love God and love your neighbor

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

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

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

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

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

Being inspired by our Archbishop

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

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

Three years

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

World Youth Day

I was reading my favorite Web site today and found out that there are already 345,000 young people signed up for World Youth Day in a couple of months. I've never been to World Youth Day ever, not because I have anything against it but because I've just never been organized enough to make it there. I'm just excited that a huge number of young people, especially a record number from France, will get to be so close to the Holy Father. It should be a truly transforming experience.

It's Hot!

Because of the heat and lack of air conditioning in my parishes, I gave this very brief homily about this Sunday's Gospel which you can find at this link....

http://www.usccb.org/nab/061205.htm

Most scholars see in this passage a model for a diocese. The Bishop, standing in the place of Christ, selects priests to serve the crowds of laity as shepherds. Yet, I believe that this speaks just as strongly to us at the parish level as it does on the diocesan. We are all called to be shepherds of evangelization, even if not all of us have the gifts to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, or drive out demons. Regardless, each of us have been given talents to be used to spread the faith. You may know of someone who no longer comes to church. Have you ever invited that person to come to church with you? They may just not want to come alone. Do you know someone who can't come to church because they are in a nursing home or are homebound? Have you ever found out if they have communion brought to them by a member of our pastorate? Do you know someone who has never been associated with a church? Have you ever invited them to come to church with you? When we do these things, we are all helping to reach out to those people that seem troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.

Hmmm

I don't have anything to say but I also don't want my blog to detiorate into the "Father Dennis Homily" blog. So, here's an intersting web site if you want to know the mind of Pope Benedict.

www.zenit.org/english

I came to call sinners

One of the songs that easily gets stuck in my craw and doesn’t seem to get unstuck is the Mississippi Squirrel Revival by the comedic songwriter Ray Stevens. It’s a little bit old but it’s just one of those songs that, as soon as I hear it, I chuckle and sing along and then I can’t get it out of my head after. I’ll find myself for days after singing it in the shower and whistling it as I walk. The context of the song, in case you’ve never heard it, is that a boy brings a squirrel to church one Sunday, an act that I discourage from happening in this church! But, the squirrel in the song gets out of the boy’s shoebox and runs all around church making the preacher think that this congregations has been touched by the Holy Spirit. The best verse, in my opinion, talked about when the squirrel when all the way down to the amen pew where sat Sister Bertha better-than-you who'd been watchin' all the commotion with sadistic glee. But you should've seen the look in her eyes when that squirrel jumped her garters and crossed her thighs. She jumped to her feet and said "Lord have mercy on me".

Have you ever met a Bertha better-than-you, someone lets you know that she or he is better than you in some way, whether it be richer or better looking or nicer or holier? I imagine we all have Berthas in our life. And, if truth be told, I have a feeling most of us have been Bertha better-than-yous at one point in our lives as well. Jesus, in our gospel today, cautions us against just such arrogant attitudes. He repeats one statement three times using different ways, all of which seem to say, “Don’t make religious performance too formulaic.” In other words, we shouldn’t believe that we have our relationship to God figured out. This is a challenge to all of us, perhaps especially to us who come to church and pray more so than those who don’t. We can get into the groove and start thinking that religious observance is about repeating formulaic morning and evening prayers, coming to mass on Sundays and praying before meals. We must be open to the possibility that God wants something else from us. And we must recognize our own faults and failures. If we turn our religion into a checklist of daily items to accomplish, we may not be allowing God to penetrate into the deepest recesses of our hearts to point out the times when pride, selfishness, or some other sin disturbed our relationship to God and our neighbor. We might just think that we do enough to please God and not care about the times that we don’t.

This is what frightens me about some new organizations connected to the church. There are some that have a leader who seems to claim to have all the answers. The leader may claim that she or he is just reading and utilizing texts that are part of the church’s tradition like the Bible and the writings of certain saints, but it is clear that it is the leader’s interpretation of these documents that prevail and that, oftentimes, her or his interpretation seems to make our faith into a list of dos and don’ts.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are still things that God expects from us like praying our morning and evening prayer, coming to mass weekly, and going to confession at least once a year. But we much also remember that God doesn’t want us to be his pets that complete the obstacle course of life in order to get the treat of heaven. God loves us and wants us to love him back. God wants to be in a relationship of love with us and wants us to live our lives like we are in a dynamic relationship to him. God doesn’t want us to be Bertha better-than-yous who have everything figured out but, instead, he wants us to turn to him ever day and be willing to follow wherever he leads us.

Corpus Christ Processions

This Sunday is Corpus Christi Sunday, or as it is more commonly known today, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord. In four areas throughout the archdiocese of of Dubuque, the Archbishop and his vicars will process through town with the Blessed Sacrament and people will follow in procession. The procession will stop in areas just long enough to pray at the place and then move on. It is my hope to go to the one in Dyersville because I have never seen this before and it is the closest. In this procession, we remember something that we learned first from our Jewish brothers and sister, "our elder brothers and sisters in the faith" as Pope John Paul II used to say. Just as the Israelites were tested but never abandoned by God (he gave them manna, a food unknown to their ancestors) so we are never abandoned by God regardless of what we do. God never gives up on us. He always loves us and even gives us ways to get to know him better.

