Another "Wow" moment

These past couple of weeks, I feel like I've really connected with students and residents alike. My homily a week ago seemed to resonate with students who feel constantly attacked by fundamentalists on campus. I talked about how faith shouldn't be based on a book but on the totality of revelation which can only be understood in the church. Several students thanked me for it and commented that it was "about time" someone laid it out like that.

Then, this weekend, I preached about the strength of women and how women need to leave abusive relationships. Several women thanked me for it, including a few who had left abusive relationships.

I forget, sometimes, that my words do mean something. There are times when I even start to wonder if I should just shut up and sit down because no one is listening. I think that's why I try to remember that I can't preach self-help homilies (i.e. feel good about yourself) but I try to preach Christ and him crucified.

A brief note

At Saturday evening mass this weekend, right before the cantor began the responsorial psalm, I heard the tornado sirens go off. I knew that a tornado warning had already gone off in a couple of counties next to us so I knew it wasn't a crafty college student's joke. So, what do you do? Most of the time, we could stay put and be just fine. But, I decided that we had enough room to be comfortable in the basement and so, when the cantor finished, I turned on my lapel mic and invited people to move downstairs. Mass in the church hall/fallout shelter!

The strange thing is that, when I first arrived here, someone told me that the basement was the "interim church" until they built the current space. The original pastor here, a revered monsignor, is remembered as celebrating mass there. I couldn't help but hope that somehow Monsignor Supple was smiling that a cyclone...I mean tornado...caused us to move down to the old church for mass and was the opening act for the cyclones beating Colorado for the first time since 1983.

An important homily

Last week, the first reading said that fear of the Lord is the first stage of wisdom. This seems to make sense in the context of November, the month of fear. We begin this month by dressing up like ghosts and goblins and trying to scare each other and end it by maxing out our credit cards trying to buy love for Christmas. I’ve found it fascinating that, in the little bit of television I’ve been able to watch lately, there are two shows that deal almost entirely with fear. I’ve seen a couple of the so-called reality shows that put a family in supposedly haunted places in the middle of the night hoping that they will have some kind of frightening paranormal experience. Another kind of fear based show is, appropriately called “fear factor”; a show in which people see if they an overcome such fears as eating bugs, jumping between moving semi-trucks, or bungee jumping. So, this prompts the question, what is the difference between this kind of fear and fear of the Lord.

When I think of fear of the Lord, I think of Rosa Parks. A black woman in the 1960s knew that the law said she needed to give up her seat at the front of the bus to a white person and move to the back of the bus. Yet, Rosa Parks knew injustice when she saw it. Even though she, undoubtedly, feared the ramifications of her actions, Rosa also knew and understood that God calls us to do what is right. She didn’t bury her talent out of fear of a particular situation but stood up in the face of fear because she knew her God walked with her and gave her courage.
I also think of tiny, little mother Teresa whose life was lived in the fear of the Lord. We may picture her taking care of the lepers in the streets of Calcutta and seeing the face of Christ in each one. Yet, she also stood before powerful politicians and decried the scourge of abortion, saying that any culture that murders its most vulnerable is bereft of morality.

So, by fear of the Lord, I’m not talking about something that leaves us paralyzed. In fact, fear of the lord is synonymous with love of the Lord. Both fear and love of the Lord remind us that God has created us in his own image and put us in this world to live a life of justice. He has given all of us gifts and talents and, like the worthy wife of the first reading who works with her husband to bring up a God-fearing household, we are called to use them in love.

Yet, in our own country, there is much of the wrong kind of fear. Perhaps the most troubling use of this fear is through spousal abuse. I say this in light of the first reading as well as other scripture passages; oftentimes, men will use religious fear to control women and prevent them from seeking safety. Let me try to undo one such weapon of fear. It is often believed that the church believes divorce to be a sin. This is patently false. While the church, like everyone else, would hope that all marriages would be life-long relationships of mutual trust and self-sacrifice, we recognize that there are times when one spouse, usually the woman, must leave in order to be safe. There is no sin in doing this. Let me be clearer. If you are a woman whose husband physically hurts you or your children, you need to seek help. Call the police or go to a shelter or talk to a friend. Do whatever you need to do to feel safe. You can even talk to me after mass if it would be safe for you. The church wants you to be safe and God needs you to stand up to injustice and not bury your talents. God loves you and wants you to be loved.

A good day

Yesterday it was in the seventies with beautiful sun and warmth. Today it's forty eight. They're predicting snow for next Tuesday. But, it's a great day.

Faith

Often, television portrays believers in one of two ways. Either we are sinister, using belief in God to cover up evil actions; like a terrorist, an abortion clinic bomber, or a pedophile priest. Or we are a simpleton, a moron. If you’ve ever seen the character of Ned Flanders on “The Simpsons” you know what I mean. Ned is the stereotypical geek. He has a winy, high-pitched voice and uses phrases like “didleyiddley” instead of swearing. But Ned also supports his church and his minister and he’s always the one sitting in the front row smiling and paying attention. Ned is that guy that is always willing to give a helpful hand to his neighbors, the Simpsons, even though they accept his help and then consistently throw him our of their yard. He’s the very definition of a simpleton.

I don’t think it’s always been this way. If you watch old movies, movies from the forties and fifties, you are more likely to notice that the only wise person was someone who believed in God. Today, it seems like you have to shut off your brain to have faith. I’m afraid we’ve confused something very fundamental, something that makes us different than other Christian denominations. In fact, the confusion is so widespread that I’ve even heard some priests get this wrong in homilies. The confusion centers around the idea of faith. Some people believe faith is a “best guess scenario.” In other words, you look around in search of proof and you can’t find any. However, the world’s wisdom need not correspond to God’s and vice versa. Some will even go so far as to say that man’s wisdom is the exact opposite of God’s. So, you, as an individual, need to eschew “Man’s wisdom” and make a “leap of faith” to have faith in God’s wisdom. Wisdom comes purely from the Bible because, as one hymn puts it, “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

For Catholics, faith and wisdom are inseparable. If our faith contradicts wisdom then one must be in need of a new appropriation. To be truly faithful is to probe the depths of meaning with the particular gifts and talents given to us by God in search of wisdom. But it must be an authentic wisdom, the kind that was praised in the first reading today, not just knowledge. One can have knowledge but not be wise. Think of the scientist that knows everything about the human digestive track but would likely leave for work without wearing pants if a loving spouse didn’t lay them out each day. Or the sports figure who knows everything about the game of basketball but couldn’t put together a grammatically correct sentence of Ms. Manners had a gun to his or her head. These folks have knowledge but not wisdom.

A wise person grapples with difficult questions and is never satisfied by simple answers. He or she realizes that atheism is true futility, true foolishness. Instead, a wise person opens herself or himself up to the possibility that there is a God and then tries to get into a relationship with that God. They look at the Bible as a helpful tool that tells us stories about God and people’s relationship to God but recognize that it is not purely an historical document. They see the Bible as part of a larger tradition that has been handed onto us by the Holy Spirit from our ancestors and see in this our connection to Christ and, through Christ, to God, this chain of witnesses.

