in St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, as most of you know. I've heard ad nauseum that St. Thomas didn't want to be a Benedictine because they were affluent and the Dominicans (the order he did eventually join) was still new, not well respected, and (most importantly) poor.

I listened to a podcast this morning called the saint cast (http://www.saintcast.org) and hope I learned a slightly different but nonetheless true, take on that oversimplification. The truth is that St. Thomas was born and raised a few miles from Monte Cossina, the abbey St. Benedict founded in Northern Italy. His Uncle was the Abbott of this monastery and it was assumed that St. Thomas would follow in his celibate uncle's footsteps. Also, the Holy Roman Emperor, a relative of St. Thomas, and the Pope got into a fight and divided the monastery. Both of them saw St. Thomas as a logical, intelligent Abbott who would bring together the sharply divided monastery.

St. Thomas, however, decided that he felt a call to more education, so he left for Spain. It was there that he got into contact with St. Albert the Great, an great Dominican teacher...and the rest is history.

So, what it tells me is that St. Thomas' conversion wasn't just about money and power, although you can argue that that's part of it. It was about someone evangelizing him without worrying about that. Someone finally figuring out that this man of incredible intellect and learning needed holy people around him to support him in holiness. I think we all need to learn from the simplicity of St. Thomas.

Reinstating a holocaust denier

This weekend, I decided to focus on forgiveness and unity for my homily. I talked about the lifting of the excommunication of the Society of St. Pius X. I mentioned the one bishop that is nuts, I almost used an offensive colloquialism to describe him but stopped myself, thank goodness. If you wonder what I almost said, it rhymes with "cat spit crazy".

Why would the Pope want us associated with this crazy bishop? I think it has to do with the fact that, despite his insanity, he's still a validly ordained bishop of the church who is leading people. And the fact that his fellow separated bishops were so embarrassed by his remarks that they asked him to silence himself.

I connected it to the idea of authority being used to heal people. Jesus is identified in the Gospel of Mark as having authority and that's why he heals. It is also why he is threatening to the powers that be.

Ultimately, this bishop will die and his ideas will die with him. But, his followers will continue on and will do so, not separated from the church but, hopefully, reunited with the church that fully acknowledges the holocaust and hopes that it will never happen again.

Moving toward #600

24 posts from now, I'll post #600. I feel like I want to do something big like suggest a new and vibrant look and direction for the blog. Oh, don't get me wrong! I'm obviously going to keep the core of what my blog is about but I feel like I need to get re energized and find a direction that will help me know how to post more. So, I'll be working on that in the next 24 posts in the hopes that I can set a direction that will help to direct posts 600-1000...or something like that.

St. Peter Claver

On my most recent trip to the Twin Cities, I attended mass at St. Peter Claver church, an African-American church in the Twin Cities. It was so odd because I ordinarily become very annoyed when a priest routinely ignores the rite and goes their own way instead. But, in this environment, it fit perfectly. The priest didn't stay still during the entire homily. He wandered all over church in an effort to make eye contact with every person there. It reminded me that I've become too accustomed to using notes for my homily. It's so much more effective if I don't. I need to work on that.

So, this weekend, I made an effort to write out my homily beforehand (though I still haven't put it here) and just look people in the eye while I was preaching. I haven't got that much reaction to a homily in a long time. I really need to make this a reality.

Being in the right place at the right time...

It's been two and a half weeks since I last celebrated a mass. I'm not bragging. I'm a little ashamed, to be honest. I've concelebrated several masses in those two and a half weeks, almost daily in fact. It's really odd, however, to go that long without celebrating a mass for people. It's rather unnerving, to be honest.

This past Sunday, I took a group of students to two churches in the Twin Cities. I sent one group to St. Agnes. It was their matronal feast and I guess they have switched from celebrating the current mass in Latin to the mass as it would have been celebrated prior to 1965. The students loved it. They were in awe. They said it was like heaven and earth touched and that they felt at home.