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

One of the most powerful things that I get to do as a priest is exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. That’s what we do when we set that large metal stand, called the monstrance, on the altar so that people can adore and pray in front of the Host or Blessed Sacrament for a period of time. I am especially proud that we resurrected this practice in our pastorate on the feast days of our parishes and on the feast of our patron, John Baptist de la Salle. It is my hope that this will not only continue into the future but that many of you will notice when these celebrations take place in other sites of the pastorate and make a point of attending. Yet, regardless of how profound my experience of Adoration is, there is this little uneasy dance that happens in my heart towards the end of almost every session. I begin to wonder if people are bored. I begin to worry that people are remembering days when their mother or father forced them to come and do this. I begin to worry that people are resolving never to do this again. I begin to think that I should cut it short so that people don’t get more frustrated than what they, undoubtedly, already are. But, I stick it out for the full amount of time and stand, with all these doubts running through my head, to return the Blessed Sacrament to it’s place in the tabernacle. I kneel with my back to the people and invite them to open to the back of the hymnal and sing that classic chant, “Tantum egro sacramentum” and I hear these voices that wouldn’t be caught dead singing “Rain Down”, “Alle, Alle, Alleluia” or “Lead me, Lord” singing out this song that was first song before it’s singers knew there was a North America. Then, I approach the monstrance to bless the people and, on their faces, I see looks that bespeak respect and love. Not only do the people not feel the way my heart was trying to say they do, most of the time people wish they could have adoration more often. I even had one woman openly admit that she wished it could be much longer. I’ve never had anyone tell me that they thought mass was too short but, for this woman, she didn’t have enough time to adore the presence of the Lord. I think people see in this form a prayer a memory. And, I don’t mean that people sit around and think about the good old days, I think we are reminded of the respect that we have in our hearts for what we eat and drink each week.

That is what is at the heart of the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord. We are invited to focus on the Eucharist and its importance in our lives, an event that is even more important during this year of the Eucharist. Our readings focus on the respect that we should have for the Eucharist. The first reading from Deuteronomy reminded our Jewish brothers and sister and, through them, reminds us that the Eucharist is a gift from God. Jesus, in the gospel, takes this message a step further and reminds us that the bread that we eat is his flesh and the wine that we drink is his blood. This God given gift we receive is what connects us to Christ and to eternal life. This is a warning to us about how we receive the body and blood of Christ. We must remember that there is no church law that says we have to receive each week. We have to come to mass every week that we are physically able, but we are not obliged to receive the Blessed Sacrament every week. If you are ill, you should not receive from the cup out of respect to your fellow communicants. And, if you are concerned that you may vomit, you should not receive at all lest the Blessed Sacrament end up in a latrine. But, there are other reasons that a person would not receive. All Catholics who are able are called to fast for one hour before receiving communion in order to prepare our stomachs and hearts for the Blessed Sacrament. If you broke your fast and were able to fast for one hour, you should not receive communion. Futher, those Catholics who are aware of committing a serious sin should not receive unless they have first gone to confession. A serious sin takes us out of communion with the church. I recently overheard a conversation between a young man and a young woman in which the woman asked the man how church was. The young man sighed and said, “Alright, I guess. I tried not going to communion but my mom made me go with her.” I’m sure that that mother thought she was doing something good for her son by forcing him to go to communion, but that man had the right attitude. It was clear that he didn’t feel like he was in communion with the church and that, out of respect for the Church, he shouldn’t receive communion.

If we do decide to receive communion, we should also remember to be respectful when we come up. Remember that it is not only still acceptable but preferred that Catholics receive the host on the tongue. If you choose to receive on the tongue, tip your head back and stick your tongue out. It is the only time when it is acceptable to stick your tongue out at someone, after all. Then, when the host is placed on your tongue, gently take the host back into your mouth. If you choose to receive on the hand, please wash your hands before you come. St. Augustine says that we are to make a throne for God and, in all the pictures that I’ve ever seen, I have never seen a King’s throne covered in dirt. And don’t set your hands side by side because the host could fall through the middle when you try to put it in your mouth. Take your dominant hand, the one you write with, and set that under your other hand. That way, you can use your dominant hand to take the host from your non-dominant, receiving hand to your mouth.

These might seem like nit-picky concerns but they all point to the kind of respect that we need to have for the Eucharist, the pinnacle of the church’s prayer life. We celebrate today a renewal in this respect and evaluate what it means to be part of this body of Christ, the Church.

Retraction

I sent the following letter to Archbishop Jerome Hanus today.

Dear Archbishop Hanus

Grace and Peace in our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. Thank you for the beautiful confirmation ceremonies at Holy Ghost and the La Salle Pastorate. Let us pray that the newly confirmed continue to nourish the faith that was first given to them in baptism and is now confirmed in them by your chrismation. I’m writing today to ask for your forgiveness.

Earlier this spring, I posted an unfair and rather juvenile statement on my blog (fatherdennis.blogspot.com). I was critical of you for not mentioning Fr. Dustin Vu at the chrism mass. I’m very sorry for this because, if I truly thought it was worth criticizing, I should have done so to you personally instead of just whining about it via the internet. Then, to compound the situation, I thought I had erased the post the next day but, in searching today, I found that it was still there. I did erase it today and I’m sure it is no longer posted but it remained there for far too long and, I fear, may have caused you pain or embarrassment. If so, I am very sorry. I hope that you know that I have always found you to be very supportive of me and my ministry and that, when I talk to the newly ordained priests, we all feel very honored to have you as our Archbishop.

