Pray for the Pope

The whole church tonight is thinking about the pope. We have divisions and squabbles some of which come from this Pope. But tonight we are thinking about the same thing, the Pope and his health. What a fitting time, so close to Easter, for us to be united about anything.

Easter Homily

Happy Easter Everyone! What an incredible end to the last three days that we celebrate today! Some of you may not know that this celebration is really bringing the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Holy Thursday, to a close. That’s alright if you didn’t know that this was the end of the Holy Thursday mass, you are all welcome here at Holy Trinity whenever you come!
At the Holy Thursday mass we read the gospel of John’s account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and I, in turn, washed some of your feet. The last thing that happens that night is not our traditional blessing and dismissal but a procession to an altar of repose with the Blessed Sacrament so that we might stay with Jesus in the garden for a few moments. Then, the next day, we remember Good Friday. We read that passion according to St. John that ends with Jesus burial. This is the only day of the year that we do not have mass. An ancient homily on Holy Saturday said, said, “Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.”
Today, we complete the three days by, once again hearing from the gospel of John, though this time about Jesus’ followers’, Peter, Mary Magdalene, and the Beloved Disciple, and their reaction to the empty tomb. It made me think of my time in Jerusalem. I spent three and half months in Israel in the Fall of the year 2000. I was excited to hear on the news this past week that the violence that has marred that region is finally calming to the point that pilgrims are able to return. I imagined thousands of visitors excitedly filling the Church of the Holy Sepulcher only to find the dark divided monstrosity of a building that I found when I was there. It was crazy to discover that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, arguably the holiest site in all of Christianity, the very place that Jesus died on the cross and rose from death, the church the covers the place that Peter, Mary and the Beloved disciple ran to see the empty tomb is often the place where different Christian groups bicker over what can and cannot be done. You see, the church is divided among five groups of Christians; the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, the Coptic Orthodox, the Syrian Jacobites, and the Gregorian Armenians. And, on top of all these, the Ethiopian Orthodox have an area right outside the front door and the Lutherans have a church next door. Yet, in the midst of this chaos of scheduling who can perform a liturgy at what time, the Catholic Church has continually celebrated the very mass that we are celebrating today, the mass of Easter, which seems to make sense since there is so much chaos surrounding the first Easter day, as we heard in the gospel today.
I imagine a lot of people visiting the church of the Holy Sepulcher can echo the words of Mary Magdalene in the midst of such chaos, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put him.” We have probably all had experiences in our lives when the presence of God was not easily felt and contentment was far from our heart. That’s what happens with death, we don’t find peace. It may be the literal death of a loved one or the loss of a job or house or church; all of these are difficult things to have to endure. Our life seems out of control. This is what Mary is feeling in today’s gospel. She has lost the person she has grown to love and trust so deeply. And, now she seems to not only have lost him in death but it seems to her that someone has taken the one thing that she did have, his body. She runs to the leader, Peter, who runs to the tomb and sees the exact thing that Mary has seen. The difference is that instead of not believing, Peter sees in the neatly folded burial shroud and wrapped up head cloth, not grave robbery but the evidence that our Lord has risen. He doesn’t know how or when but he knows that he will see the Lord again and so he leaves the tomb prepared to do so. So our story seems to revolve around Mary Magdalene, the one without faith, and Peter, the one with.
Then, there is this other guy, this beloved disciple, this nameless, faceless, person that, I believe, is the gospel writers invitation to us all. You see, I believe that, even though this literally is John, he wants us to put ourselves in his shoes at this chaotic scene. He wants us to imagine running beside Peter outside the safe protection of the city walls to a graveyard early in the morning. He wants us to look inside an empty tomb and come to believe. We do so all the time, after all. Unlike Peter from the first reading, we weren’t witnesses. We weren’t there when they crucified my Lord, let alone when they buried him in the tomb or when he rose up from the dead. We are, historically, far removed from the empty tomb with the burial shroud inside. We are the beloved disciple today. Will we look to the evidence and follow Mary’s lead by not believing or will we be the disciple that Jesus loves and have faith, even if we don’t entirely understand exactly how it’s all going to play out in the end? Will we live our lives, to use Paul’s imagery, thinking of what is above not what is on earth? Can we be the beloved disciple?

