Pray for the church in china

A generation ago, it was not unusual for catholics to pray for the church in Russia. Little did we know that a Polish Pope would be instrumental in bringing about the collapse of communism and usher in an era of religious freedom that is still in the process of blooming in the former Soviet Union.

Now, we have a new problem. China, the last stronghold of communism, continues to persecute the one true church. China has even gone so far as to set up a puppet, false church and condemn the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church to the underground. Then, I read this on another blog...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VATICAN_CHINA_ARRESTS?SITE=NYONI&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

So, we need to pray that when President Bush meets with Chinese leaders, at least part of what he will talk about deals with religious freedom and the ability of Church to evangelize freely.

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.