This affects, not only our intellect, but out very lives as well. We live life as though Christ could come tomorrow. Indeed, we live life as though Christ could come right now and we’d be ready for him. That means that we show love to our neighbors, especially those who are oppressed. We live life in order to reach out to those who are not wise in order to let them know where true wisdom resides, in the heart of Christ, the heart of the church. True wisdom is built on vigilantly waiting for God. It’s not we who believe and patiently wait for Christ’s return who are simple, it’s those who give up on God like the five foolish bridegrooms in the gospel did, that are simple. We who have the faith, hope, and love of Christ and await his return are the truly wise ones. We recognize that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.

purgatory

On all souls, I got to talk about purgatory, sort of.

I noticed somethingin the readings that we read . Oftentimes, we have cheery visions of deceased family members. But, the more reflect on their lives, we remember their faults. We might remember a grandparents alcohol problem. Or the racist attitudes of our aunt or uncle. Purgatory gives us the hope that these sins can be purged from the person after death so that they can see God with a clear conscience.

This weekend, I'm going to talk about the gifts that women bring to the church. Please pray that I don't say anything stupid. Oh, and feel free to email me any suggestions about how not to do that.

All Souls

Purgatory

I got to talk about purgatory today

and I'm excited

Love

For me, the hardest words to say are, "1 love you." I think they’re even harder to say that, “I’m sorry.” I'm not sure if it comes from being a guy since a lot of times we guys don't like to talk about our feelings. Or if it comes from my Germanic heritage where even I love you,“Ich Liebe dich,” sounds more like the beginning of a bar brawl than a term of endearment. Or if it has to do with being a priest, but it's tough for me to say, "I love you." I do hope that, even if I can't say it, I nonetheless live it out, though I know I don't always do that. That's what I find fascinating about the gospel today. On the one hand, you have a group of Pharisees who want to show just how stupid they think Jesus is by trapping him. They ask him a question in order to trip him up. Basically, they ask him to summarize the Jewish faith. Jesus could have become angry with them. He could have told them to go away since they are not only not his followers but they had no intention of becoming his followers; but he didn't. Instead, he loved them as much as he did his followers and told them that the heart of discipleship is love. In both his words and actions, he showed love.

This past Tuesday, the students at St. Thomas put on a question and answer session called, "Why do Catholics do that." The four campus ministers, Fr. Ev, John Donaghy, Misty Heinen, and I, took questions about catholic teaching from anyone who showed up. I walked in, prepared to answer the questions 1 felt competent to answer and hoping that there wouldn't be too many that I wouldn't know, though I was confident that the other campus ministers could make up for my shortcomings. We fielded questions about purgatory, the relationship of scripture to tradition, indulgences, saints, and numerous other topics. In the questions, I became aware by the way that some of the people phrased them, that some were not catholic. 1 figured that some people were considering joining the church or had roommates or friends who were catholic that couldn’t answer a question for them and told them about this. After the presentation, while talking to a student who is pretty active at St. Thomas, I commented that I thought the evening when well. He said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I just think they sent nice people this year." When I asked him what he meant by that, 1 was surprised and upset to learn that one of the fundamentalist evangelical groups in town, one of those that don't consider Catholics to be Christians, regularly sends students to this event in order to "trip us up", similar to the way the Pharisees did in today's gospel.

Now, I have to admit that it's fortunate that I found this out afterwards. I'm sure it would have colored my answers had I known, especially since 1 couldn't help but rethink all of my answers afterwards and put more anger in them; more "You were the ones who broke away from us." And "You were the ones who took out books from the Old Testament."

It would have been a lot easier for me to be rude to them if I'd have known that they weren't Catholics or even people trying to understand the Catholic Church better. Even though I'm a pretty nice guy, I'm also a person who has pretended a couple of Jehovah's witnesses weren't at the door in order to avoid having to talk to them. I just kept going about my business and didn't answer the persistent doorbells and knocking.

Jesus, on the other hand, found a way to stand up for his beliefs, to do so unequivocally, and to live out those beliefs, namely the law of love, as he was being attacked. This love is, in some ways, what is missing in our society. Love is what tells us that turning someone into some thing is wrong. Love tells us that every pregnancy is a gift. Love is what forces us to stop and not hurt our wife or our children. Love is what stops us from honking the horn at the elderly person who is not driving well. Love is what compels us to give to those who are need. And love is what makes us treat all people, especially those who persecute us, with respect and dignity.

In the early church, there was one characteristic that shined out before all others. Even when we were in the midst of terrible persecutions, as some of Christians were being killed by wild animals for sport, people knew us because of our love. In this world where vengeance, anger, violence and terror are the norm, we must once again be the church towards which people remark, "See how the Christians love one another."

Birthdays

This Sunday was my birthday. In some ways it was a depressing birthday. I didn't receive very many cards, something that wouldn't never have happened in my previous assignments. And I didn't get to hang out with old friends as can happen surrounding birthdays. But, I couldn't help but be grateful to be assisting a great pastor in a great assignment. God bless the Cyclones. God bless this parish. And God bless the Archbishop for assigning me here.

This weekend we welcome the parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and all the relatives who have come for Iowa State’s family weekend. Thank you for coming to support your students who are just wrapping up a couple of intense weeks of testing in midterms. It seemed somehow fitting that the weather turned cold this past week. The students that, just a few short weeks ago, were walking around with a bounce in their step and a smile on their face have been walking around these last few weeks with eyes barely open and feet just sluggishly moving them in the direction of the next test or lab or presentation. Reality hit this week and it hit hard.

“On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples
a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples,
the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever.” This is the message our Lord gives to us in the first reading today, and it seems an especially poignant message as we gather together, not only because God has indeed called us to this spiritual banquet of the body of Christ, though indeed he has. But, God has done so something special in a special unique place. I mean, let’s be honest. When was the last time you were invited to a meal on a mountain?

The image of the mountain plays a unique role in this year’s gospel, the gospel of Matthew. It began when Jesus brought his followers to a mountain to hear the beatitudes. Later, he brought them up to the mount of transfiguration and, throughout this gospel, Jesus goes off to mountains to pray. The mountain in the gospel of Matthew is the place for a heavenly encounter with God. It is a sacramental experience of the highest kind wherein the divine and the human interact. God brings us to himself and transforms our hearts to be like his. It is on this mountain that we will feast with God.

If you are a student, you know the kind of preparation an event such as the one God has planned for us. In preparing for your family to visit you, you may have cleaned up your room, got homework done early, made reservations at a local restaurant, and done other such things so that your visit would be more pleasant. All of that work is in addition to all the tests, quizzes, projects, jobs, etc that you had to do for midterms. In some ways, the students whose parents couldn’t come may have had a better family weekend than those who could. However, you are all busy people. Wouldn’t it be great to have an opportunity to just sit back and relax?