Two years ago, when I did this same type of experience, I sent the students to a rather liberal catholic church. The students were...let's call it upset. Angry would be closer to what they were. Unfulfilled at what had taken place. So, this year, I decided to take them to the black catholic church in the cities, St. Peter Claver. I brought them into this church the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day and two days before President Obama took the oath of office. The liturgy was good. The priest's homily was spectacular. But, what hit me was that I was praying with people who have had a lot of reasons to feel betrayed and ashamed of how they have been treated by this country. But, for some there, they were going to feel as proud of this country as they ever have before. And, they were letting me be a part of that healing. It really was a honor to give peace to people there knowing that it means something different for them. It was a dream for the man whose martyrdom they celebrate the next day and a hope fulfilled for the man who was today elected.

Sorry for the long absence

I'm on retreat right now after going to a week-long conference. That's why I haven't blogged in a while. I'm hoping that things will return to normal next week.

Good news of great joy

Dear Brothers and sisters in Christ

“For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests.”

This verse from the book of the prophet Isaiah resonates deep into our soul this night of heavenly peace. We celebrate a birthday unlike any other. For most people, we only celebrate the birthdays of the living. After their death, we have a different day to remember them by. Yet, for this “Wonder-Counselor”, this “appearance of the glory of our great God and savior”, this savior born in the lineage of David, we continue the praises that began with the songs of angels to shepherds some 2000 years ago. This Son will be remembered for his life and so, each year, we feel compelled to remember when first God and Mary gave the world its redeemer.

We need to take this time because it will soon be over. It seems to me like these next two weeks pass with the speed of Santa’s reindeer. So much preparation goes into tomorrow. The children need to behave, or at least they’ll do so when mom and dad remind them that Santa’s watching. We all will (hopefully) get to sleep in heavenly peace this night but, before the last present is unwrapped, we have already started putting away the Christmas decorations that have been out since Thanksgiving day. We start our plans for New Years eve…just one short week away. Do we want to have the cheese dip in the crock pot all night and spend all New Year’s Day soaking it to get it clean? Did we remember to get a babysitter for the kids? Then, before we know it, it’s all over and the kids are still at home on their winter break while the rest of us go back to work. Or, worse yet, the kids go back to their normal lives with their own family and we remember, with fondness, that there used to be something different about this time of year, something that just isn’t different any more because we’re older. We need this night to be different.

I think of this tonight as we read this most famous passage of the birth of Christ. This passage has been immortalized by such great readers as Raymond Burr, Stephen Colbert, and even Charlie Brown. It has been dissected by scientists to prove or disprove its historical reality. But, at its core, the evangelist is trying to tell us something larger than scientific news. He’s telling “good news of great joy.” Mary and Joseph make the 90 mile trek from Nazareth in the Galilee region south to the miniscule city of David that is Bethlehem. They were going there because it was Joseph’s home town. This should have been a time of rejoicing. In a time in which travel was difficult, especially because they weren’t a family of wealth so they would have had jobs that demanded they stay in close to home, the fact that fancy pants Joseph is coming home with the woman he intends on marrying should have meant that everyone is putting on their Sabbath best and getting the best room in the house ready for their arrival. But, because of the census, everyone is coming home, all sixteen children of the sixteen children of the sixteen children. This town of limited space and resources suddenly is overpopulated such that the entire house, even the equivalent of a garage, would have been necessary for occupancy. That’s really where Joseph and Mary found themselves sleeping, in a room reserved for the animals since the rest of the house was taken. And, of course, this is when all the elements came together for the birth of Jesus. Mary wraps her son in straps of cloth and takes a deep pride in her newborn son.

Meanwhile, somewhere close by, the working stiffs of the world who had no idea what was happening, were informed by angels that they should be the first to visit the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. One wonders why the angels appear to them? These aren’t the mighty and powerful of this world. They also aren’t the poorest of the poor. They’re hardworking, middle-class folks that take a shower after work, not before. Jesus is literally surrounded by them this night in his parents, his extended family and, now, because of the message of angels, the shepherds.