Rest assured that this will not happen again. I am making every effort to emphasize the positive things happening in my life and in the life of the church on my blog. I truly believe it to be a useful resource for evangelization and another way in which the Spirit can work. I hope you will also allow me to offer my apology to you personally when we meet this Wednesday.

Your obedient son
Fr. Dennis Miller

The Cube and The Cathedral

I recently read a book by imminent theologian Georgy Weigel, one of the most thorough biographers of Pope John Paul II. I've, since then, become fascinated with one of the concepts that Weigel is proposing in that book. Using Europe as a foil, he shows how, in the absence of a God that has a role publicly, people use the concept of power as a guiding principal of morality. One must be in control of one's own circumstances. I was thinking about this considering the press coverage that shows like "The Apprentice" get on TV. Donald Trump is an icon of American society, not someone who values money over relationships and financial success over loving other people. This hunger for power is exemplified in the power to control all aspects of our lives, especially the power to decide human life. European populations are not producing a significant enough second generation to replace themselves. I don't want to get into Weigel's pessimistic presumption that Europe will be an Islamic state in a number of years because I don't have the expertise to know this. Instead, I'd like to focus on the notion that children need to be a chosen activity, an attitude that is dominant at this point in history. If children are seen as either a choice or a mistake it makes human life into something that is, somehow, less valuable. It could seem as though a child born into a family that didn't plan for him or her is a curse or not as good as a child born into a family that makes a twenty year plan for raising the child. Somehow, the child becomes the same as an automobile. Our culture needs to recognize that God does have an effect in our daily lives and that we aren't always in charge. Being faithful should be more important that being powerful.

Rainbow Sashes

A little over a week ago, a scene played out that was less violent but, in some ways, more painful than last year. Last year, at the Cathedral of St. Paul, a group of people wearing rainbow sashes accross their chests came to worship and recieve the body and blood of the Lord. When the time for communion began, another group of people kneeled and sat in their way making it impossible for them to come forward. The two groups, obviously, had differing agenda; one advocating greater rights for homosexual people and the other holding tightly to the teaching of the Catholic church. This year, the archbishop of St. Paul, a very good pastor named Harry Flynn, wrote the pastors of his diocese and the leaders within the rainbow sash movement a note that said the rainbow sash people should not wear the sashes to communion. It had become increasingly obvious that they didn't seek to support homosexual people but sought to change church teaching. Unfortunately, many members of that group, nonetheless, came to communion wearing their sashes and were denied communion. Now, I can't imagine having to do this, although I have heard of an instance in which someone received the host, held it up in the air, crushed it, and threw it on the ground, an action that is grounds for automatic excommunication in the Catholic church. I can't find the story on the net but, if I remember correctly, it was one of the rainbow sash people who were using the reception of communion to show their distaste for Catholic teaching on homosexuality. The reason that I appreciate Archbishop Flynn's response is because he tries to remove the use of symbols when receiving the reality of Christ. In other words, he tries to get both those who would stand in the way and those who wear the sashes to blend in with the rest of the body of Christ who didn't come to see them. He just wants people to pray and not turn mass into an oppertunity to sell their agenda. We don't come to mass to have an agenda thrust down our throat. That's what people constantly remind priests who only preach on the church's teaching on abortion. When we come to mass, we should come to pray, to love God and love our neighbor.

Busy busy busy

I went to the Twin Cities yesterday and saw the play that inspired the movie "You've Got Mail". It was a very well acted play with a lot of character development, much more than movie audiences would have permitted. The Play was called "She likes me" and is running at the Guthrie Theater. My favorite part happened when the two (until this time) anonymous lovers were going to meet at a romantic restaurant. The scene started with a waiter dropping a tray and moved from there until the entire restaurant was fighting and, eventually, in a conga line. The development of it was just precious and so well acted. I think it's worth travelling five hours to see quality acting.

