Baptizing Twins

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

Illness

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

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

Who do you want to be connected to?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone has an opinion

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

Habemus Papam

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

Good Shepherd Sunday

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

Protesting

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

Tuesday gray day

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

Emmaus

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

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

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

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

JP II and Peter

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

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

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

Encountering Teens Encountering Christ

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

Second Sunday In Easter

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

Pray for the Pope

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

Easter Homily

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

Holy Saturday

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

Paschal Triduum

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

Instead of my homily

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

A nice surprise

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

The story of the man born blind

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

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

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

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

Catechism part three: The Catechism and God comes to us

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