Holy Saturday

This has been a very unusual two days for me. I don't think I've ever had a time when my life went from frantic to tranquil in the course of a number of hours. I was meeting with people and traveling all over on Wednesday and then Thursday the bottom basically dropped out and there was nothing pressing to do. I've been unusually able to reflect on the purpose for these three great days in the church's year and able to pray and watch. What a great ending to what was, otherwise, a very hectic Lent. I hope to be better about writing here in Easter.

Paschal Triduum

Today the church takes sometime to reflect on the most tragic event in human history, the death of a Galilean Jew 2000 years ago. Everything is right for reflection in Iowa. The snow is falling in what will probably be the last snowfall of the year. It falls to the ground and almost instantly turns to water. It's almost as though the cold dark winter is in its death throws right before our eyes and the warming rays of the sun are overpowering it all. God is using his creation to help the creatures he created in his own image and likeness to understand that sin is also in its death throws because of the Son who died on the cross.

Instead of my homily

As you may have noticed, for the past few weekends I've been posting my homily for the weekend on my blog. But, this weekend wasn't very good. So, instead, I have something for you to ponder. The Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation says of God, "...in the midst of conflict and division, we know it is you who turn out minds to thoughts of peace..." For me, this is a profound reminder that God is not a dispassionate force that created us and lets us do our thing. God is also very close to us trying to make us understand that to be like him means we must love.

A nice surprise

A generation ago the word adoration would have met only one thing. Today, we don't necessarily have the same understanding worship as we did then. I've even heard some seminary professor's refer to adoration as "cookie worship", an incredibly offensive simplification of a pious reflection on the central mystery of Christian worship. So, I imagine my seminary professors wouldn't like to think that today all eight grades of children at Holy Ghost school came over to church to spend a few moments in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Imagine, if you can, coming into church and seeing an entire class of fifth graders sitting quietly in prayer. That was what I encountered this morning at 11:30 when I went over the church to pray. It was incredible. We are hoping to do it once a month and my hopes are that the fruits are both an increased respect for the Blessed Sacrament as well as a transformation of the children at school. It will only happen, however, if God wants it so I'll just have to keep praying.

The story of the man born blind

On one of my recent trips to give blood at the Red Cross, I started watching the movie Ray about the life of Ray Charles. Before I go any further, I feel like I need to make it clear that this movie is one that is best viewed by more mature audiences. It’s good, but it’s not something children should go to. But, I’ll keep my descriptions clean in this homily. We’ve probably all have heard a song by the great blind entertainer Ray Charles. Whether it is “Georgia on my Mind” or his tear-jerking version of “America the Beautiful” or any of his other great songs, we’ve heard them and tapped our knee to them and maybe even sang along to them. I’d never thought, however, that Ray Charles wasn’t just born into stardom. He had to struggle, especially given his physical disability. What Ray had going for himself is that his mother was the type of person that forced him to not be completely dependant on others. He had to figure out how he was going to get from one place to another without holding on to someone’s arm or using some other device. In fact, there’s a great scene in the movie where Ray remembers as time when he was walking into his house, presumably shortly after he became blind as a child, and he falls on the ground. He starts crying and calling for his mother who is standing just a few short feet away. But, she doesn’t move a muscle to help up her son. Instead, through tear stained eyes, she quietly watches as he quits crying and picks himself up off the ground, just like any good parent has to learn how to do with their own children.

The theme for today’s readings, in case you hadn’t discovered it, is coming into the light. Paul remarks that, as Christians, we are called to be people of the light. Notice that Paul didn’t say that we are to be people in the light. Paul said that we are to be people of the light not of darkness. I think this helps to shed some light on the Gospel, which is the great story of the blind man who can see while the Pharisees, who should be able to see, turn a blind eye to the reality of Jesus. In other words, this man who was born blind but is healed by Jesus, slowly grows to faith in the gospel. At first, he just knows Jesus’ name. Then he calls Jesus a prophet. Next he says that Jesus comes from God. Lastly, when called by Jesus, he comes to full faith and becomes a full disciple of the Lord. The Pharisees, on the other hand, had full use of their sight. They were the intellectuals who could read the scriptures and know what they said. But, when presented with the actions of one from God, they seek to undermine Jesus by getting proof that he sinned…that he healed on the Sabbath. God forbid that we should do something good on the Sabbath. They were blind to the possibility that there could be someone who could interpret the word of God more fully than they could because he was himself the word of God. But, the final challenge Jesus gives to these Pharisees is one that affects us today: are they willing to give up trying to wrap up God in a neat little comfortable package in order to hear the voice of the Lord who is calling them to new sight. Are we?