Pentecost

Mary in an oil stain on the wall of an underpass in Chicago. Is it authentic? Mary on the sun spot in a window in Florida. Is it her? Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich sold on ebay. Should we believe it? In the past few weeks, these are just a few of the times that the Virgin Mary is supposed to have appeared in this country alone. Is there a difference between those appearances of Mary and the apparitions in Fatima and Lourdes. I imagine most of us would say “yes” but why?
This past week, Pope Benedict the sixteenth, opened the cause for sainthood for his predecessor, John Paul the second, or John Paul the great as one of the television network is calling him. Why not wait the normal five-year waiting period until beginning the process to let the blindness of popular opinion recede. I mean, accompanying those people in St. Peter’s square chanting “santo subito”, in other words asking that he be made a saint right now, there are people in this country that believe John Paul the second didn’t deal well with the sexual abuse crisis and the global shortage of clergy and the continued implementation of the reforms of Vatican II. Not to mention the question of what prompts the church to hurry up and make some people saints while others who were just as holy remain “blessed” for many years? The church is often given a difficult task of determining if something is of the Holy Spirit or not. Our present Pope knows a lot about this, after all. As prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the one that had to call in theologians that had controversial opinions to ensure that what they were teaching didn’t fall outside the bounds of correct Catholic teaching. That’s why there are some people who are angry at him because of the resignation of Father Thomas Reese, former editor of America Magazine. Fr. Reese was often called to appear before then Joseph Cardinal Raztinger’s Congregation to answer questions about issues his magazineand, apparently, those questions led to his leaving the magazine. This has caused some people in this country to see the Vatican as continuing on its conservative trek instead of seeking conciliation.
The difficulty is that the Vatican was given the responsibility that Paul is talking about in the second reading today, namely keeping together all the parts of the body of Christ underneath Christ who is our leader or, to use Paul’s terminology, our head. Paul wisely uses the imagery of a body when talking about Christianity. We are the arms, legs, torso, back, etc of Christ but Christ is still the one that’s in charge. Just like a body is pretty useless without it’s head so our church is pretty useless if we start thinking that we’re the ones that are in charge. God is still God and we still aren’t.
So, part of what the church does is make determinations as to what’s wrong under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s what Pentecost is all about, after all. The Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel is an example of the culmination of the fragmentation of the human family once united in Eden. It’s almost as though the first eleven chapter of Genesis show our undoing that plagues us whenever we eat from the tree of knowledge. The undoing of this fragmentation culminates when we receive the Holy Spirit. We are really celebrating today the idea that we are united as a people and that, united, we enter into a new and unique relationship to Christ. Whatever threatens this unity is, therefore, something that needs to be avoided and stopped. That’s why the church is very careful about new organizations that seek official approval. The last thing we want is someone setting up a parallel church to the one founded on Christ. We already have enough of that fragmentation of the unity that Christ wants us to have. We need to do whatever we can to draw closer to the body of Christ and avoid whatever leads us away from it. To put it bluntly, if any organization asks you to make your diocese or bishop less important than its leadership, than it is not acting like it is part of the church and you should avoid being a part of that organization, especially if it is a religious organization.
As we come together around the altar of this church we recognize the unity that God has given to us and we commit ourselves to working for greater unity among those who are separated from us by working toward the truth. It is in the truth that we will find the Spirit.

Baptizing Twins

This morning at mass I had a bit of a strange experience. It's not every day that you baptize twin boys. Levi and Drew were the ideal babies. Levi did squak just a little during the baptism but, for the most part, they seemed to enjoy the warm water being poured over their heads initiating them into the church of Jesus Christ. I kept thinking how appropriate it was that we were doing this on mother's day and on the feast of the Ascension. Their mother was beaming with pride at these two little boys and the readings told us that Jesus' last comments were to go and baptize all nations. What a great day in my priesthood.

Illness

This week, I discovered that I had strep throat. It turned what was supposed to be a pretty full week into a week of laying in bed making apologetic phone calls, at least on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. At first, I thought that I just had the flu. But, thanks to Dr. Mom, we thought it's at least possible that I had strep. Sure enough, moving from intense chills to intense heat with difficulty swallowing throughout meant that I needed medication to be cured.

I'm really kind of bummed, too, because I was planning on making my big announcement this weekend. I was asked by the doctor not to say mass so I can't tell the people that I'll be moving this summer to St. Thomas Aquinas Parish and Student Center in Ames, Iowa. I'm a Cyclone! Ever since, as a boy, my brother brought me to Iowa State on siblings weekend, I've bled red and gold. I'm going to miss Dubuque and the people there but I can't wait to be in Ames.

Who do you want to be connected to?

Last week, there was a very obvious connection to the all three readings. You could hear sheep and shepherd scattered throughout. This week, not so much. At first, I thought I would be celebrating constuction Sunday with all the referances to building and stones. But, then there is that first reading about the Greek speaking Jewish Christians whose widows are being neglected. No building there. Instead, I re thought things and came up with this question.

What would you say to the people you love if you knew that you only had a few days to live? It’s an interesting question to ask yourself and something that probably seems a little out of place during the Easter season, a time when we are supposed to be celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, not his death. But, for the next several Sundays we are going to hear from the Gospel of John the words of comfort that Jesus said to his disciples to help them deal with his impending death. Jesus speaks these messages to his apostles but, I believe, he intends for them to come to all believers in order to reassure us that he will always be with us.

This past Tuesday, I set about on my usual routine. I said mass for the school children in Sherrill, the first of three school masses that I would say that week. After mass, I drove to the YMCA for my usual swim. I’d missed the previous couple of days so I knew that it would be an especially difficult work out. When I got out of the pool, I decided that I was going to try to experience one time when that smoke came out of St. Peter’s Basillica so I quickly took my shower, dried off, and got ready for the rest of the day. I think I would have hurried a little faster, however, had I known what was going to happen next. I got to my truck, turned on the starter and then turned on my satellite radio to EWTN, the Catholic channel. I heard the announcer, Raymond Aroyo, say that there was some confusion as to if it was white smoke or black. As I drove the route back to Holy Ghost it became increasingly clearer that the new pope had been chosen. I wanted to hit every green light but managed to make every red, instead, in a mad dash to get back to Church to ring the bells. I sat by the television in expectation wondering who it would be. The only thing I was sure of was that it wasn’t going to be Cardinal Ratzinger. He was too old, not Italian, and too controversial. So, you can imagine my surprise when, with a Germanic sense of time, exactly forty five minutes later, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger appeared on the balcony and was announced as Pope Benedict the sixteenth.