It seems as though, throughout his ministry, he had a special affinity for them and people like them. He called hard-working fishermen to be his first disciples. He scorned the rich and powerful who were far too comfortable in this life calling them hypocrites. He looked with love upon the poor but never told his followers that it was their job to get rid of poverty. In fact, at points, he seemed to indicate that there will always be poor people. It’s almost as though Jesus knows that the ones who are most open to his message are the ones who most need to slow down their lives and get a view of the larger picture, the ones most in need of a Sabbath rest. The shepherds could easily get so fixated on protecting their sheep that they lose the sense of wonder and awe. Joseph’s family were so concerned with finding places for everyone and keeping everyone fed, that they lost their sense of charity. That’s the amazing thing about preoccupation: It makes it easy to neglect something important. When the chaos subsides and before you take down the decorations, take a minute or two and remember one thing. This is not a birthday party for a long-dead loved one that we just can’t quite stop remembering. This Christ mass is the birthday of the savior of the world whose birth was foretold by prophets and announced to common shepherds. It is a time for us to pause and give thanks to the God who came into this world to personally show us his love. I pray that each of you feel the song of praise the angels sang so long ago, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to those on whom is his favor rests!” May God bless each of you this Christmas Season!

The role of conscience in being a catholic on good standing.

This question is, oftentimes, raised regarding several “hot button” moral issues including abortion, gay marriage, war, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc. The classic example of this is a politician who claims to have a well-formed conscience who is told by his bishop that he cannot receive Holy Communion because he legislates contrary to a church teaching. Is the church trying to impair the politician from freely doing his job? Is the bishop justified in stating that the politician’s actions have excommunicated him? The easy answer to both questions is: It depends. The difficulty comes in defining on what circumstances it depends.

First off, I feel like I need to clarify a few terms. What do we mean by “informed conscience”? One can find a great definition of a conscience in the Catechism of the Catholic Church #’s 1776-1802. To abbreviate the content of those paragraphs, the conscience is “present at the heart of a person” to help guide a person in making moral decisions. Without the conscience, a person would not be culpable for his or her actions because it would be impossible to know right from wrong. A person spends a lifetime forming his or her conscience. The Word of God is key to the formation of conscience, though the church does not restrict the Word of God to just the Bible. The Bible is part of the larger Word of God but, ultimately, “We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.”

So, in some ways, a fully formed conscience could not be in conflict with church teaching on issues on which the church has definitively decided, since it is what guides the formation of conscience. There are times in which a person, through no fault of his or her own, may not have a fully formed conscience. If the person was incapable, at the time of occurrence, of knowing what the teaching of the church was, they cannot be held accountable. Also, related to this, there is the prospect that a person is in the process of growing deeper in his or her understanding and is simply not to the point of learning (let alone accepting) a church teaching. In those cases, it’s possible that someone hasn’t yet had the church’s teaching on same-sex marriage or euthanasia explained to them or may have had an inadequate explanation. The person has an informed conscience but is ignorant of church teaching. Of course, it is the responsibility of the individual to seek out the full explanation of church teaching and not simply rely on ignorance as a rationale for not obeying the church.

Having said all of the above, there is room for legitimate disagreement with church authority if the church has not definitively stated a position on something or if the application of moral principles in a given situation is not entirely clear. For example, it is not legitimate to say that you wholesale disagree with the church’s teaching on abortion but are still a catholic in good standing. The church has been consistently clear that abortion violates the law of love and the dignity of the human person. But, if a pregnant woman has uterine cancer and would die without removing it, there is room for legitimate moral disagreement. Some moral theologians say that you are justified in removing the cancerous uterus since you are preserving the life of the mother and not intending on committing an abortion. Others disagree and say abortion is, nonetheless, an indirect result of the action and, therefore, it should not be taken. Oftentimes, the application of moral principles in complex situations is where moral theologians will disagree.

To know if something has been definitively decided, one should look toward the Catechism of the Catholic Church and official church statements. And, remember, not every statement that a priest, bishop or educated lay person makes is definitive. As a priest, I can tell you that I have very often been saddened by priests who either are unwilling to teach what the church teaches on tough moral teachings or who seem to believe that every statement they make is definitive.

A first

I had to cancel the one mass I was supposed to preach at this morning because we're having extremely cold temperatures here in Iowa. I was going to preach about Mary and her important role in salvation history. I hope to slightly change it for my Christmas homily so I don't want to put it here, yet. But, I hope to have an answer I gave in my bulletin to a question of ethics and morals and such.

prop 8 the musical

Hollywood has thrown in it's hat on the California gay marriage initiative. They released a video that you can watch here. It's really silly and totally filled with flawed logic. Here's the logic...