That’s the best part about Christianity, though to be honest, we stole this from our Jewish brothers and sisters. We have a day built into our week where our entire goal is to take a break from our usual daily routine in order to focus on relationships. This is what Sunday is all about. Our culture doesn’t like to recognize the need for a Sabbath rest. Some Christians even think that Jesus took away our obligation to honor this sacred institution. Our beloved deceased Pope John Paul the second was aware of these developments and, so, he wrote an Apostolic letter called Dies Domini reminding the church of how important it is to honor the Lord’s Day. In this letter, John Paul wrote, “It is right, therefore, to claim, in the words of a fourth century author, that ‘the Lord's Day’ is ‘the lord of days’. Those who have received the grace of faith in the Risen Lord cannot fail to grasp the significance of this day of the week with the same deep emotion which led Saint Jerome to say: ‘Sunday is the day of the Resurrection, it is the day of Christians, it is our day’. For Christians, Sunday is ‘the fundamental feastday’, established not only to mark the succession of time but to reveal time's deeper meaning.”

So, our mountain is not necessarily a place, but a day and by saying that Sunday is the day that reveals time’s deeper meaning, our Holy Father was reminding us of the profound truth that, in our busy lives, we cannot lose sight of our relationships to the human family or to our God. When we do so, we lose a sense of the meaning of time and it becomes an arbitrary annoyance instead of being the gift that God has given to us in order to come to know him and love him through his Son and his church.

It is the hope of Fr. Ev and all the staff here at St. Thomas that you will come to see in this building, this church, the heart of this message. We hope that you will see in this place the message of the mountain that God calls you from the busy-ness of your life to the peace of his kingdom. He invites all to this banquet knowing that not all will respond. What prevents you from taking your Sabbath rest?

A Blessed Antioch

One college retreat that catholic dioceses have developed is called Antioch. The name is taken from the town in Greece where the early believers in Christ took on the name "Christian". I've done a few Antiochs in the past at Loras and, as both a student and priest, I've been happy with what took place there. But, this past weekend, I had a paradigm shift. I did Antioch at St. Thomas Aquinas in Ames.

In theory, the two programs came from the same parent program. However, there was a lot of difference between the two. What impressed me most was the notion of growth in the christian faith that takes a lifetime to complete. Salvation is not something that just happens to the exclusion of an individual. Instead, we must live our whole lives in order to enter the kingdom of God. These college students defintely understood that we aren't just "saved" and done. Instead, each day we choose wheather we want to lead the life of Christ or not.

Da Vinci Code

At some point in the not too distant future, Hollywood is going to release one of the most evil, anti-christian films ever made. It's based on the equally evil anti-christian book "DaVinci Code" which maintains that the person who reached out to the world in love and selflessly gave his life for its salvation couldn't have lived 33 years without having sex. It's amazing that this "impossibility" has never been a concern for the world in the first 2000 years since Jesus' death. Thank goodness that Dan Brown figured it all out. How foolish for Christians to have loved Christ for 2000 years without knowing that his kids are still on earth.

Yet, we Christians, and especially Catholics, shouldn't be surprised at Anti-Christian bias in the media. Dogma, the movie, made a mockery of the notion of good works. Stigmata, the movie, made a mockery of sainthood and personal holiness. Several televisions shows have jumped on the priesthood sexual abuse crisis such that, when a priest appears on a sitcom, you can guarantee that he sexually abused someone. They have found a way to make five percent of the priestly population the majority!

So, where is the mockery of Jews and Jewish belief?

And why is Hollywood not going to make a movie mocking Islam?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Movies/09/29/leisure.brooks.reut/index.html

So, I think this is the last straw for me. I'm asking myself some key questions. When was the last time I learned something by watching TV? When was the the last time I watched an entertaining movie that wasn't morally reprehensible? When was the last time either of these media helped my relationship to God or other people? And, with my answers to these questions, I'm afraid that it's time that I start to refer to these devices as what they are...occaisions of sin.

Is Jesus Kind?

I have no problem admitting that Jesus death on the cross was the ultimate sign of love. There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend, to paraphrase St. Paul. But, is being loving the same thing as being kind? I think this is one of the greatest sources of confusion in two areas.

The first is our understanding of God. God doesn't need to be nice to us. The fact that heaven is open to us is kindness enough.

The second is our understanding of religion. We need to show love to one another. We need to reach out to those who are suffering to bring some kind of goodness out of that evil. And I do think kindness is a virtue. But, is a lack of kindness really a sin? It's possible that, since so much of culture publicizes and repeats every negative thing about the church and puts us in the worst light possible, that we need to be beyond reproach. I think some would say that's a valid statement. But, I think we need to stand up for principles. I do think that we need to speak out for life. I think we need to stand up for the sanctity of marriage. I think we need to say that not all catholic priests are pedophiles and that we're tired of that depiction. We need to say that a country that is as rich as the United States needs to reach out to the poor. We need to ask if the war in Iraq had anything to do with the war on terror and ask if the policy on "pre-emptive war" hurts or helps the understanding of just war theory. We can't be afraid to speak out on things ask long as we are doing so in love. But, I think it weakens us to try and form every sentence so that they won't offend anyone.

Not in Kansas....

After a small break, I'm back.

No big problems. Just a lot of workin' with the Lord.

This weekend's reading was, basically, that some people hear the word of God, reject, and end up doing it while others hear it, agree to it, and then never do it.

I talked about how God's word comes to us through the bishops and are responsibility, as catholics, is to listen, trust, and do; not listen, criticize and make it up on our own. At least, I think that was my point.

In any case, I was approached after mass by someone who was upset by my point because the person thought the point of the reading is that religious leaders are stupid and we should just do it ourselves. I found myself becoming angry and then I realized something. This person has probably been schooled in (my term) seditionist theology. By that term, I just mean a kind of personalist view that says bishops and priests are more of a problem than an asset. I think this is an unintended consequence of the (post?) Vatican II realization that priests (and bishops) are fallible. The media bias that all priests are pedophiles has only reinforced this understanding.

And, since I coordinate a group of men who are discerning the possibility of becoming a priest, it's good to know that this bias is out there. I recognize that I need to educate people what priesthood is all about and, perhaps, what it is not.

Please pray for Misty

My coworker had an incredible tragedy happen for her the other day. Two of her friends (who were both seminarians) died in a terrible car accident. Please keep her and the family of the students in your prayers.

A bright light in a dark world

Today is a day of celebration here at Iowa State. Yesterday’s victory over Iowa was awesome, incredible. As someone who sat through the Jim Criner and Jim Waldon eras of football coaching, a time when you were ashamed to admit that you were a Cyclone fan, it is incredible to see the University of Iowa bring a number four rated team into our Jack Trice stadium and get trounced. It’s a good day to celebrate.

Yet, our celebration is mingled with a couple of other realities this weekend. The first is that today is September 11, 2005, exactly four years after one of the most tragic events in American History. We remember that four years ago, people came to this country and killed thousands of working Americans. Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have said that this was THE worst tragedy in contemporary American history, yet in looking at all the pictures coming out of New Orleans and the other gulf areas, it’s easy to see that this is another tragedy just as bad if not worse than 9/11. And, this time, we can’t retaliate against enemies. We can’t bring the fight to anyone.