I had two reactions to seeing Pope Benedict. At first, I was excited to see that the Cardinals had come to a decision so quickly. I was glad to hear the crowds cheer for our new 78 year old Pontiff. I was glad that they had chosen someone with a strong sense of leadership, which I believe to be integral to our present moment in history. And, I was even glad that they had finally recognized that we Germans are not evil. But I also knew that this would not come without controversy. Even prior to the election people had called him a conservative, which made me wonder about his position on state’s rights or gun control laws. Others said that he was involved with the NAZI’s as a teenager, though he didn’t fight apparently. They acknowledged that it was compulsory service for children to be in the Hitler Youth at that point in history but they also said that some people did stand up and not serve. Another news media outlet said that he had helped cover up priestly sexual abuse for another bishop though it was unclear what his involvement was in it. Most called him right-winger with ties to Opus Dei, the vilified group of Dan Brown’s Anti-Catholic books.

If a catholic were to listen to all of this it could seem like a roller coaster of emotions. I think that we need to, once again, turn our hearts and minds to scripture to hear the gospel. When we do, we are confronted with the message, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me.” This is an extraordinary message of hope to the Church. Just as the deacons from the first reading were a sign of hope to those Greek speaking Jewish-Christian widows who were hungering, so Jesus is the universal sign of hope for our church regardless of what happens. Do not let your hearts be troubled! We recognize in this message a message similar to the “Do Not Be Afraid” that Pope John Paul II said so very often. I believe Pope Benedict will now have to make clear for his detractors this same message of peace. We must always remember that, despite all their shortcomings, the bishops, and especially our Holy Father, are visible signs of our connection to the Lord. We, catholics, don’t just have an intellectual connection to Jesus. In other words, we don’t just have to feel like Jesus is close to us, we know that he is close because he gave us the sacraments and the apostles and their successors as physical connections to himself. We should feel blessed to have people like our Pope, Benedict the sixteenth, our bishops, and our priests who can say to us do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God.

We also may feel saddened in our pastorate for a different reason, however. Our beloved Father Tom will be leaving us in July and I’m sure many of you will miss him and the stability he has provided to our pastorate these past few years. We need to take comfort in these words as well, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Part of believing in God means believing in God’s ministers and their diverse gifts. Regardless of who stays and who goes in July, God will take care of the St. LaSalle Pastorate and will continue to show you the way, the truth, and the life. So don’t put your faith in CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC or any thing else. Put your faith, hope and love in God and the church that he has given to us to show the way to God’s house and trust that he will always lead us home.

Everyone has an opinion

I was watching the Daily Show last night. Ordinarilly, I love it because of the humorous way that it portrays the Bush administration as well as the dems (can't forget them) by showing how self serving most politicans are. But, they last night they had eminent theologian Dennis Miller on. No, I'm not talking about yours truly, the priest with a masters degree in theology. I'm talking about the guy who couldn't even make it as a football announcer and now has a show on MSNBC, a station I trust even less than Fox News. Dennis seemed to know everything about Pope Benedict XVI and what he should do during his pontificate. Which is good because the church really needs to listen to guys that have no intention of ever joining it to give it advice. I'm sure that Benedict had no intention of continuing to deal with the sexual abuse crisis until Dennis Miller said he should. There's part of me that still thinks I'd just be better off if I canceled my cable subscription altogether and just listened to satelite radio. Then there's another part of me that just thinks I need a good night's rest. I think a nap could cure both problems.

Habemus Papam

The Germanic world is ecstatic to hear about the election of one of her own, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict the sixteenth. In the coming weeks and months, the media is going to do everything it can to split the church. It’s going to call Benedict a Nazi. It’s going to call him a sexist. It’s going to call him everything it can because it hates absolute truth, the kind of truth that the church contains in it’s connection to Christ. We must listen to John Paul the second when he said, “Do Not Be Afraid”. Read one of his books instead of listening to the media and you will hear an intelligent man who cares about the church. Then you will see the heart of the man who was so beloved by John Paul the second.