The world was happy when Obama was running.
The religious folks of this country convinced the world to hate gays when it was most happy.
But, if we hate gays because of the Bible, they need to implement the whole bible in the most literal fashion possible.
Jesus doesn't want that. If you pick and choose, choose love and not hate (love being defined as allowing other people to do whatever they want to one another as long as they're consenting).
And, we all should want gay marriage because it will make money.

I was initially annoyed that we were being lumped in as fundamentalist. The attacks on Catholicism in the "religious" group was obvious. There was a guy wearing a clergy shirt and a woman who made the sign of the cross. But, we aren't fundamentalist. We hold to a central teaching authority that interprets scripture. That's different from picking and choosing. Both catholicism and mormonism have that central teaching authority by the way.

Further, the illustration that they use (shell fish are forbidden in the Old Testament so you shouldn't eat them) is debunked in the new (Luke 10:8 "Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you" and 1 Corinthians 10:25-27 "Eat anything sold in the market, without raising questions on grounds of conscience, for "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's." If an unbeliever invites you and you want to go, eat whatever is placed before you, without raising questions on grounds of conscience.")

Lastly, what does it say that we allow gay people to marry because they'll spend money? To me, that's like saying that we should allow women to become priests because there's a shortage or allow priests to marry because there is a shortage. It's like, "okay, now that we're desperate, we'll allow just about anyone to do this." We need money! I like making money! Allow gay people to get married and I'll make money for my church. I could charge an arm and a leg for gays to use my church to get married.

In the end, it's a video that's getting a lot of positive press coverage but I think it needed a little more thought coverage.

liturgy done poorly

To celebrate mass is to do liturgy. Liturgy is a prescribed, ritualistic, prayer form. Usually, liturgy is very old or has roots in centuries old action.

I just did a communal penance. This is a relatively new liturgy, having been basically created at the Second Vatican Council as an alternative to what most people would call confession or individual penance and reconciliation. You have readings and music and then have an individual time to confess to a priest.

The problem with what just happened was that it was awful. Some places had a start time of 7:00 and other 7:30 so we went with the 7:30 start time. I forgot to tell the priests of the differing start times so they all showed up at 7:00. Ugh. And a congregation of about 12 were here then too. I thought about starting and just having the folks who came at 7:30 just get in line when they got there but that didn't seem to make sense. The 7:30 time was on several places. And then I just did the communal part poorly. I forgot the act of contrition and our father, for instance. I decided to "try something new"...at least new for us...of having people leave after having confessed their sins and doing their penance.

So, I started promptly at 7:30 and apologized for the time confusion. We read the readings and I preached. Then, I should have had them quietly reflect on the examination of conscience before praying the Act of Contrition and Our Father together. After that, I would have had the individual part of the ritual. Instead, after the homilet (very short reflection on the readings) I skipped the Act of Contrition (aka, the matter of the sacrament!) and the Our Father and went right to the individual penance. I realized it when the first confessor came forward to me. There was, however, no going back and not chance to do what we had forgotten since they left immediately after.

The good thing was that I had a homily prepared about not taking too seriously the rough spots of life, not getting so upset that we lose perspective. I even used that in one of the two apologies I gave. I made a mistake. It was the worst liturgy I've celebrated since becoming a priest. In a year, I'll have forgotten it. Heck, in a month I'll have forgotten it. But, the forgiveness that happened in the midst of it, the love people felt because of God, THAT will hopefully be remembered forever.

GOOD NEWS!!!

This past weekend, I noticed the word evangelium, or good news/gospel present in the first reading and gospel. In the first reading, it came after 39 chapters of warning: stop sinning! It's all your fault that we are in the straits we are. Then, the heavenly host tell Isaiah that he can stop being the prophet of doom and gloom and start giving them comfort. They, in turn, will preach good news. In the gospel of Mark, the author cites this passage and refers to the message he's going to give as that good news. I talked about how things aren't as bleak as we make them out to be. There is good news at Sts. Peter and Paul parish. The religious education is doing well both in terms of numbers and in terms of the content. The parish is doing okay financially. And we are keeping out eyes focused on being proactive for our parishioners by purchasing a defibrillator in case someone has a heart problem. I then said that, ultimately, as Christians, we take heart in good news because it reminds us of he who is Good News, Jesus Christ whose coming taught us the meaning of good news.

