Getting fooled again

A phenomenon that seems to always occur in the spring is that there is a week or two with early to mid summer weather and then it returns to the mild weather we should have. I mean, temperature variations are normal. But, invariably, people think we've rushed right into summer and star perpetually wearing shorts and flip flops. I tried to resist because I knew it was going to happen but then I did it. I put on shorts and started hoping that we'd stay in the seventies. Now it's 40 degrees outside. and tomorrow we may get rain and snow. to go along with the colder temperatures. Yikes. And we aren't going to return to 70s. We'll stay in the 60s for a while.

But, that's not all bad. We need to have spring before we have summer and spring was made for warm (not hot) days and cool (not cold) nights. And it gives me a chance to use the heater on my camper.

A message from bishop Tod Brown

I found a beautiful pastoral letter from a great shepherd here. I found this quote particularly compelling...

"Unlike Saint Mark, I do not foresee persecution for us on
the horizon, though these are not easy days for the Catholic
Church. Our commitment to Jesus is not being tested so much
as our commitment to him through a Church that has hurt others.
Let us not minimize the complaints of those who experience
the church as hurtful or lessen our commitment to seek forgiveness
and reconciliation with them. I encourage parishes to continue
to reach out with support groups and ministries such as
Coming Home, as well as the dedicated door-to-door efforts of
evangelization teams and apostolic groups. Each and every one
of us is responsible to be a minister of compassion and healing to
those individuals whom God places in our path, but particularly
those who feel hurt or betrayed by the Church. I want especially
to highlight the plight of those who were harmed by sexual misconduct
in the Church. I beg you to join me in opening your
hearts to their suffering and in praying for their healing.

If we heard anything from the Pope last week, it must be that we need to confront this head on before we can be seen as a moral force.

Did I call it or what!?!

Did you catch this?

On a previous post, I said that even the (so called) conservatives would find a way to take the beauty of the papal visit and make it bad. I even said that the issue they would focus on was pro-choice politicians receiving communion. Catholic World News (the Fox News of Catholic Web services) continues to criticize the Pope for not making sure John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy didn't receive communion. I guess I should be glad that they also open up criticism to Rudy Giuliani on this one.

It's too bad that they seem insistent to follow the trend of criticism instead of focusing on what the Pope did accomplish. Because, if they do, they will be amazed and transformed.

Do not let your hearts be troubled!

When someone comes to visit, what tasks do you have to do to prepare for them? You probably go out and buy some extra food, make sure you clear out your schedule as much as possible to be able to have time to visit with the visitors, and clean those parts of the house that you otherwise neglect. You probably don’t go around your household and figure out what each member doesn’t like about the visitors so that you can ask them about it. Yet, that’s exactly what most news networks did prior to the Pope’s visit. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal took a poll where they asked Americans such questions as, “"In general, do you think the Roman Catholic Church is in touch with the views of Catholics in America today, or is it out of touch?" "Currently, Roman Catholic priests cannot get married. Do you favor or oppose that policy?" and "Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Catholic Church has handled the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests?" Other news outlets just invited dissident theologians and angry former catholics to come on and vent while they showed pictures of the pope in the background. To me, the message was two fold: a message to catholics reminding us that we don’t really agree with this old man and a message to the Pope reminding him that we don’t really want him to come here. Yet, even NBC news had to acknowledge a painful reality. When asked, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Pope Benedict the 16th?" 74% of Catholics in the United States did and only 13% did not. We love our German Shepherd.

I was visiting with a student this week that was, similarly, frustrated with the way our news was treating the pope’s visit. The poor guy just kept saying that he couldn’t understand why this is the week we need to talk about sexual abuse, women priests, and married priests, and all the other controversial issues and I repeated to him the words of our Lord in the gospel this day, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” We both thought it was either incredible luck or just awe-inspired planning that brings the pope to this country at this point in the liturgical year. You may remember that last Sunday we heard about how Christ is the good shepherd who both guides and protects his church. He continues to do this in a special way through the apostles and their successors, the bishops. It is, therefore, only fitting that the successor to the Apostle of last week’s first and second reading, Peter, be visiting us.

This week we don’t hear a rousing speech from Peter letting us know that “God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you have crucified.” Instead, we hear about the first “growing pain” of the early church. As the church started to grow, there is a division in the church. There are Greek speaking Jews who believe in Christ and Jews who can speak Greek but whose primary language is Hebrew or Aramaic. In other words, this is not yet the controversy that will force Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles while Peter is the apostle to the Jews. Both the Greeks and the Hebrews were Jewish before they came to faith in Christ. The controversy deals with the responsibilities of the Apostles. They are having to do the practical tasks of feeding the hungry so much that there is no time to spread the gospel. Basically, they realize they can’t do everything on their own. So, they ask the Greek speakers to choose seven servants, or deacons, to do the practical tasks so that they can just do the work of calling people to faith. It was a call to openness and sharing the gifts and talents God has given us, a call to be the dwelling place Christ is preparing for us. Let me explain what I mean by this.

In the gospel, after Jesus tells us not to be afraid, he tells us that he is preparing a place for us. It’s tempting to see in this a reference to some far-off place in the clouds where Jesus and his Father are working diligently on a mansion with many rooms for all the different religions. The Catholics will be close to the center, of course, with the Orthodox very close by. But, I’d like to suggest that this vision of a remote mansion is the exact opposite thing that Jesus is trying to convey to the church. The second reading makes clear that the mansion being prepared is not far off, not a real building at all. We are being built into a spiritual house, “Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…” Jesus is building this by building his church. It is very close to us, as close as he is to us and he is to the Father. He is preparing a place for us by preparing us as his dwelling place. We, in turn, have to be open to God’s Extreme Makeover, Home Edition. How are we preparing a place for Christ so that he can prepare a place for us?