Friends
Peace be with you.
In a previous assignment, one of my parishes had a sizable community of people who only spoke Spanish. Thankfully, my Associate Pastor, Fr. Don Hertges, could celebrate the Mass for them once a month and take care of ministering to them. However, after a year, Fr. Hertges was assigned to Maquoketa, Preston, and Otter Creek and Fr. Paul Lippstock took his place. Unfortunately, Fr. Paul didn’t speak Spanish. I took one semester of Spanish in Seminary almost 10 years before and had basically not used those skills since so I met with a member of the community named Francisco and told him we really don’t have a Spanish speaking priest right now. He understood and, for a year and a half, there were no Spanish liturgies. After a year and a half, Francisco, approached me and asked if I would consider celebrating a Quincenera Mass in Spanish for one of the girls who had turned 15. I knew this was an important celebration for this community so I told him I would try but to please tell the people that my Spanish pronunciation is very poor. I had heard of other cultures who would shame people who spoke their language poorly so I at least wanted people to be forewarned. Thankfully, my DRE had no such fear. She worked with Francisco to prepare music for the day and got a reader and helped the girl to write petitions and write a statement she read at the end of Mass about what it meant for her to turn 15. In the end, there were 150 people present, some of whom I had seen at English Masses but most who hadn’t been to Mass since Fr. Hertges left. Afterwards, they invited me to a celebration and asked if we could restart the Masses in Spanish. I told them that, as long as they would put up with my poor Spanish pronunciation, I would gladly celebrate a Mass once-a-month for them. In the next two and a half years, I baptized children, celebrated a wedding, did a few more quinceaneras, gave out First Communions, and grew to love the community that I helped to re-form there. But, I’ll admit there were times when someone was speaking Spanish to me asking a question or making a request and I had to rely on my friend Francisco to translate what they were saying. I valued his abilities but I also felt out of place and kind of intimidated. These people had a skill I didn’t have, the ability to speak Spanish fluently, and it was intimidating. Their customs were different than my customs. I had to get past my fear of participating in another culture as much as any fear of language differences that I had.
I bring up that experience in light of what happened in the first reading for today. St. Peter is invited to a person’s house who’s named Cornelius. Cornelius is living in a Gentile city and he and his whole family are all gentiles. But, for some reason, Cornelius is called by the Holy Spirit to invite St. Peter into his house to teach him about Jesus. Now, the first thing that happens probably seems kind of strange to us: they kneel down to worship St. Peter. But, remember that for these Roman Gentiles, there were many many gods and the idea of a god manifesting himself as a human was not unusual. Their Caesar, for instance, would have declared himself a god. I couldn’t help but think of how embarrassed I used to get when an elderly Latina woman would come up to me and kiss my hands as a sign of respect when she would greet me. A priest’s hands are anointed when he is ordained because they hold the host as it is transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. Plus, we anoint people with our hands and baptize people with our hands. A priest’s hands are intended to be holy. There was a side to me that wanted to tell these abuelitas, these holy grandmas, what St. Peter said about not worshipping me. But it was a little different, or at least I came to see it that way. They were recognizing the calling my hands represented and the person who did the calling of those hands to service, Jesus Christ, not confusing me with him. I saw it as much a challenge to live up to the holy ordering my hands were called to do as anything else. But, St. Peter’s situation is different. He has to explain who Jesus is to a culture that didn’t see God as entirely transcendent, entirely different, from human beings. This was a whole different culture. He felt he had to make it clear that he was just like them, just a human being not a god. But, in this encounter, you can hear St. Peter realize that God was already working in this community, helping them to understand who God was and how he already loved them even before they loved him or knew him. Still, they needed a St. Peter to teach them the particulars of who Jesus really was and to make sure they were included as believers, not seen as second-class citizens since they didn’t follow the Old Testament ritual laws. They needed to be told that “God shows no partialities”, that they were welcomed.
I feel that Pope Francis has really taken up this message of encounter and welcome seriously. I can see events like Vatican II, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic visits to various countries, and Pope Benedict’s encounter with the Muslim world helping to enspire him but I think Pope Francis has pushed things further than his predecessors, much to the chagrin of those who feel like the church should militantly close its ranks to any culture not historically European. But Pope Francis, like St. Peter in the first reading, calls us to be people of inclusion and reconciliation. He wants sinners to experience forgiveness, not wallow in the filth of their own sin. But he also knows that sometimes that means having to encounter cultures and situations that aren’t sinful but are just...different than our own.
Who is God calling us to reach out to that we’re intimated by because they are different and how can we get over that fear to help them feel included? Peace be with you.