Let me give you one example: so much of the time that I talk to someone who either is considering leaving the church or has already left, I ask them why. Sometimes they say that they were affected by a priest in a bad way; either he preached on a topic that they didn’t like or he constantly preached about money or something more insidious. But, most of the time, I find that people have stopped coming to mass because they say it’s boring. And I have no problem acknowledging that they are right. If you compare mass to most television shows or movies or plays, you will find that mass is boring. But, the point of mass is not to entertain. That’s looking at this in the wrong way. The point of mass is to remember the things that God has done to us and ask God to help us to live as he would want us to. The point of mass is to learn how to be people of light. If you come with this vision, the homily may stink, the priest may read the words to the prayers without much feeling, the music might be slow and out of tune, the lector might pronounce everything wrong; but none of that will matter because your heart will see through the performance to the reality that is underneath it all, Christ’s death, resurrection and offer of salvation.

Today we find ourselves laying on the ground crying out for our father to come come pick us up. Our father, however, is not going to do so, not because he doesn’t love us, but because he wants us to stop blindly walking around and to live as a child of the light.

Catechism part three: The Catechism and God comes to us

So far, I've been covering a lot of the background material of the catechism. Today, I may have three posts in order to catch my bloggers up with where my Sunday people are. I'm not promising anything. In this blog I'm going to summarize the contents of the Prologue and Part one Chapter one, paragraphs 1-49. I call this the Catechism and God comes to us. The catechism defines itself in paragraph 11 which states that "This catechism aims at presenting an organic synthesis of the essential and fundamental contents of Catholic doctrine, as regards both faith and morals, in the light of the Second Vatican Council and the whole of the Church's Tradition. Its principal sources are the Sacred Scriptures, the Fathers of the Church, the liturgy, and the Church's Magisterium. It is intended to serve 'as a point of reference for the catechisms or compendia that are composed in the various countries" The important concept, as far as I'm concerned, to understand that catechism is the word organic. This is not really dealing with flowers or farmers. The catechism is organic in three ways. It is interconnected. In other words, not only does it build on itself but you cannot understand the sacraments outside of the context of faith. You cannot understand the part on morality without having faith and the sacraments. And prayer makes no sense outside of a life of justice and faith or without the context of the prayer of the church, the sacraments. But, the catechism is organic to the extent that it also speaks to people in our different stages of life. So, a theologian will get things out of the catechism that a steel worker might not. But the steel worker might be concerned about things that the theologian is willing to quickly bypass. It speaks to us where we are at and is able to do that. But, lastly, it doesn't just leave us where we are but invites us to continue in our growth. This three ways, point to the organic nature of the catechism that will connect that essential contents of the Catholic faith. This organic nature will help us "hand (the good news) on from generation to generation by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer" as it says in paragraph three. This is the entire point of catechesis; to hand on the faith to other people.
But, before we hand on the faith, we have to first have the capacity to have faith ourselves. Paragraph 26 says, "We begin our profession of faith by saying: 'I believe' or 'We believe.' Before expounding the Church's faith, as confessed in the Creed, celebrated in the liturgy, and lived in observance of God's commandments and in prayer, we must first ask what "to believe" means. Faith is man's response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life." The first Vatican Council, despite being interrupted by the Italian Revolt, did release a document called Dei Filius that said man can come to a certain knowledge of God in nature. Even before we come to know the specific revelation in the scriptures or the living tradition of the church, God has put into us the capacity to know him. St. Augustine said it best when he said, "You are great, O Lord, and greatly to be praised: great is your power and your wisdom is without measure, and man, so small a part of your creation, wants to praise you; this man, though clothed with mortality and bearing the evidence of sin and the proof that you withstand the proud. Despite everything, man, though but a small part of your creation wants to praise you. You yourself encourage him to delight in your praise, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until is rests in you." Augustine is, basically, praising God for not only making us capable of realizing that God is present but for putting inside of us the desire to do so. Historically, according to the catechism, humanity has done this by attempting to prove the existence of God. It highlights two ways in particular; the world and the human person. The world says that, by discovering God as the origin and end of the world, we can come to know that God exists. The proof from the person one discerns a human soul that points to a divine soul. The human soul is, further, more perfect that animal souls. The problem is the human evil often intervenes to make it difficult to believe. More will be made of this in the upcoming sections since it tends to be a constant difficulty of believers. Why do bad things happen to good people? God has begun to answer this in his revelation, which I will talk about in part four.