I was pondering these two realities as I reflected on this passage of scripture and I realized something that I hadn’t seen before. If you have ever studied our gospel, you probably know that this is a parallel parable. In other words, two similar events take place with a different outcome. The tragic thing that I think has happened is that we’ve neglected the “surprise” that Jesus listeners would have had. So, let’s set it up and see if I can explain the surprise. There’s a servant who, roughly, owes his master the equivalent to the national debt of the United States. Now, there is no way that he could repay the debt so he says, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full”. The master is so moved with compassion that he, not only, doesn’t throw him, his wife, children, and possessions in jail but, instead, forgives the debt.

The servant leaves and encounters a fellow servant who is in debt to him about a hundred days wages. When this other servant uses the same words that he just used, “Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full”, there is not pity in the forgiven servant’s voice. He throws his fellow servant in jail and, by all appearances, the money suddenly shows up. The surprising thing, then, is what happens next. When the servant is called in front of the master, the prudent thing the master would have done would have been to demand the hundred days wages for himself. I mean, wouldn’t that make sense? By throwing the servant who is incredibly deep in debt in jail, the master wouldn’t have been able to be repaid at all. It’s better that the servant work and slowly repay the debt over time by, for example, collecting on the debts that others had to him.

The problem and the surprise is that the master didn’t expect, no, didn’t want the servant to repay the loan. He had completely forgiven it and expected this servant to have a sense of gratitude for that forgiveness. That’s the appropriate way to behave when we are treated kindly. We should want behave just as kindly to those around us.

The problem is that it’s so easy to forget the tremendous kindness that God has been to us. There is so much darkness and despair in our world that we can follow our culture’s attitude of tit-for-tat. Our culture tells us that we should be nice to people who are nice to us. We should give forgiveness to those who forgive us. We should give to those who give us something. This is the attitude of many politicians and advertisers, you pat my back and I’ll pat yours.

As Christians, we are called to a more hopeful life than this. God loves us and so we must love others, especially those who don’t love us back. God has forgiven us so we must forgive those who harm us. God has given his life to us to us and so we must give back it back. We must be a beacon of hope in what is oftentimes a dark world.

One institution within our church that is just such a beacon is Catholic Charities. If you don’t know anything about catholic charities, they are an organization of people that are, oftentimes, the first people on the ground after tragedies happen with supplies for those effected and a willingness to be the presence of Christ to people who are in awful circumstances. Last year, the archdiocese of Dubuque gave over a half million dollars to victims of the tsunami. In the entryway of church, you can find an envelope labeled “special collection”. You can also put money in the second collection that will take place at the end of mass and make out a check to Catholic Charities with the word “hurricane” in the memo. In this simple action, we show the hope that sees through tragedy to the ultimate victory over tragedy, Jesus Christ.

anamnesis

Ordinarilly, I try to update my blog on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and twice on the weekend. I don't always succeed but that is my goal. However, since Tuesday, I keep starting what I think is a good idea and then having to abandon it in the middle and not remembering what I was writing when I can get it done later. Memory is a huge issue in my family. I imagine that part of this is normal but, ever since my grandmother developed dimensia similar to alzheimers and basically spent the last fifteen years of her life in a nursing home bed unable to recognize anyone, we are all afraid of what it means to forget things. For me, the thought of forgetting so many great experiences I've had with friends and family is a part of growing older that is not positive.

Several times in the bible, both old and new testaments, the people of God are told to remember something. The Israelites were told to remember the covenant they made with God and keep the commandments of God. The apostles were told to celebrate the eucharist "in remembrance" of Christ. Memory has an important part to play in religion. and, in particular, with our relationship to God. One of the ways we remember this is what is called an examination of conscience. By this I mean a prayer before falling asleep where we take time to recall the experiences we had that day to see those places where God was present and where we couldn't feel the presence of God. It is amazing that, in those remembrances, we find how close our God has been to us.

Duc in Altum

I've been thinking about the phrase "throw out into the deep" from the gospel of Luke (today's gospel) which is translated into latin as "duc in altum". This was the phrase the John Paul II used to initiate a reflection on vocations last March, though it wasn't the first time that he used that phrase. Two things come to mind when I read John Paul II about this. The first is that "throw out into the deep" involves taking a chance. The disciples had been burned the night before. They had tried and failed to catch fish. Now they are tired and frustrated and, if it were me, the last thing I would want to do is go fishing. But, they are willing to take a chance because they trust Jesus. That willingness, despite having already cleaned up their nets, paid off for a whole night of bad fishing. But, in this act of fishing, they can see a foreshadowing of what they will soon be doing full time...catching people (lit. "fishing for men"). Many people have jobs that don't seem to have any affect on the kingdom of God. How might God be using those types of jobs to prepare you for ministry?

an analogy

All analogies have areas of similarity and dissimilarity so bear with this.

Yesterday morning, I went to the dentist. It had been a year and a half or better since I had gone and I had broken off part of one of my molars so it was time. I sat in the chair and had x-rays taken of the one that had broken off and the dentist starting numbing the area around the bad tooth. Then, he started looking around and found two other teeth that he was fairly certain would need to have fillings replaced. So, I went back today to get them done and get the cleaning that was long over due. In the middle of it, he found two other teeth that needed to have their fillings replaced. I'll go back a week from Thursday to get them done and, hopefully, be finished with fillings for a while.

But, it did prompt me to reflect on the idea of reconciliation. Most catholics in today's world simultaneously say that they don't need to go to confession and that the church instills a sense of guilt. Confession is like that visit to the dentist that I should have done a year ago. It clears out all the things you need to be guilty about so that you can go on with your life. Otherwise, you bring all this baggage along with you and the result is guilt. And, while it's true that you only need to go to confession once a year, it's just as true that we probably need to go more often than that. It's definitely something that feels worse before we do it. I always feel better when I leave than when I start.

So, find a good dentist and get your teeth cleaned and a good priest and get your soul done too.

Living the passionate life

This weekend was a big one for the mass at St. Thomas. We spent time introducing the staff members. Then we handed out time and talent forms so that parishioners could get involved. That meant that mass started about five minutes later than usual which means I kept my homily short.

So, I talked about having conviction. In this world, there are an awful lot of people, myself included, who tend to be dispassionate about their faith. The challenge of christians is that, in being tolerant of other people's free will, we can't lose the passion we feel about the faith. We also can't become so focused on one issue that we miss out on the breath of God's will. God has given us the church so that we can get behind all that he wants from us.

Holy Thursday!!!

Up at 5:30 so that I could be on the road at 6:30. That was how my morning began. I started out in St. Paul after seeing an absolutely morally reprehensible play last night and spending the night in the home of a good priest friend. I drove for my priestly support group meeting in a small town named Grundy Center, Iowa. We supported one another and then I went home to Marshalltown for supper, something that would never have happened a couple of months ago (can you believe I've been in Ames for over a month now?). Mom's string beans are the greatest in the world and it's always good to see my Dad and brother, Dave. I got back in my truck and headed back to Ames for what will probably be my favorite experience in this assignment. I had an earlier posting about Wednesday Night Liturgy during this summer. Now that the students, we do it on Thursdays and do it later on in the evening, 10:00. What an awesome experience! The students just gave me so much energy. They are the church...discovering what that means.