Good Shepherd Sunday

In Israel, grass is a scarce commodity. In particular in Judea, the southern part of Israel at the time of Jesus, to find grass and water was like finding a trustworthy Cardinal fan, a hard task indeed. This means that a shepherd can’t treat their sheep the way most farmers in our country do: set up a fence on a lush hillside with a stream running through it and let their sheep have at it. They have to constantly wander through the country looking for food and water to give to their little flocks. To this day, groups of these wanderers, called Bedouin, still live in temporary villages of tents wandering about to find the perfect place to live for a few days. At night, there is no use in setting up a fence to protect your herd since you will likely be moving on at some point. So, they find a place that has protection on three sides, a cave for example, and the shepherd or shepherds lie down on the fourth side. This way, no sheep can wonder off in the night and any other animal that thinks he’s going to have mutton for dinner is going to have a shepherd to deal with first.
This is why Jesus says simultaneously in the gospel that the shepherd is known because he goes through the gate and that he is the gate, because in some way the shepherd would come from the gate since his laying down was the gate. Jesus’ point to us is quite simple, that just like a shepherd is willing to put his life on the line to save his sheep, so Jesus will lie down and die for us, his sheep. But, Jesus left us human shepherds as well, that’s the origin of the word pastor after all. We at Holy Ghost have been blessed for the past six years to have been led by an excellent shepherd in Father Paul Otting. It has been an honor to work alongside him during this last year of his priesthood and I can say that this archdiocese is losing one of her best pastors as he goes into retirement and the relaxation of being a priest without meetings, schedules, and time demands. We will miss him when he leaves us in July. But, for those of you who do not receive the Witness, we know who the new pastor will be and I can say for certain that we are blessed. I’ve had the honor of working with him for the past year out in the St. La Salle Pastorate. Fr. Tom Zinkula was a sacramental priest there as well as playing an important role in the marriage tribunal. His duties in the tribunal have been limited so now he is able to become our pastor. Fr. Zinkula is a gifted leader, though he will undoubtedly do some things differently than Father Paul. As always, we need to remember our Lord’s command that we know who the shepherd is because we follow him. We must recognize his voice.
This Sunday is a good time to remember the larger shepherds of our church, however, especially as the Cardinals gather in conclave to choose the successor of John Paul. This week, the infamous Bernard Cardinal Law presided at a mass in St. Peter’s Basillica, much to the anger of the survivors network of those abused by priests. There’s a part of me that wishes people could see that being taken from being a cardinal in a large Catholic diocese like Boston and becoming the pastor of a parish in Rome underneath the watchful eyes of the Pope and his advisors is a demotion but he didn’t commit an act of sexual abuse. He can still say mass. But, then there’s a part of me that wishes they wouldn’t give him such a prominent place. Ever since the priesthood sexual abuse scandal erupted there has been a general distrust of Bishops and Cardinals, even of our own excellent Archbishop Hanus. I think this anti-leadership feeling is what drives people to believe the lies that Dan Brown sells in his books like the Davinci Code and others.
What Mr. Brown, certain members of our media, and others don’t always understand is that we don’t trust the shepherds of the church, the bishops, because they are perfect. You would not have to look that hard to find times when Peter and the other apostles failed. We follow the shepherds of the church because, in so doing, we learn how to follow Christ. We follow the bishops because that same Holy Spirit that is leading the Cardinals to choose the next Pope is also directing the bishops and keeping us from falling into false doctrine and the whim of the majority. We follow the bishops to remind ourselves that we want to follow Jesus, the good shepherd, into everlasting life.
I want to close by saying that I have been privileged to be your associate shepherd this past year. No one knows what will happen to me in July since associates’ assignments have not been made yet. I do want you to know that I have loved being your associate pastor and I ask for forgiveness for those times that I have not lived up to that title.

Protesting

As a kid, I learned about Protestants. I met Protestants and was babysat by them. I think that, in general, we aren't as afraid to talk to Protestants as Catholics used to be. We are a lot closer that what we used to think we were. The strange thing is that, as I become more and more theologically adept, I realized that we aren't becoming closer to most Protestant groups. We continue dialoguing with the Orthodox and we've come to respect our Jewish brothers and sisters a lot more but we are, I believe, actually growing apart from our separated brotheren. So-called "mainline" Protestant groups are falling into cultural attitudes of greater acceptance of homosexuality and abortion. The common concern that we used to have for contraception has passed and, morally, we are growing farther and farther apart. The evangelical fundamentalists (so called) are wrapped up in a debate about a non-biblical theological opinion that they made up involving the tribulation and the rapture. Prior to this century, no one had read the particular passages of scripture that they use to propose these two ideas so inorrectly. It's almost like they think they are reading a science text book. Maybe a cook book would be a better analogy. How can Christianity ever fulfill the demands of Jesus and be one as he and the father are one when we seem to be only moving in different directions?

Tuesday gray day

The rain has been on and off all day and the clouds have made this an overcast/grey day. But, this has been an incredible couple of weeks. Ever since Easter, we've had warmth. In my thoughts, I kept thinking that even the earth is teaching us about the warmth of Christ's love.

Emmaus

Sometimes priests run out of ideas. That happens to me when I have several big presentations to give. So, I tend to borrow some ideas. I did for this homily from a website that I trust. If you want to read the original and then read my adaptations, here's the site.

http://www.munachi.com/a/eastera3.htm

Otherwise, my adaptations are below. Be sure to check back this Sunday for a big announcement in my homily!