In a previous assignment, one of my parishes had a sizable community of people who only spoke Spanish. Thankfully, my Associate Pastor, Fr. Don Hertges, could celebrate the Mass for them once a month and take care of ministering to them. However, after a year, Fr. Hertges was assigned to Maquoketa, Preston, and Otter Creek and Fr. Paul Lippstock took his place. Unfortunately, Fr. Paul didn’t speak Spanish. I took one semester of Spanish in Seminary almost 10 years before and had basically not used those skills since so I met with a member of the community named Francisco and told him we really don’t have a Spanish speaking priest right now. He understood and, for a year and a half, there were no Spanish liturgies. After a year and a half, Francisco, approached me and asked if I would consider celebrating a Quincenera Mass in Spanish for one of the girls who had turned 15. I knew this was an important celebration for this community so I told him I would try but to please tell the people that my Spanish pronunciation is very poor. I had heard of other cultures who would shame people who spoke their language poorly so I at least wanted people to be forewarned. Thankfully, my DRE had no such fear. She worked with Francisco to prepare music for the day and got a reader and helped the girl to write petitions and write a statement she read at the end of Mass about what it meant for her to turn 15. In the end, there were 150 people present, some of whom I had seen at English Masses but most who hadn’t been to Mass since Fr. Hertges left. Afterwards, they invited me to a celebration and asked if we could restart the Masses in Spanish. I told them that, as long as they would put up with my poor Spanish pronunciation, I would gladly celebrate a Mass once-a-month for them. In the next two and a half years, I baptized children, celebrated a wedding, did a few more quinceaneras, gave out First Communions, and grew to love the community that I helped to re-form there. But, I’ll admit there were times when someone was speaking Spanish to me asking a question or making a request and I had to rely on my friend Francisco to translate what they were saying. I valued his abilities but I also felt out of place and kind of intimidated. These people had a skill I didn’t have, the ability to speak Spanish fluently, and it was intimidating. Their customs were different than my customs. I had to get past my fear of participating in another culture as much as any fear of language differences that I had.
I bring up that experience in light of what happened in the first reading for today. St. Peter is invited to a person’s house who’s named Cornelius. Cornelius is living in a Gentile city and he and his whole family are all gentiles. But, for some reason, Cornelius is called by the Holy Spirit to invite St. Peter into his house to teach him about Jesus. Now, the first thing that happens probably seems kind of strange to us: they kneel down to worship St. Peter. But, remember that for these Roman Gentiles, there were many many gods and the idea of a god manifesting himself as a human was not unusual. Their Caesar, for instance, would have declared himself a god. I couldn’t help but think of how embarrassed I used to get when an elderly Latina woman would come up to me and kiss my hands as a sign of respect when she would greet me. A priest’s hands are anointed when he is ordained because they hold the host as it is transubstantiated into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus. Plus, we anoint people with our hands and baptize people with our hands. A priest’s hands are intended to be holy. There was a side to me that wanted to tell these abuelitas, these holy grandmas, what St. Peter said about not worshipping me. But it was a little different, or at least I came to see it that way. They were recognizing the calling my hands represented and the person who did the calling of those hands to service, Jesus Christ, not confusing me with him. I saw it as much a challenge to live up to the holy ordering my hands were called to do as anything else. But, St. Peter’s situation is different. He has to explain who Jesus is to a culture that didn’t see God as entirely transcendent, entirely different, from human beings. This was a whole different culture. He felt he had to make it clear that he was just like them, just a human being not a god. But, in this encounter, you can hear St. Peter realize that God was already working in this community, helping them to understand who God was and how he already loved them even before they loved him or knew him. Still, they needed a St. Peter to teach them the particulars of who Jesus really was and to make sure they were included as believers, not seen as second-class citizens since they didn’t follow the Old Testament ritual laws. They needed to be told that “God shows no partialities”, that they were welcomed.
I feel that Pope Francis has really taken up this message of encounter and welcome seriously. I can see events like Vatican II, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic visits to various countries, and Pope Benedict’s encounter with the Muslim world helping to enspire him but I think Pope Francis has pushed things further than his predecessors, much to the chagrin of those who feel like the church should militantly close its ranks to any culture not historically European. But Pope Francis, like St. Peter in the first reading, calls us to be people of inclusion and reconciliation. He wants sinners to experience forgiveness, not wallow in the filth of their own sin. But he also knows that sometimes that means having to encounter cultures and situations that aren’t sinful but are just...different than our own.
Who is God calling us to reach out to that we’re intimated by because they are different and how can we get over that fear to help them feel included?
No comments:
Post a Comment