Now I'm trying to wind down a little so that I can sleep and get ready for a lot of work tomorrow. That's what I get for screwing around two days in a row.

The images of the pope

This past weekend, I found myself reflecting on the images that go along with the pope. I talked about the chair, the catedra, and how the bishop's chair is a visible symbol of his authority. I talked about how every catholic church has a chair in the front for the priest that connects him back to that chair that the bishop sat in when he was ordained. That chair should remind the priest that he is nothing without his bishop...humility.

I also talked about the keys. The keys were mentioned in the readings this weekend. Peter was given them. I talked about how, in modern times, we tend to see in this a hand over of power to Peter, as though it's his job to determine what the church believes. However, the first reading warned that the keys could get taken away and given to someone else. The Pope's job is not to tell God what he believes but to do what God wants and proclaim that truth to the world. He is to protect the truth that has been handed on to us and keep out anything that is evil.

minimalists and maximalists

In the past couple of years, I've become annoyed by the terms "liberal" and "conservative". Masking them under the titles "progressive" and "traditional" doesn't help either. The members of the church are far too multifacated to put into two categories. That's why I'd like to further add some clarity by introducing two new distinctions that aren't really typical conservative or liberal. The terms I'm using to understand people are maximalists and minimalists. Now, bear in mind, these are not meant to be all encompassing/villify the other group/High School football terms. These are meant to help members of the body of Christ understand differences in some attitudes. They presume that people have an earnest desire to remain faithful to church teachings.

The difference between the two begins with their outlook. A maximalist asks "What more can I do to be part of the church?" A minimalst asks, "What do I have to do to be part of the church." Beginning with these differences in questions explains why one priest wears just an alb and stole and another priest wears amice, alb, cincture, stole, chausable and, during the big celebrations, cassock. But, these differences are not just limited to priests. I think all people ask these questions, which is where religion both thrives and becomes ugly. And, I think most people vary between being a minimalst for one issue and being a maximalst for others.

This helps me when I'm talking to people about the church to find out the way they are approaching an issue. So, for instance, some people think that people need to go to confession every month, if not every week. These people are maximalists. Others struggle to go once a year. They are minimalsts.

Of course, another key is to keep in mind that this is just supposed to offer another category to help us understand people. Ultimately, people's rationale for being a minimalst or maximalist will vary. So, even though it's okay to understand what a person thinks in order to understand where they are coming from, the most important question to ask is why they believe.

Our State Fair is a great state fair....

Ah, the smell of warm fried foods coupled with the slight scent of animal dung...does it get any better than that? That was what I did yesterday. I visited our wonderful state fair. Some people go to the state fair to ride the rides. Why not go to an amusement park? Most people go to eat their favorite state fair particular food - deep fried snickers bars, twinkies, or the infamous corn dog. Then they go to Iowa Methodist Medical center for bypass surgery. I go to the state fair to see the animals. That's what the fair is supposed to be about. It has been overrun by commercialism with people trying to sell everything from mops to siding to colleges. But, in the barns, it is still the fair as it is supposed to be. I saw the biggest boar, the biggest bull, and a milking demonstration. I saw two 4H shows, one involving shetland ponies and another involving milking cows. It was great to see a kid that was half the size of a cow leading her around a show ring without any fear. The highlight of the day, however, was when my grandparents' (mom's parents) farm became a "Century Farm". It was nice to stand on stage and represent the next generation of Schott family reaping the benefits of the earth from this parcel of land that has been doing so for a hundred years. And, it was good to see Aunts and Uncle gather together for something other than a funeral.

Putting limits on God’s love

Oftentimes, when I hear this gospel passage, I hear it referred to as the story of the Canaanite woman, which makes sense considering that one of the people involved is a Canaanite woman. The other, since it is a gospel story, is Jesus. Usually, that’s where our consideration of this story ends. We have Jesus talking to a Canaanite woman sounding, at times, pretty harsh, which has always seemed very contrary to the way I’ve imagined Jesus approaching those who have faith in him. So, I’d like to suggest a change in focus for this parable, a third character, if you will, who played a prominent role. It is, oftentimes, overlooked that Jesus is surrounded by and talks to his disciples throughout this story. And, in fact, I think that the disciples are the real ones who learn an important thing or two from today’s gospel.

I’m a Cubs fan. I have a friend who is also a Cubs fan. I remember talking with him a couple of months ago about how this is yet another rebuilding year. That makes 55 years in a row that the Cubs have been trying to rebuild a World Series team. He said that he was watching them one day and that they beat their opponent by eight or nine runs and then lost by two or three the next day. His theory was that they should have stored up some of their runs from the one day in order to win the next, as though the Cubs were the moral equivalent to Grimm fairty tale about the grasshopper who spent all summer singing instead of storing food and went starving to the ants for food during the winter.

I think there is a part of us that thinks in a similar way about God’s love. We say that we know God’s love is all-powerful and all encompassing but then we tend to put limits on it. After all, if God’s love is all-powerful and limitless then that means that we can’t put limits on our own love. That was what the disciples were doing in the gospel today. When the woman comes professing faith in Jesus, they want him to chase her off. This isn’t the only time they will want Jesus to get rid of people who cry out to him in need but it is the first time that Jesus gives in. I don’t think Jesus really wants for this woman to be sent away. I think he wants the disciples to face their biases, to face those times when they exclude people simply because they would rather believe they are outside of God’s love than within it.

So, Jesus communicates to the woman what the disciples would have him do, like a teenager giving into peer pressure. The difference, though, is that Jesus knows that this woman will stand up to him. Any desperate mother who thinks that a cure is possible for her child will be willing to be called names if it means having a healthy child. Because of her humility, her faith, and her love, her daughter is cured and she can walk back and, with her daughter, grow in the faith that was given to her.

The disciples, on the other hand, are left in a bit of a lurch. They have to face their own prejudices and deal with them. In this lesson, Jesus teaches them that racism and discrimination are the seeds of evil, not the way that leads to everlasting life.

This message will need to be quickly learned and implemented by the disciples. After Jesus death, the disciples leave Jerusalem and Israel and go to other countries to spread the gospel. They begin with what is comfortable. They first go to the synagogue if there was one in town. But, they would inevitably find the gentile audience more open to the saving message of Jesus. They find a common longing for meaning in these new believers, a longing that finds expression in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and allows these people who were not descendants of Abraham to be grafted onto his vine. This all happened because they learned to not let fear of differences drive them away from spreading the gospel.

That is the message the disciples learned and, perhaps, we disciples need to learn it as well. How do we treat people of other races, gender, political persuasion, theological understanding…? Do we let them go their way and we’ll go our own or do we try to get to know them and love them as Jesus loves us?

Living with contradictions...

As a young priest, I think I have a pretty good sense of what the church asks for liturgy, perhaps better than those who were educated ten or twenty years ago. And, as a result of my more contemporary education, I feel it my responsibilty to gently bring "creative liturgical reform" back in line with the church. One great example of this is pouring from the pitcher to the cups. The vatican has clarified that they would like us to do this before the eucharistic prayer and consecration. Since that clarification came out, most priests have bristled at this change. Some refrain out of theological reasons. They want to do it at the fraction rite so that it is the fullest symbol of Christ's body being broken for us and Christ's blood being poured out. Others who are suspicious of authority think that it is Rome's attempt to return to only distributing in one form only.