The Woman at the Well

The first time I ever baptized a baby happened when I was still a seminarian. I was serving as a chaplain in Iowa Methodist Medical Center in Des Moines and was informed that a woman was going to be giving birth to a baby that would be extremely hydrocephalic. In other words, he would have water on the brain. I was even told that this little boy would be born with a lot of water and not a lot of brain. The situation was uncertain. He could come out stillborn. He could only live for a few moments. Or he could live for several days. I prepared myself for the worst and hoped for the best. When I arrived at the bedside of the woman, she had already given birth to her baby, little Malachi, and we went about baptizing the perfect appearing little man. As I performed this brand new ritual that is so different when you are actually doing it instead of having it done, I kept thinking that there are a million things that this mother could be doing with her child. She could be holding him and telling him how much he means to her. She could be inviting family and friends to see him. She could even have invited her children to see their little brother. But, instead, she wanted to be sure that he got baptized. She wanted to be sure that, despite everything that this little guy had going against him, she had the chance to pass on the faith that leads to eternal life to him just as she had done for his brother and sisters before.
I think of this story often as I more regularly baptize babies nowadays. In that circumstance, I did it in a case of emergency. Nowadays, I do it in the ideal circumstances. And, yet, there is a question that arises each time I baptize a baby. Why is it that this couple wants to do it? Why is it that the movement to “Let the child choose their own religion” never caught on in this country. Is it just because we are a people who stubbornly hold on to certain traditions? Is it just because grandmothers put their foot down about it? I think there’s something very profound that takes place in a baptism that is also taking place in the gospel.
Jesus’ encounter with this woman at this well is not all that astonishing. It’s a public well, after all. In order to get water in this town, you must go to this well. But, it would have been unheard of for a Jew to use a dirty Samaritan’s utensils to get the water. Samaritans were kind of “half-Jews”. They believed in the first five books of the Bible but then left off the Prophets and other writings. Plus, despite if their acknowledgement of those first five books, they weren’t all that observant of the rules present in them. They kind of did their own thing when it came to their faith. So, it made no sense for Jesus to ask water from this woman who was just as unclean as her religion. The only reason he does so is to help her to see her own thirs.
The Samaritan woman has had six husbands and is living with a seventh man who is not even her husband. She’s amazed that Jesus can see this in her. I imagine that this situation has been a roadblock to faith for her. Often, that’s what happens when we have a traumatic event happen to us, we lose our faith or find it difficult to grow in our relationship to God. We don’t know how this woman has had all these husbands: maybe they all died, maybe they all left her, maybe she left them. We simply do not know. What we do know is that Jesus is still going to call her to deeper faith by helping her get over the chasm she feels by her marital situation. He helps her realize that the differences between them don’t mean that God loves her less. It simply means that she must return to an even greater faith. Only when she returns in faith to her loving God can she, in turn, help others to faith.
We are all called to be disciples. We are, likewise, in different situations of life and different familiarity to God, our loving father. Yet, all of us, not just priests and nuns, are given the vocation to give people the living water of faith. This doesn’t mean that we are all called to baptize. Most of the time, it just means that we live our life as though out faith matters, as though the baptism that we received was an event that set us on track to eternal life. But, first, we must get rid of all of that stuff that prevents us from living our lives of faith. We must, like the woman in the story, come before an actual living person and confess our sins in order to be put right with God. It might be a priest instead of Jesus Christ himself but he will, nonetheless, help you once again to worship the Lord in Spirit and truth, just like Jesus did for this Samaritan woman. Be not afraid but, instead, return to the same God who put faith in our hearts at baptism.