I had a man who never comments on the homily tell me he was very appreciative of hearing good news with all the bad news that is out there. That was good news to me.

Pushing Daisies

One day, I was looking up a few things on youtube, specifically anything with an actress named Kristen Chenowith. I came across a show called Pushing Daisies in which she sang a song. I looked up the show, figuring that it would have been years old and long-since canceled, only to discover that it's actually new and not (at that time) cancelled. I watched the Pie-lette episode (as it was called) and found it to be an interesting idea for a show. It's about a boy that discovers he can bring someone back from the dead for one minute, any longer and someone else will take their place. He can awaken them by touching them and put them back to death by touching them. It's one of those shows that adults can watch and snicker and little kids can watch and snicker but teenagers shouldn't watch it because of the sophisticated humor. I started watching the show through last season, the one that was interrupted by the writer's strike and looked forward to having a good, extremely colorful show to watch.

And then I found out that ABC has pulled the plug. I don't know how many episodes more they will do but I can guarantee that I'll miss it when it's gone. Which is weird when you think about it. It's not at all theological. It's just a story about a boy, a girl he brought back to life that is his childhood sweetheart but he can't touch or she'll die and a girl who's madly in love with him but he doesn't love back. And pies. I don't think ABC will bring it back or anything if I get everyone to watch it. The actors probably have new shows they're all involved with. But, I'm going to miss them telling this one.

Shhhh! Watch!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

Most of you are probably aware of the tragic events that took place in a department store in Long Island, New York on Friday. In case you hadn’t, on the day after Thanksgiving, a day that is almost synonymous with shopping in this country, a scenario of pandemonium erupted as approximately 2000 people waited to enter one of those discount mega-shopping stores. The crowd eventually ran out of patience for the employees to open the doors so they decided to break them down instead. When an employee tried to control them, they simply pushed him down and, literally, walked all over him. The mob of people that stepped on him eventually killed him. Now, I’m sure that there were more terrible things that happened that day in the world. All we have to do is look at Mumbai, India and the terrorist activities that happened there to see one example. To be honest, there was probably even more tragic things that happened in New York that day. What is it about this particular news item that merited the full coverage of every nation-wide news network in this country?

I have a feeling that, at part, it has to do with the sympathy effect. In other words, we can all pretty much sympathize with this poor employee getting trampled. So many of us shop on that day that store accountants hope it will make their books go from being in debt, or being in the red, to being profitable, or black. That’s why they call it Black Friday. And, I imagine that another reason why this is such a universally covered story is because it’s similar but not quite the same as you experienced. I imagine that, if you were one of the people who woke up at 5:00 in the morning to stand in line, you experienced some rude, pushy people that had to get that bargain. But, hopefully, no one was so rude and no mob so unruly that anyone got hurt. That’s the way most people deal with having to wait. We might not like it, but, still, we keep our passions in check as we grit out teeth and wait. That’s what keeps us waiting at that light at the corner of Lincoln Way and Ash, even though no one is coming and it seems to take forever to change. That’s what keeps us from pushing everyone out of the way when we’re standing in the back of a long line at a movie theater five minutes before the movie starts. For some things, we can be patient. The trouble comes when our patience runs out and we feel pressed to do something.

That’s the way Isaiah the prophet is feeling today. In our first reading, the prophet expresses frustration at the seeming absence of God. “Return of the sake of your servant! Cut open the heavens and come down. Do mighty things that our ancestors didn’t see you do. There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt.” The prophet feels frustrated and doesn’t know how to feel close to God again. You can almost hear the stages of grief as he goes through this…or at least the first four of them. One has to wonder what would cause a prophet to despair, a man whose job was to tell the people that they have gone too far from God and need to turn from their sin and return to God’s love. Has the pressure just become too much for him? Have the people forgotten God completely, so much so that they have forfeited salvation? The message of the prophet is clear, “RETURN! Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.” Come back God, We miss you and the longer you are gone, the less your people miss you. Come back before they don’t care anymore.