My reaction was to think of how it could be done and do it. It didn't take any imagination whatsoever and most people appreciate the change. No having to do one thing when the bishop isn't present and changing when the bishop is. No stubbornly ruffling my feathers at the thought of the Vatican telling me how to celebrate mass. Just make the change in as organic a way as possible.

So, I tend to be an advocate of doing what the books tell us to do and doing it well. Yet, in the middle of distributing holy communion, I became annoyed with myself. I have added something to the mass. Most priests do this and I have a good reason for doing it, but I have nonetheless added something. If people bring children to mass who cannot receive communion, I will give them a blessing. I do it because it recognizes the child who is present rather than pretending the child is not there or important and I do it because I think it is important to acknowledge children at mass. In an era in which each priest is a sexual abuser and each child a potential victim, I think it's imporant that I visibly interract with children in a loving way that makes it clear that I'm not a sexual abuser. I bless them. And, just as important, I look at these children as gifts. They are the next generation of faithful catholics to carry on the message of Jesus.

But the church doesn't say that I should distribute communion and bless children. It just says I distribute communion. Now, I have to decide if the absence of a rubric means tacit disapproval.

A God who gets disappointed with us

Last week, I kept reflecting on the image of an angry God. I know that probably seems silly to reflect on that. It doesn't square with the common picture of Jesus laughing with his head tilted back, eyes closed and mouth wide open as though someone had just told a golfing joke (or maybe that one about not finding a lawyer in heaven). The difficult thing, though, is that scripture sometimes seems to hint at God being mad. And I'm not just talking about the Old Testament. Think of the God who won't let the rich man repent of his sins despite coming to the realization that he has not lived a life of holiness by seeing Lazarus in heaven.
I kept thinking about how hurtful family can be to one another. I had two friends, very close friends that are more like family to me than friends, who exchanged exceptionally mean emails. One of our friends was worried that it would ruin our friendship. I told them that I thought it pointed to how strong our friendship was. The emails, though exceptionally mean, were really honest. One person stated very plainly some concerns she had about the choices another was making. This helped me understand God's anger a little better. God gets angry our of love. Those biblical images of God taking vengance out on other people show how much he cares about us. He cares enough to be disappointed in us when we do stupid things.

God works in this world to convert it

As I was reflecting on this reading, I couldn't help but be drawn to two interconnected conclusions. In the Twin Cities, there's a parish of 5000 families. Most priests in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recognize it as a reality and even a good. When I talk to priests about that parish in this diocese, most of them say that it's too big. They have an idea that two thousand families is the largest parish they can comprehend. Then, we turn to our gospel today and realize that our Lord had five thousand parishioners relatively early on in his career and he was able to work miracles with those folks. It should give us hope.

I also couldn't help but reflect on the change in interpretation that has happened with this particular passage. Ten or fifteen years ago, there appeared a novel interpretation for it, an interpretation I like to call "potluck supper" . The general way this bit of isogesis works is to say that, when the disciples found this little boy (mentioned in other gospels) with his five loaves and two fish who was willing to share his food, suddenly others in the crowd were willing to share what they had as well until they had left-overs. The implication of this interpretation is definitely true; most of us have more than we need and are unwilling to share what we have with others.

But, despite the fact that, in general, I think this is a good social message, it is not what our readings today intend to convey. It is tantamount to what Benjamin Franklin did with the Bible when he removed all that he felt was miraculous. I think there are other passages that make us reflect on the value of charity in putting God first and stuff second. The real message our gospel is inviting us to reflect on is entirely different and may be described by the following story.

There once was a little boy named Billy. Billy was a very quiet and shy little boy who liked to hide behind his mother's leg when company came over. One day at his Catholic school, Billy's teacher asked his class for a volunteer to read at mass the next week. Billy made his eyes drop to the ground to avoid the teachers gaze and did whatever else he could to not look like he had any interest whatsoever. But, the teacher was quite wise. She called Billy's name to get his attention and then asked him to read. Billy, being a quiet and shy little boy, knew he couldn't say no to his teacher regardless of how much he wanted to. So, when he got home, he turned to his mother to ask if she would write him a note excusing him from reading. Billy's Mom, however, was also wise. She told him that she wouldn't write the note but would, instead, help him to prepare and even take time off from work to come to mass. So, Billy had no choice but to turn to his Dad. However, Billy's Dad and Mom worked like a team so, when Billy asked, dad, who had been warned by Mom that Billy would probably try this, also told Billy that he would help him practice and would take time off from work to come to mass. So, when the day of mass arrived, Billy didn't have any excuse. His mom, dad, and teacher had all helped him to prepare and made sure he'd be ready. Billy stepped up to the microphone, hoping that the kids wouldn't laugh at him too loudly. Then, the amazing happened. Billy not only read the reading well, he was perfect. He didn't pop any "p's" and read slowly and clearly in order to convey the meaning.

Billy might not have known that he had been given the gift to proclaim the word, but he had and others could see it in him. That is, oftentimes, the way that spiritual gifts work, whether they are gifts like reading of the word of God, the gift of faith, or a vocation. They aren't merited. In other words you can't earn them. God gives them to us freely in order to build up the kingdom. And, oftentimes, we don't recognize the gifts that God has given to us. Certainly, the disciples didn't realize the gift that they had in Jesus or they wouldn't have tried to send the crowds away to get food. They would have just asked Jesus to give them food instead.

What is needed, instead, is a bit of initiative on our part to recognize the gifts that have been given to us. That why Jesus started out with five loaves and two fish in the first, because he works with us to save us. We need to be open to recognize the gifts that have been given to us and not run away from them. I see this many times in the area of vocations to priesthood, diaconante, and religious life. I have met so many men and women who have incredible gifts for ministry who seem to turn away from priesthood and religious life out of fear of loneliness. I always find this to be an ironic response when I think about how many times in a day that I want to get away from people for a while because I've been talking to so many. Plus, I've met an awful lot of people who say they don't feel like they have enough time for the studies surrounding becoming a deacong even though they are already involved in a million things in church that they could give up in order to be a deacon and give other people the oppertunity to do the things they were doing.

Now, you may be wondering what the connection was between the parish of 5000 families and the idea of vocation. When we see something we believe to be a problem, there are a number of ways to deal with it. We can either worry and fret about it and do what we can to turn away from it, like the disciples wanted to do in the gospel or we can see in the problem an opportunity for growth in the gifts that God has given to us. Where is God calling you to grow in the gifts he has given to you?

A new website

I've talked before about a very influential thinker in modern catholic history by the name of George Weigel. I just found out that he has a web column. I'm not saying that I agree with everything Mr. Weigel says but I find him very thought provoking. Here it is....

http://www.archden.org/weigel/index.php

WNL

Last night we had a usual summer phenoeonon at my current parish (from now on referred to as STA = St. Thomas Aquinas) called Wednesday Night Liturgy or WNL. It's a smaller version of what takes place on Thursday nights here and is less dealing with mass and more with different forms of prayer.