Catechism part two

The worst thing about starting this series on the catechism is that I don't know when it will end. I hope to make this a companion to my series of sessions that I will be doing on Sunday nights. But, I also want to keep letting you all know about my life in the interim. But, with that said, here's a brief introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Catechisms rose to prominence during the time of the Protestant reformation. The largest single reason for this is the printing press. Prior to its invention, the primary means of communications was the spoken word. So, there are several "catecheses" from the early church until the protestant reformation that would have been spoken to newly initiated members of the church. Martin Luther was the first to use a question and answer form of catechism in educating people. The Council of Trent followed Luther with a catechism of its own, written largely by the brilliant theologian St. Charles Borromeo. This catechism was the basis for teaching priests from the fifteen hundreds until the second Vatican Council. It was different that Luther's catechism, however, in that it was prose without question. One person I've read referred to it as a series of answers without questions. After the council of Trent, a series of local catechisms that were particular to a region or country were written by scholars in an attempt to translate some of the teachings of the church into language the "common man" could understand. Two of these are particularly worth nothing: "The Sincere Christian" by Bishop George hay of Edinburgh, Scotland and The Catechism of the Synod of Maynooth by Bishop James Butler of Cashel, Ireland. These two documents were largely the basis for the Baltimore Catechism, a question and answer catechism that was the basis for Christian education during the first three quarters of the twentieth century. Some of you will remember answering such questions as "Who made the world?" Answer: God made the world. And so on.
By the time of the second Vatican Council, an update to the Catechism of the Council of Trent seemed to be important. However, the people present seemed less concerned about that than providing some guidelines for catechesis. However, a minority of bishop's, led by the cardinal archbishop of Krakow, Poland (who would later become Pope John Paul II). The General Catechecal Directory was released in 1971 and translated into English in 1978. Between 1971 and 1985, a series of bishop's meetings took place that seemed to show that catechesis in particular countries was still difficult. So, at a 1985 bishop's meeting, Bernard Cardinal Law (before he was simply known as the bishop that couldn't deal with sexually abusive priests) stated "I propose a commission of cardinals to prepare a draft of a conciliar catechism to be promulgated by the Holy Father after consulting the bishops of the world." Seven years, nine drafts, and two different committees later, the Pope was pleased to release the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This document, similar to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, is a prose document that is a sure norm for the faith. It's not all the highest (dogmatic) level of teaching in the church but it has all been supremely researched. In fact, after it was finished, a revision was almost immediately called for so that a new 1997 copy was made. Okay, that's enough for now. I'll get onto the Pope's statement about it and the prologue next time. Have a great day. Feel free to write and ask questions.

Catechism part one

A priest is not just a priest. That might sound contradictory but it's true. When a priest is ordained, he is to be a three things; priest, prophet and king. These three terms in a special way summarize what it means to share in the bishop's apostolic priesthood. Most of the time when you think of a priest, you think of that guy that says mass. That's understandable, since we tend to interact with most people at the holy celebration of the mass. But we are also to be leaders (king) and prophets. An associate, most often, is freed from the responsibilities of leadership in order to fully develop prophetic (teaching) ministry. Unfortunately, with a priesthood shortage, we often end up quickly neglecting the role of priestly leader and taking up the kingly role very quickly. This happened with a friend of mine. He was assigned to a parish and quickly discovered that he was going to be responsible for closing down one of the parishes. He's walked with the parishioners and patiently explained things but, I'm sure, all along he has thought to himself that this isn't what an associate pastor is supposed to do. I've been fortunately lately. I've been able to stay out of the administration, somewhat, and focus a little on my prophetic role. Last Wednesday, I spoke to the parents of the first communion children about the Eucharist and its role in the church. I held a few sessions about the various ministries associated with the Eucharist for the parishioners in Dubuque. And, most exciting, I've begun a series of sessions on the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I hope, beginning tomorrow, to spend a few lines writing on the catechism's teaching a couple of times a week. I'm sure it won't be boring but, if you do read this, feel free to send me comment about a question that you'd like me to address. God's blessings.

A good game of scrabble

Every once in a while, a young priest finds an outlet for his competitive/social life. On Friday nights, I go and play scrabble with a group of women from the parish. It challenges me to be creative and gives me a good outlet for conversation. I find that these moments are good for me to connect with people and to be reminded that I'm still a human being. I think we all need those people in our lives that stretch our intellects and feelings a little.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?