The answer to this comes in the gospel, a gospel that is translated on bumper stickers as, “God is coming! Look busy!” But, it’s much more profound than that. This gospel shouldn’t be a fear-based message as some preachers have made it. It should be an incredibly hopeful message about patience in waiting. In some ways, Jesus is explaining what this world is all about, waiting for something better. Waiting for a place in which suffering, pain and death have been destroyed. Waiting for a leader that will put the folks who are in charge now to shame. Waiting for the fulfillment of the grace we receive by being part of the church; in her sacraments and the other spiritual gifts that St. Paul talked about in the second reading.

Today, we begin this season of waiting, a season that tests our patience and forces us to sit still. As I said before, we know we can do it. That’s not the issue. The question is: “Are we willing”. Are we patient enough to wait to watch our favorite show because mom or dad wants to talk to us? Are we patient enough to sit down and give ourselves some quiet time to reflect on the person we are becoming? Are we patient enough to wait in line to experience the sacrament of reconciliation and learn again about God’s forgiveness? We know we can do it. The question is: Will we do it? Or are we not patient enough?

Thanksgiving Day Homily

It wasn't great but it wasn't awful either....

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ

This year, Pope Benedict asked us to focus on St. Paul in our prayer and studies. As I reflected on these Thanksgiving Day mass’ readings, it seemed most appropriate to do so. After all, St. Paul is, by far, the most prolific New Testament writer to use the word “thanks” in one form or another. He uses it a total of 42 out of the 67 times it appears in the New Testament, which works out to being about 63% of the time it is used. Paul uses it in every one of his works except Galatians, where he is far too angry to use it, and Titus, which seems more like a grocery list Paul left for Titus one day than a letter he intended to be kept for posterity.

The letter we heard during the second reading, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, contained 11 uses of this word, although, to be honest, Paul is actually using three different words when he does so. But, all can legitimately be translated thanks in english. First Corinthians is rather unique in the 11 times St. Paul uses thanks. Romans uses the term 7 times, followed by 2 Corinthians and Colossians, both of which use the term 5 times. So, it seems to make sense that if we want to understand what Paul means by thanks in order to help inform us at this celebration, we chose the right book to do so.

In our second reading, we heard Paul do one of his traditional “thanksgiving” sections which he uses to introduce a letter. We hear them so often that we may become kind of numb to what he is really saying. He begins, not with “Dear Fr. Dennis. How’s it going? I am fine…” the traditional beginning to our letters. He starts by introducing himself and saying who he is writing to. Next he gives a greeting similar to what we use at mass, “Grace and peace in God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ….” When that is done, Paul begins to introduce his subject matter in the Thanksgiving part. In the first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul gives thanks that they are not lacking in any spiritual gift. It seems that, despite the presence of incredible spiritual gifts such as prophecy, healing, and tongues, the people in Corinth had forgotten that everything that they have is a gift from God. Corinth had allowed their lives to be ruled by sexual excesses, by sports, and by religious pluralism. On a day that has become synonymous with excess food, sports, and areligiosity, this message should hit home with us pretty hard. Paul is going to confront this over and over again in this letter by reminding his listeners of their need to give thanks for the spiritual gifts they have received. Since we don’t speak Greek, we kind of lose what Paul is saying. The words “give thanks” and “spiritual gift” are related “eucharista” and “charis”, the one word is the heart of the other. Paul emphasizes this idea of a gift needing to be thanked over and over again in his message. He connects it to service of neighbor, to speaking in tongues, and to the Eucharist. He seeks to cultivate a thankful heart in the community he is forming in this church because God gives spiritual gifts to those who give thanks to him.

So, on this Thanksgiving Day, it is a good day to take stock of all the many gifts we have received, as so many have as a part of their tradition. And, as we do, let us give thanks to the Lord, our God for it is right to give him thanks and praise.

What have we done for the least ones?

A few years ago, I had the privilege of going to Conception Abbey in Conception, Missouri to spend some time learning what it means to be a monk. One of the moments that really impressed me was dinner. In the refectory, the monks sit quietly while one monk reads part of a book to them. They read the same book for several weeks at a time in order to read its entirety, although you’d be surprised at how many pages you make it through in the course of a half-hour meal. There is no talking during the meal but there is plenty of communication. In fact, the challenge I found was to eat, listen to what was being read, and pay attention to the needs of the monks surrounding you. You see, on each table there was the typical one salt shaker, one pepper shaker, one sugar bowl, and a container of sugar substitutes as well as one pitcher of water. These were to be shared with everyone sitting at the table but we had to do so without talking. So, the monks developed a series of hand signals to ask for the particular accessory to their meal. In a sense it was an ingenious way to get around the lack of verbal communication. But, it demanded that each person pay attention to the people around them and not simply put their face in their plate and ignore the other forty men sitting in that room.