I couldn't help but be astounded at the number of college students who were willing to gather together and pray. There was probably a lot that they could have been doing instead but here was a large group of young people gathered together to call upon the Holy Spirit for her gifts. I find that incredibly powerful.

though you are master of light you judge with clemency

This past week British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a shocking discovery: most of the terrorists that caused the bombings in his country were natives of his country. In other words, unlike the September 11th tragedy in our country, the enemy was from within. Up until this point, each time I heard about the London train bombings, I would immediately go back to the only real referent our country has had for such terror, certainly the only experience I've had had in my lifetimes. On the morning of September 11th, I remember thinking to myself, “Let’s just go blow them all up. Let’s find out who did it and just carpet bomb the entire country. Maybe innocent people will die in the process but it’s a small price to pay if we can feel safe again.”

The more I think about and ponder that selfish reaction, the more illogical it seems. In some ways, it is only logical to want swift retribution after an injustice. It’s easy to understand why the mother of the girl lost in Aruba is speaking out to reporters and calling the government there incompetent and corrupt. Her daughter is lost and no one can find her. It’s understandable to feel frustrated and want to take that out on other people.

Aren’t we all lucky, however, that this is not the way that God operates. Our first reading today reminds us that the fact that God doesn’t act like that when some terrible sin takes place is a sign of his power. This may seem like a contradiction to say that God’s clemency is a sign of his power but the truth is that wreaking havoc and causing destruction is the easy thing to do. Any brute can destroy. And, repaying terror with violence is just as easy. The real challenge is not to overreact, to hope in the face of hatred and anger that the person will realize that their actions are wrong and that they must stop them. This is how God reacts to our sins; to those times when we hurt other people.

He knows already who are the wheat and who are the weeds. He could go throughout the church and the world to pick out those people who are headed towards death and save those who are headed towards light. But this is not the way he operates. Even though it might seem that a perfect world without sinners is the best type of world, especially since this is the way God intended it from the beginning, sin still has a role to play.

This is the point of our gospel. God’s patience despite his power plays itself out in a world filled with temptations to sin. God sees all the sin and allows it to exist in the hopes that someone who has sinned, even just one person, will repent. But, patient hope for conversion is not the natural way to react to sin. The easiest way to react to sin is to throw the wheat out with the weeds, to remove the sinners from one’s life. The truth is that we must follow Paul’s advice from the second reading and call upon the Spirit in these difficult times. Even if we don’t know what to pray, the spirit intercedes for us to make us holy. In the midst of conflict and division, we may feel conflicted. Part of us may want to call upon God to carry out retribution for what has happened, like sending some SARS or AIDS or cancer or something awful like that to attack those who hurt us. Yet, as Christians, we are called to not hope that something bad will happen to them but, instead, to hope that they will repent and believe in the gospel. And, the more we analyze these situations, the farther we step away from our immediate reaction, we may even find some blame in it is our own. We may have done something to them that seemed to provoke their mean-spirited actions or we may even have misunderstood something that happened and believed we were wronged when, in fact, we were in the wrong. Morality is often shaded by such areas of gray instead of clearly delineated in black and white.

One great example of this is when a child or a brother or sister or someone else close to us comes and tells us they are gay. As a Catholic, we may feel conflicted about the whole issue of homosexuality. On the one hand, we may be tempted to react angrily and throw the person out of our life, despite knowing that they didn’t choose to be gay. Even though this is, for some of us, the natural reaction, I believe it is also the most unchristian, the most sinful. Yet, on the other hand, we may be happy that the person actually told us and find ways to support and love the person because it is what Jesus would have done. But we may struggle to help them understand the catholic teaching that homosexual acts are the sin, not the homosexual.

In the midst of this chaos, we who have ears ought to stop talking and listen. Ask for the Spirit’s guidance. Remember that learning how to live a moral life is not just an act of modeling the community but is also an act of God. And, most importantly, remember that when God was given the choice to punish or allow for repentance, to throw out the weeds with the some of the wheat, he gave us time to repent.

New Parish...new life

I have begun that life that most priests dream about. I live in an apartment about a block away from my parish. I have a separate phone number from the parish. I wake up and walk to my office. I'm still a priest all the time, I just don't live in the store.

I think this is why I'm not frustrated that the flooring in my kitchen isn't done. I've not had "my kitchen" since I was here as a seminarian. I'm taking my time getting settled in. My first goal is to get accustomed to sleeping past 6:00 in the morning and going to sleep later than 10:00 at night. Once I get used to that, then I'll be set.

Come to me all you who are weary and I will give you rest

Have you ever had a problem that only seemed to get worse the more you work on it? I’m not a good driver. I realize this but there’s not much I can do about it. In the words of the Red Green show, “I’m a man…But I can change…If I have to…I guess.” My biggest fault when driving is not speeding. As some of you may have experienced, I tend to travel at exactly the speed limit. And I’m pretty good about not talking on my cell phone or finding other ways to distract myself from paying attention to the road. The main reason that I am not a good driver is the most stereotypical female criticism of men; I get lost easily and refuse to ask directions. Let me give you an example. Last week, I went to Cedar Rapids to hear the Dubuque Colts drum and bugle corps perform. I got the address and directions off of the colt website and headed down with plenty of time to spare. I found the street it was supposed to be on and couldn’t find a football field. There were people around but, of course, I didn’t stop to ask any questions. I even found one of the corps practicing on a field. I could have asked them where they were performing but, instead, I decided to drive all over the city of Cedar Rapids with my windows open listening for drum sounds. After an hour of searching with ever increasing tension and impatience I found myself on the other side of town on the exact same street. Someone had written down southeast when it should have been southwest. The only bright spot was that the performance was about forty-five minutes behind schedule so I was right on time.

Driving is not the only thing that can cause us to work way too hard for something that should be a lot easier. Most of us would like to have more money so that we could afford more stuff and have an easier life. But, in order to earn the money necessary, we work long, exhausting hours and find that, when we come home at night, we have just enough money to survive and no energy to go do something exciting. And my favorite example of this happens when you get a new piece of technology. Have you ever got a new computer, cell phone, VCR, or something else and spent all day trying to figure out how it works only to have your teenage daughter or son come home and have it working in ten minutes? Now that’s frustration! Let’s face it, oftentimes life can seem like more of a burden than it’s worth.

In the face of this tension, our Lord calls us to himself saying, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” I find it fascinating that one of the introductory things that we say on the telephone is, “What did you do today?” We usually say this at some point earlier in the conversation unless if we are calling for a specific purpose. And the response the person gives, especially if it deals with relaxation or rest, can often lead to criticism. We are a very pragmatic country. In other words, we tend to expect people to be productive. If they aren’t productive, then they aren’t worth anything. That’s the mistake so many people made surrounding the Terry Schiavo case. The reason that Terry Schiavo deserved to be fed according to the Pope and most of the bishops wasn’t because she could have recovered. That was the politician’s response. The reason her feeding tube shouldn’t have been removed was because her life was worth something in and of itself. She didn’t need to produce anything, any emotion, any action, to have dignity. She had dignity because she had life. Life in and of itself has dignity.