When I was in Israel, I became addicted to a song called "Something Stupid" which, I thought, was by Frank and Nancy Sinatra. In truth, it was redone by British singer Robbie Williams and Aussie Nicole Kidman. That was in the fall of 2000. For some reason, for the last several days, that's all I've wanted to hear. It's not a great song in terms of the message. In fact, the point of the song seems to be that, despite the fact that someone is not all that interested in you, still you remain infatuated with the person. St. Augustine said that sung prayer is praying twice, once with the words and once with the tune. I think this is a derivation of that. The words could be better but the tune just catches me and makes me smile. No profound truth here. Just a thought.

above all, follow the church

This week, the city of Dubuque paused to reflect on an issue. The Dubuque City Council voted on and defeated the issue of including sexual orientation to its list of actions that are considered illegal discrimination. It listed five areas; employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, and education, that would allow a homosexual man or woman to sue someone if he or she felt someone was discriminating against him or her. A task force, formed by the Dubuque civil rights sub-committee of the city council to study the issue, asked two of its members to come to a meeting of the priests of Dubuque in order to present the issue to us and ask for our support. We listened intently and heard a well reasoned and thought out argument in its favor. The presenters knew the church’s teaching on homosexuality, which is, basically love the person but the act is disoriented. They claimed they weren’t advocating a life-style but, instead, were seeking to ensure the God given dignity each of us have by being created in the image and likeness of God. They claimed that the legislation would merely be securing these five areas to ensure that gay people have a place to live, an education, and the opportunity to be able to earn a living. At the end of the presentation, before the active priests of the city could ask a single question, one retired, resolvedly politically conservative priest immediately said that this would lead to gay marriage and, basically, the fall of western society as we know it. It was almost as if he had researched a completely different subject, gay marriage, but didn’t really care that his criticism was blatantly not about the topic at hand. He did the research, he was going to present it. In the end, even though the priest said that he was advocating the official church’s position, since he was fighting against gay marriage and not against the actual amendment, he not only made himself look bad but the church as well. And, the real problem was that, despite the fact that he was completely void of any reasoning whatsoever, he was still closer to the truth than the well reasoned and logical pro-amendment folks who couldn’t see that their legislation could be used to ensure that someone flaunting their disoriented lifestyle could not be removed from an apartment, school, or job even if their employer believed flaunting a same-sex oriented relationship was contrary and detrimental to the mission of his or her school, job, or property.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A variation of this might be the road to sin is paved with well-reasoned arguments. This is not just a twenty-first century phenomenon, however. In truth, this has been with us for a long time. According to the book of Genesis, in fact, it has been with us from the very beginning. Adam and Eve were given a very short list of rules to govern the garden: don’t eat from the tree in the middle of the garden or you will die. All is, apparently, going well until the devil comes along, as the devil is apt to do, with a kind of confidence that makes his advice seem sage. “Did God tell you not to eat of all of these trees?” he asks, as though God would be as cruel as he is. “No, just the one in the middle of the garden. We can’t eat it or touch it” Eve added. She wanted to emphasize that it really is a taboo subject. But the devil is cleaver. He contradicts God’s law with the ultimate human temptation…selfishness. “God knows the moment you eat it you will be like gods.” he says. Well, who could turn that down? And so, they commit the original sin and find that they are suddenly afraid to show God the very bodies he molded out of clay for them. They gave into temptation to be like God because of a well-reasoned, logical argument by the prince of deception.
The irony is that it took one who had every right to claim to be “like God” to undo the arrogant disobedience of our first parents. Jesus avoids temptation three times in the gospel, despite being like Adam and Eve in all things but sin. He doesn’t turn stones into bread despite fasting for forty days and forty nights. He doesn’t invite angelic servants to do his bidding because he would abuse his own word of God. He doesn’t take charge of all the world’s governments because, in doing so, he would have worshipped the very arrogant disobedience that divides nations in war. Despite the well reasoned, tempting presentation similar to the one that tripped up our first parents, thank goodness that Jesus was able to turn it down.
And this is the dilemma of our time as well. Our culture and our government have theories that seem reasonable even though they fly in the face of the church and her teachings. and there are more issues than homosexuality. Our culture tells us that we need to have “safe sex” which puts enmity between man and woman by seeing one of the gifts that God put into sexuality, procreation, as a curse. And there are others. We are inundated with groups that seek to turn us away from the truth of Jesus Christ and his message to a well-reasoned, logical lie. As we enter into this Lenten season, it only makes sense that, before we turn back to God with all our hearts, we much first rid ourselves of those “well reasoned” “logical” things that took us away from God in the first place.