Imagine, for a second, if you were not one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus but one of the disciples that bid them farewell as they walked away. It is morning, and two of our depressed friends leave our company in Jerusalem and head to the country to get away from all the craziness of the past few days. Then, late in the evening of the same day, they come back to rejoin us full of excitement and joy. Wouldn’t we all wonder what happened to them to cause this drastic change of heart? Wouldn't we all think that they may have had too much to drink? How would we react when we heard that they met a stranger on the way, a stranger who did not quite look like Jesus but who turned out to be him?
Would we remind them of the first rule that our parents taught to us, “Never speak to strangers!”? What would have happened had Cleopas and his companion followed this parental advice? Jesus probably would have passed them by and they would have never had the transforming encounter with the risen Lord. Who knows how many times the risen Lord has passed by us and we did not recognize him or experience his transforming grace because of our fear of strangers?
Cleopas and his friend were trying to distance themselves from the incredible disaster that befell the apostles and followers of Jesus with his shameful death at the hands of the very Roman soldiers that they thought he had come to defeat. But even as they tried to get away from it, they could not get their minds off it. They were talking about it all along the way. We have probably all had one of these situations in life when the only thing that we want to forget is the first thing that comes to our minds. Our hearts were filled with disappointment, sadness and deep depression all at once, as were the hearts of Cleopas and his fellow traveler.
Suddenly a stranger catches up with them along the way and says to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along”. The most natural answer we would probably give is, “Hey, mind your own business?” That’s the typical response you get from people who operate on the principle of fear of strangers. But Cleopas and his friend were different. All they said was, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days”. And this led to a frank and profound discussion that set their cold hearts aflame with insight and inspiration. All because they trusted a stranger and were disposed to inform and be informed by him!
Cleopas and his companion shared with the stranger all the way through. Not only were they ready to share their secret faith with him, but they went all the way and shared their meal and shelter with him as well. It was in the process of this sharing that the moment of revelation occurred and they suddenly realized that the one whom they had accepted all along as a helpless stranger was indeed Jesus, the answer to their hearts’ questions. This discovery that the one in whom they had trusted, Jesus Christ, was indeed alive and not dead, gave new meaning to their lives, their faith and their vocation. Suddenly able to release all fear and fatigue they got up and went back that same night to rejoin the company of the apostles and followers of Jesus and share the good news with them that they had met the risen Lord in the person of a stranger.
This, in turn, leads us to two slightly different but interconnected ideas. It was in the breaking of the bread that these frustrated disciples saw the risen Lord. This points to the central importance of the breaking of the bread, which is what we would today call the celebration of the mass. We are all aware of the declining number of priests and I’ve spoken before about how important it is to encourage our children and grandchildren to become priests. Yet, today, I renew this call for us to keep encouraging any young man that has the qualities to become a priest to courageously follow God’s call. It is, oftentimes, only in perseverance that someone will realize the gifts and talents that they have received. And, as always, if you are a young man who is interested in priesthood, my ear is always open to hear from you and pray for you.
But the celebration of the Eucharist, as we saw in this story, is built upon the notion of hospitality. In other words, we can have priests, servers, lectors, music minsters, and everyone else but still not recognize the presence of the Lord among us if we aren’t open to it. For a long time we emphasized the presence of Christ in the cup and host, which is fitting since the real sacramental presence of Christ is the most fundamental. But, Christ is also present in the gathered assembly. In other words, whenever two or three gather together in Jesus name he is there present to us in a special way. That means that we can’t come to church and just ignore those people around us. We must be like those disciples and not let the frustrations we bring with us from the outside these walls make us so hard hearted as to mistreat the presence of Christ within them. It’s all right to smile at one another and say “Hello” as someone enters. In fact, it’s not only all right to do that, it should be expected that you would do that. We should especially do this for new people who come to our church, the strangers in our midst. We cannot get to the point where new people in our church are seen simply as new financial contributors or new people to add figures to our count in order to keep us open. As I said before, being a follower of Christ means that we a don’t just think of mass as a time for personal private prayer but as a hospitality opportunity to be the body of Christ as a community gathered in Jesus’ name.

JP II and Peter

I was thinking about what it may be like in heaven when John Paul the Second (or JP II as he is affectionately called) and Peter meet. It might go something like this.

Peter: Karol Wojtyla! JP II. Welcome to heaven!
JPII: Who are you?
Peter: Do not be afraid! (Both laugh at hearing Peter say John Paul's motto) I'm Peter, the rock on which the church is built.
JP II: (He begins to kneel out of respect)
Peter: No, don't do that. (Peter looks around embarrassed) Up here we pay respect to God alone since we can finally see him face to face.
JPII: (Nodding understandingly): I see
Peter: Hey, nice job carrying on my office. I appreciated the World Youth Days. In your time, the youth can be led astray by so many things so it was important to do whatever you could to combat that attitude. Oh, and the whole Polish Solidarity movement was beautiful. Single handedly taking down the mighty Soviet Union and allowing Reagan to think that he helped. Way to listen to the Holy Sprit!
JP II: She has always been a sure guide! And I always appreciated those letters you left for us that we incorporated into our scriptures. They were always reminders to me of the holiness of my office. Let me ask you now that I have you here, did you really write those letters?
Peter: What do you mean? Did I really write those letters! What are you suggesting?
JP II: Because some people said that you didn't. I just saying, they thought you didn't write them because of the understanding of the church in them and other things they thought pointed to a much later date of composition.
Peter: You're going to believe Raymond Brown over St. Jerome? (Peter said this while pointing over to a man who seemed to be passionately disagreeing with an angel holding a harp. JP II could hear the man say, "I'm just saying, Gabriel, psalm 15 is a much better psalm than psalm 105. I think we should sing it at the next praise session.")
JP II: I thought you wrote them, I was just checking. (JP II smiles embarrassed to have asked)
Peter: Oh, and one other thing and then we can live in peace for eternity. When they called you the most traveled Pope ever, did you ever suggest to the media that I may have traveled more than you?
JP II: Oh?
Peter: Yeah. I traveled from Jerusalem all the way to Spain and ended up in Rome. And that was without planes and busses and stuff and it was back when we thought the world was flat. I was terrified that I was going to fall off the edge for crying out loud.
JP II: Well, still Peter. I went all over the world. I even went to Iowa, which, might I add, Kevin Costner was right. Heaven does look a lot like Iowa!
Peter: I never thought of that before. (Peter looks around and the looks down toward earth) We even have pigs and corn and have all four seasons. But, getting back to traveling, I still think that you could have mentioned to at least one reporter that you thought I traveled more.
JP II: Well Peter, don't forget that I also learned all several languages and met with world leaders.
Peter: (looking irritated, which Peter is not used to feeling!)
JP II: Let's just say that I always felt like Paul was the better traveler between the two of you. You didn't even go east did you?
Peter: (Suddenly looking understanding) No, I guess not. Okay, whatever. I'm just saying that if I had a pope mobile with bullet proof glass that didn't smell like donkey I may have been more willing to travel.
JP II: (smiling) I have no doubt Peter.
Peter: In any case, well done good and faithful servant. Now take your place in the everlasting banquet of heaven. (Peter puts his arm around JP II and the two of them walk off towards the other people seated around a gigantic lavish table with God at the head...)