We need to remind ourselves of this every day. That’s at the heart of what our Eucharist is about. We don’t come to mass to be entertained. If you do, you’d certainly be disappointed each week. We don’t come to mass because it makes us feel good. In fact, there are times when we leave mass without any comfort at all. We come to mass in order to come to know the Son so that the Son will reveal his Father to us through the Spirit. We come so that, for a few moments, we can hand our problems over to our heavenly Father and find some peace, even if the only peace that we receive is just knowing that we aren’t in this all alone. God is pulling for you and I am too.

Clustering Part Four

For the past week, I’ve been telling you about what a cluster of parishes is all about. With this posting, I begin a series to conclude these reflections by offering ways that you can help in this endeavor of clustering. The first and most important thing you can do is not panic. There will be some changes in the future that will need to take place. When they happen, there are natural reactions that people seem to have that hinder rather than help the situation. People tend to bristle at a change that is happening because of the relationship to the other parishes. For instance, if mass times change in order to ensure that we have a different time than the other two parishes. Or if we have a change in the way mass is celebrated in order to be “in line” with the other two parishes. You may feel tempted to complain but, in order to help the situation, it is better to adjust and trust that the change is necessary.

Another way that people panic when they hear about clustering is what some pastors and administrators call "shared suffering". The idea of shared suffering is that if one parish has to do something, all the parishes should do something. On the surface, this looks like it would actually be at the heart of the clustering process because you are trying to make sure one parish is not getting cheated out of something or being unduly rewarded. Yet, exceptions always seem to happen for one reason or another.

Having said that, the best thing a cluster can do to avoid panic is try to avoid making exceptions. Given the large number of events that already take place and the increasing number of meetings that will be taking place, it’s important that we all work to make the schedule as it already is set up be maintained. Next week, I’ll give you some ways that you can help facilitate the clustering process as it is proceeding and I will conclude the by looking at more long range suggestions.

Clustering Part three

In the past couple of days, I've been taking some time to describe what it means to cluster parishes together. I said that my parish, Holy Ghost, is in the process of clustering with a couple of other Dubuque parishes. Now, I hope to give you one example of what it means to cluster in an orgainic way.

Earlier this spring, the Director of Religious Education (DRE) for Holy Trinity Church, Sr Mary Kivlahan, retired. Shortly thereafter Holy Ghost's DRE, Peggy Swift, also retired. This seemed like a prime oppertunity to share in the area of Religious Education so the issue was brought to the cluster planning committee. In those meetings, we set up a sub committee of experts to bring together the needs of the parishes and propose scenarios for the larger committee as to how we should handle this monumental staff change. After the sub committee did our job, the larger committee determined that a good next step would be to hire one director for the three religious education programs and hire as many part-time Coordinators of Religious Education (CREs) as the DRE thought necessary. This will mean that one person, the DRE, will oversee helping the three programs to cooperate while CREs will be responsible for much of the "leg work" involved with the individual programs. In the interim, representatives from the three parishes have begun putting together many of the programs that are easily consolidated: baptism preparation, confirmation, adult faith formation, RCIA, etc. This is the beginning of the process that the DRE will continue in a short time when she or he is hired.

One of the other areas that the cluster planning committee has worked on is maintenance. All three parishes need someone to oversee our large structural maintenance needs. The maintenance sub committee presented the need for a full time maintenance/custodial person to work equally among the three parishes. We are in the process of hiring this person, the second "cluster" person to be employed. There will, undoubtedly, be many such oppertunities for sharing in the future including sharing priests, deacons, and (possibly) office staff. And, at some point, we will need your help to name our new entity. The goal is, as I said last time, to share resources when the opportunity presents itself. This, hopefully, propmts you to ask what you can do to help our newly forming cluster succeed. I will finish in the next three days talking about that very thing.

Clustering part two

Yesterday, I started explaining what clustering has meant to me these past three years of priesthood. I believe clustering is not all about "priesthood shortage" but is, in reality, a part of what it means to be catholic. Today, I hope to explain some things that I've learned about the process that goes with clustering. Members of Holy Trinity, Sacred Heart, and Holy Ghost parshes met with St. Mary Montgomery about two years ago and determined a parish leadership team. After a few introductory meetings, the process stalled for a few months because the leadership at Sacred Heart and Holy Trinity changed drastically. I became involved in meetings beginning in January of this year when St. Mary helped us begin coming up with a four-step plan to go from where we currently are to where we will be when we are clustered. We have finished step one which dealt with eight areas of where we are today in terms of staffing, proframs, and events as entirely separate entities. Now we are in the process of discussing step two which is based on what we can do without prompting a lot of changes for our parishes to combine a few things. In the future, we will be discussing the next step which will involve even more cooperation. Step four will envision the completed cluster. It became obvious, in the course of the meetings, that we didn't want to rush the process even though we all recognize that it is a necessary process for keepng our parishes alive. In general, we have a orgainic viewpoint toward clustering. In other words, we don't want to force a lot of changes on anyone but, instead, we wan to use opportunities as they present themselves to promote greater cooperation.

clustering part one

In the Archdiocese of Dubuque, there was once a situation in which we had a very large number of priests. I heard that we had, per capita, the largest number of priests in the world. This meant that we had too many priests for the population in Dubuque. One solution among many to this problem was to create more parishes, even ones that served very small communities that were very close to larger towns. In the last thirty years, our priest population has declined making it difficult to maintain all the parishes that we once maintained. This has caused a couple of difficult situations. The first is being forced to close down some smaller communities that can no longer be maintained. The second is something called clustering.

At my parish in Dubuque, Holy Ghost, we have begun the process of planning for future clustering with two other parishes here in the city, Holy Trinity and Sacred Heart. We are still some time away from it actually taking place because of the size of the parishes involved but, in the past several weeks, I've been giving some information about clustering in order to dispel any false rumors that go around and, in the next couple of weeks, I hope to duplicate that information here.

As I said before, part of this has to do with the decline in the number of priests. But, I believe that, even more fundamental than that, clusetering is an exercise in what it means to be Catholic (a word which means universal). In other words, clustering is God's gift to us in recognition that our churches really are connected all over the world. We were not baptized into Holy Ghost church or any particular parish. We were baptized into Christ Jesus who gave us the church as his earthly body.

Many people become afraid when they hear about clustering because they think about other more frustrating situations that have involved consolidation, especially with catholic schools and hospitals. While no one can guarantee that everything will be easy in clustering parishes, there is a HUGE difference between consolidating schools and clustering parishes. You probably already have a sense of the principle behind clustering. Have you ever gone to a different catholic church on a Sunday? If so, you heard the same readings, same prayers, and received the same body and blood of Christ that you would have if you had been at your own parish. There may have been some small differences but, for the most part, Mass is the same in all the churches throughout the world. Yet, your child would not go to a different school expecting that everything be the same there. We who are catholic trust that what happens in our church is what happens, for the most part, in all of them. With God's help, in the coming years, we will model this universality for the rest of the city of Dubuque.

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