Prayer, fasting and almsgiving

These three things make up the central aspects of Lent. We are called to pray more. The Stations of the Cross, a prayer that traces fourteen scenes of "stations" between the conviction and crucifixion of Jesus, is a very popular one. People also go to daily mass, pray the rosary, or do some more personal types of praying. Fasting came up in the readings today and it prompted me to think about an aspect of fasting that is so often associated with the readings. Fasting is for something. We don't fast just to improve ourselves. We fast to improve our relationship with other people as well. Fasting is not just dieting. Fasting is avoiding something in order to use the time and resources to do that for something else. So, we avoid high priced meats on Fridays and ask people to eat simpler. Don't go to Red Lobster or buy expensive fish. Use the money you would have spent on a nice dinner for the poor. And on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, we are called to have one good meal and two meals that shouldn't equal the one big meal. Use the extra time you have to pray or visit an elderly relative. Or go and visit someone in prison. Or call that relative that doesn't have very much money and take them to lunch. The point is that God isn't calling us increase our pocketbooks by having simpler food. Nor is God calling us to eat healthier. Nor is God calling us to some weird menu item that we wouldn't otherwise try. God is calling us to stop caring so much about ourselves for a while and care about other people.

Ash Wednesday

"Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel"

or

"Remember, you are dust and unto dust you shall return"

Both of these phrases will be uttered by countless numbers of priests and lay people as they receive smudged crosses on their foreheads in penitence for the upcoming forty days of Lent. Are we crazy? Are we gluttons for punishment? Hardly! We are people who remind themselves once a year that we make mistakes. We are people who want to make up for those mistakes. The ashes are not outward signs as the Pharisees are criticized for displaying in the gospel. They are an outward statement of inward conversion that we are pledging to do for the next seven weeks of Lent (Forty days is seven weeks when you don't count Sundays - The Lord's Day!) Just like a team will wear matching jerseys so the members of the church begin with a matching smudge of dirt to remind us of one thing...nobody's perfect.

Light and salt

Is 58:7-10

Thus says the LORD:
Share your bread with the hungry,
shelter the oppressed and the homeless;
clothe the naked when you see them,
and do not turn your back on your own.
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your wound shall quickly be healed;
your vindication shall go before you,
and the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: Here I am!
If you remove from your midst
oppression, false accusation and malicious speech;
if you bestow your bread on the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted;
then light shall rise for you in the darkness,
and the gloom shall become for you like midday.

Finally caught up

Today really spoke a lot about the grandeur of God. It was beautiful outside. The sun was shining and the temperature was in the mid forties. We have too much snow on the ground to get any warmer. I cleared off the snow/ice that had caked onto our deck. All I could think was that it was nice to finally be outside. It was nice to be out in the clean air of Iowa. It seems that sickness is surrounding me. In the week and a half that I was in Texas, the flu was passed through the office here at Holy Ghost forcing almost everyone to stay in bed for a couple of days, including the pastor. I missed it. But, I did hear that our vicar general, Msgr. James Barta, was in the hospital with some heart complications. Plus, visible head of the church, Pope John Paul, was in the hospital. I was starting to get depressed. It’s amazing how the sun can put us in the right frame of mind. It’s amazing how the sun reminds us of the hope that the son puts into our hearts.

Back from Texas

After a week and a half of travel, I'm back in the great state of Iowa. Sorry that my postings were so infrequent in the past couple of weeks. I didn't have regular internet access and, when I did, I had to respond to parish emails and the like. I found my time in Texas, at points, to be a time of intense prayer and reflection. Generally, I would awake a couple of hours before I needed to be somewhere and pray and say mass privately. I was going to go to St. Mary's parish on the campus of the University of Texas A&M for daily mass but I decided that I needed a little time away from people. Those mornings would prompt a lot of prayer, especially these past few days for Pope John Paul. The tough thing about being a priest on vacation is that you are constantly worried about how things are going back in your parish. I imagine some business owners go through a similar situation but I'd prefer to think of it like a parent who leaves adult children. I kept wondering who died in my parishes and if someone answered the letters I sent out before leaving asking people to consider vocations to priesthood and religious life and what meetings I missed. I'm getting caught up on all that and, as usual, everything was handled well when I wasn't here. Now I just have to clear off my desk of tasks before I go to a meeting tonight. I taped the state of the union and hope to watch it before supper. So many tasks, so little time.

Reflecting on our own freedoms

What would it be like to live in Iraq right now? Can you imagine growing up in a situation that didn't allow you to vote or be free? And then to have your sworn enemy come in and change it around so that you could choose your leaders? I keep coming back to two different questions: Are we helping them to realize the goodness of a democratic state or are we just giving them yet another civil war. And how will we react when George Bush invades the Vatican because we don't have a freely elected civil leader?