Okay, it might be nothing like that. But, don't you want to live you life so that you might be able to see it?

Encountering Teens Encountering Christ

I just spent the last three days with fifty seven high school seniors on retreat. There were undoubtedly a million other things that High School Seniors could have been doing other than hearing a group of adults talk about their relationship to Christ. But, that's what happened for me these last three days. I have a huge headache and I'm about three phonecalls behind but I'm filled with the Holy Spirit right now. I won't go into details but, for me, the best part of the weekend was watching the kids from different High Schools and different lives slowly be transformed into a trusting, cohesive group that care about one another. I love watching the kids that normally don't fit in being accepted because the seniors are far enough away from Middle School to start accepting people for who they are. I love when that kid that you don't think is going to get anything out of the weekend says something incredibly profound in a moment of prayer. I feel full of energy and exhausted at the same time.

Second Sunday In Easter

I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandma recently. Her married name was Helen Schott or “Shut” as it was often pronounced on this side of the state. I can’t imagine any of you meeting Helen Schott since she lived most of her adult life on a farm in Perry, Iowa. I myself didn’t get to know her very well but two of my greatest regrets happened with my grandmother. The first happened when she wanted to go see the movie Annie when I was in grade school. Since my snobbish brothers and sisters didn’t want to go. Grandma Helen had to go see Annie all alone. The second regret that I have with my grandma happened when I was supposed to go visit her in the nursing home as a teenager. But, in my defense, grandma had changed since she invited me to go see a movie. Grandma had gone from a cook, comforter and matron into a person that didn’t recognize her children or grandchildren when they came to visit. She stared into space and ground her teeth; the results of years of Alzheimer’s-like dementia taking away all the personality my grandma used to have. I just wanted her to die, to be at peace, and to not interfere with my beautiful life with ugliness. Grandma had become an…inconvenience.
We’ve probably all heard about doubting Thomas before. We read this story each second Sunday of Easter, after all. We hear Thomas doubt Jesus’ resurrection and, one week later, be invited by Jesus to probe his wounds if it will help his belief. We may have even asked ourselves why the gospels are so hard on Thomas considering Jesus comment last week to Mary Magdalene about letting go of Jesus so that he could go to the Father. Wasn’t Thomas just doing the very act that the tearful Mary Magdalene wasn’t able to do? What we may not have considered before is why Thomas wouldn’t have been excited about the prospect that Jesus is still alive. I think there’s a parallel with my own experience with my experience with my grandma. I imagine at the time of the resurrection there were times when a person appeared to have died who had, in fact, merely fallen into a coma or vegetative state. This same person may come out of these situations and appear to have been raised from the dead. But, the truth is that, in that context, the person was going to still have to die, probably in a slow painful way since the technology we have of feeding tubes and drugs wasn’t present as a source of comfort. Thomas may have feared, therefore, that Jesus would have a miserable existence and figured that he’d be better off dead.
This week we have all been forced to think about death. First, we heard about Terry Schiavo and, as the biased media portrayed it, her “right-to-die” situation. Then we heard about the illness and eventual death of the only Pope that people my age and younger have known. You may have questioned why the church came down so heavily on the side of the Schindlers who wanted to keep their daughter, Terry, alive but then John Paul the second didn’t even go to a hospital for advanced care towards the end of his life. Was the Pope being a hypocrite by not getting aggressive care while expecting ford and hydration for Terry Schiavo. Was the pope asking that Terry Schiavo participate in suffering that he himself shirked in the end. Hardly!
Being a Christian, indeed, being human means that life has value. We shouldn’t have to be productive or happy or good looking or intelligent to be worth something. We should just be able to exist and that should be all that matters. When we start to attach certain benchmarks to determine if life has quality to it, then life becomes meaningless. Life itself has value. And part of what we realize is that even death can be passing to new life if we die to ourselves and and our own convenience and let God be in control. In the mind of the church, therefore, basic nutrition and hydration should not be considered extraordinary. We give food and water to people because no one should have to starve to death.
As we continue to reflect on death the next few days of the Pope’s funeral, this pope that I believe would have been honored to die on Divine Mercy Sunday, let us always remember that even as inconvenient and unexpected death is, so will our resurrection be unexpected and grace filled.

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.