The gospel today is one of the most challenging gospel passages we Americans hear. This gospel holds that, in the end, we will not be judged by what we acquire or how good shape we are in. It says that we will be judged by how well we have taken care of the least in this world. The first reading was a little more indirect about the message, in a sense, by stating that, when God comes to judge us, he will take care of the people who are the weakest. He will be like a shepherd who sees his flock and immediately goes to the injured and sick to take care of them. It reminded me of a mother who comes home from a hard day at work to a sick child. She loves all her children equally, but is probably going to go directly to the sick kid’s room to find out how bad her child feels. This makes perfect sense to me. What didn’t make sense to me was a verse towards the end of the reading. After this long passage in which the Lord is gathering the lost sheep, caring for the sick, and finding us food, it says, “…but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.” What? At the judgment, God is going to destroy those who are sleek and strong? I’m may be in trouble! I need to go on a diet! I need to get sick! There was part of me that wondered if the prophet had taken the analogy a little too far. I mean, who gets slaughtered on a farm: the sickly runts of the litter or the fat, mature animals? But that doesn’t entirely help us understand what God is trying to get across to us in this passage. For that explanation, you have to turn to the gospel.


In it, we hear about the sheep and the goats. The sheep were the ones who cared for the little ones while the goats are the ones who only cared for themselves. It seems like the “sleek and strong” got so at the expense of the weakest among them. The goats took advantage of situations and were well provided for while the poor sheep were not at all taken care of. I think of this as we begin the Advent season and our country begins Christmas shopping season. I ran across a website the other day called advent conspiracy dot org. If you go to that website, you’ll come across the staggering figure that Jesus statement about people being thirsty and needing water is still true in several countries of this world. It would cost 10 billion dollars to fix, a figure that seems astronomical, until you think that Americans have spent, on average, 450 billion dollars for Christmas gifts in the past and we have given over 700 billion to different business in this country in order to bail them our of fiscal difficulties. Imagine the outrage that we, Americans, would feel if it was announced that we were going to use 10 billion dollars to go overseas and build wells for communities so they will have clean, drinkable water and train people locally how to do that as well. How do you think people would respond?

And, yet, we don’t have to look to other countries to find the marginalized of society. I have a feeling that we can find them right here in our midst. That’s partially why we will be celebrating the anointing of the sick in a few moments. This sacrament is one of two that is entirely for those who aren’t sleek or strong, along with the sacrament of reconciliation. Fr. Pat and I will soon invite those of you who are sick, those who will soon be receiving surgery, and those of a certain age to come forward and receive this sacrament. By doing this in this liturgy, we hope that you will feel the support of the entire body of Christ and know his healing. I encourage each of you not receiving this sacrament, to take time after mass to reach out in support of these people who need our love and support.

In the end, we will be judged on how we treated each other, Have we actually lived out the faith we profess or simply used it on Sunday and not carried it with us when we live our daily lives. Or, to put it another way, do we ever look around and see the people who are hurting or are we too busy focusing on our own plate, on the task at hand, to even care about the people around us?

What can we say about homosexuals?

Since the defeat of gay marriage in California, I have continually be confronted by people who want me to legitimate some sort of relationship status for gays and lesbians. I don't see any room in church teaching for such a statement, to be honest. Other than the idea that violence and cruelty are never allowed and that a person deserves his wage, I just don't see an authentic spirituality of civil unions emerging.

But, is that right? Do we need to have something more positive. For instance, do we want to flesh out the type of celibate chastity expected for homosexuals. Can we put a theology behind it? Can we connect the celibate chastity of a homosexual to the cross? Do we want to distance ourselves from the evangelical view of homosexuality being a choice that can be undone? I, personally, think we do. I think many evangelicals simply replace same-sex lust and objectification with opposite sex.

I'm starting to see a possible role I could play in articulating a theology of homosexuality that is true to church teaching. I could also see myself being excommunicated for trying to do so...hmmmm...maybe I should just keep my mouth shut.