The title of my homily for this December 29th is, “Walk The Talk.”
I could tackle two themes in today’s gospel: Is there
anything we’re waiting for - something or someone we have unfinished business
with?; swords that pierce the heart can reveal various thoughts and learnings.
[Cf. Luke 2: 22-35]
I think that spells out what John is saying in his First
Letter 2: 3-11.
Talking the talk is important - especially to oneself -
but if it doesn’t flow into action, then we can be labeled, “All talk.”
Or we ourselves -
or others - will say, “Talk is cheap.”
LISTEN TO JOHN
AGAIN
John says, “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep
his commandments is a liar….”
John says that those who say they are in the light, yet
hates their brother or sister, is still in the dark….”
In other words, “Walk the Talk.”
In other words, “Action speaks louder than words.”
That’s something we have been hearing all our lives.
TO BE HONEST:
START WITH OURSELVES
But to be honest, I don’t know about you, but I make many
self promises in the morning - about what I am going to do that day - but by
evening, I have to admit, I never got to them.
So I would assume that a key thing is pause more -
realize more - that if we keep on giving our word and then we don’t keep it -
we are lying to ourselves, we are kidding ourselves, we are weakening the
sacredness of words - those personal decisions we spell and verbalize to
ourselves.
That’s words to oneself. Giving our word to others is another issue.
I have not done my homework - that is - I haven’t done enough thinking
to make the following statement: “If we keep on breaking our word to ourselves
- we’ll be doing that a lot more to our neighbor.
Based on all the sayings, there must be a lot of people who experienced
the realithy that some people are all talk.
There is the Chinese proverb: “Talk
doesn’t cook rice.”
We’ve all heard the same message
in the English proverb, “Wishes don’t
wash dishes.”
Or as Anonymous put it, “After
all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.”
CONCLUSION
But some people do - and we learn
a lot more about people from their hands
- their actions - that we learn from their mouth and their words.
Robert Brault, in his poem
entitled, “A Poem Missing the Word Woulda” goes like this,
“A
nod,
a bow,
and a tip of the lid
to the person
who coulda
and shoulda
and did.”
The title of my homily is, “Murdering, Maiming, and Minimizing the Innocent.”
Today - December 28, has the feast of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.
It has many possible messages. Bastin, Pinckers and Teheux in their God Day By Day Spiritual Reflections on the Readings
of the Day, Volume Four, write,
about this text, Matthew 2:13-18, “Are they symbolic, those children who were
massacred in Bethlehem? Or course they are, but we should not forget that
symbols are always rooted in human realities, and the reality here is that of human
suffering - people dying of hunger, the bitter complaints of exiles and the
silence of frightened prisoners.” [Page 84]
With that in mind I put together this reflection for today.
In our lifetime we’ve seen the slaughter of the unborn - the Holy
Innocents.
In our lifetime we have seen the slaughter of millions of children,
women, men in the Holocaust.
In our lifetime we have seen the murder of all kinds of babies, children
because of race and religion issues in Serbia, Macedonia, and the former
Yugoslavian countries.
In our lifetime we have seen the same thing happen with the slaughter of
so many in Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, in so many other African and Middle East countries.
In our lifetime we seen the Killing Fields in Cambodia and so many other places
on the planet.
In our lifetime we have heard about various many priests and bishops who
were not protective of young people in the sexual abuse stories in the Catholic
Church.
In our lifetime we have heard how kids can get shortchanged in education
- which can be a ladder out of poverty.
In our lifetime we have seen some rich get richer because of scams and skim
offs and manipulation in the markets.
In our lifetime we have heard lies and “claimed innocence” when it comes to
public people - in sports, the arts, politics - who try to explain ways out of
living a life of lies, cheating, and misbehaving - giving bad example to the young.
In our lifetime we’ve seen and heard people whose ethics and truth
telling seems to have disappeared and they have walked in the dark and not in
the light as we heard in today’s first reading from 1 John 1: 5-2:2.
In our lifetime we have heard people show little concern for the many
migrants and their children who are “pitchforked” - as one preacher put it -
from one place to the next.
In our lifetime we have heard politicians - and dictators - and elected
officials - concerned more about the
polls and their numbers than the number of people who are suffering, starving
and homeless.
In our lifetime we have heard people criticize prophets, priests,
preachers, writers, world leaders, who have preached the Catholic Church’s Social
Justice and Human Charity teachings - or have only been selective when it comes
to these issues - with no concern for the hurting and the humbled - but only
for their agenda.
In our lifetime we have seen and heard people who claim innocence when
it comes to caring for our earth - not being aware of the health of all - for
example poor children in West Virginia, Kentucky, China - whose lungs are
damaged because of earth dumping and disregard of the reality of carbon emissions.
In our lifetime we have heard people screaming at children - hitting
children - hurting children - with no concern for what they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
December 27, 2015
FAMILY
The place where we know each other’s cough,
step, moods, laugh, idiosyncrasies, stories, hurts, favorite cream flavor, cereal, fears, friends, gripes, TV programs, buttons, and
yes, oh yes, what we hate, broccoli, cauliflower and talking about __________________________.
[This Sunday the Church celebrates the Family - calling each family to be a Holy Family. Here is
a list of 10 blessings - amongst others - that a family ought be giving to each
other. If I see at least one of you reaching [GESTURE] for a ballpoint pen to
jot one of these down, that would make my day. I’ll put this on my blog - which you can access
from the parish web site. If you check out and reflect upon all 10, that too
would make my day, but only if you would
take and make at least one of these 10 blessings a challenge and a call for you
to put it into practice in the New Year - because you want to make your family
even better - holier. Amen.]
Number One: A
family is a place where one learns one’s first words, first language. “Ma Ma” -
“Da Da” - “Look!” - “Want” - “Need” - “Help” - “No” - “Yes” - "More" - “Love” - "Please! Please!" and
“I’m sorry.” May the words and language
spoken here in our home - be words of love and kindness, gentleness and joy,
giving and forgiving. Number One: The words we learned and the words we use.
Number Two: A family is a place of memories and stories -
history, herstory, moments, incidents, time together, experiencing the twists
and turns of life - where one is creating one’s unwritten autobiography - and
reading the unwritten biography of those with us on the same shelf - the same
house - that we are together in. As
someone once said, “When an old person dies, it’s as if a library burnt
down.” Number Two: We are history books - in process -
becoming who we are page by page. We are talking books - hopefully taking the
time to read - to listen to - to talk to each other.
Number Three: A family is a place where not only mom and
dad are honored, so too grandparents, visitors, the little ones - teenagers - and ourselves as well. Number Three: A place
of honor.
Number Four: A family is a place where people know the
difference between an argument, a
disagreement, a spat - compared to an angry tirade that can leave acid spill at
the table, the bedroom, the heart - where kids know the difference between a
pillow fight and a real fight. Number Four: There are
fights and there are fights.
Number Five: A family is the starting place where one
learns the ability to compromise, readjust, reconsider, renegotiate, recalculate - because one has seen
these attitudes and qualities in the ones above us - instead of experiencing
others who are unwilling to adjust or change or recalculate. Number Five: Learning to compromise.
Number Six: A family is a place where members learn to
laugh and love - love being with one another - wanting to be with each other - not just on
Thanksgiving and Christmas - but 365 days a year for those in the same house -
52 times a year - for those who have moved into new families - new homes - using
“techie” stuff well - for communication at a distance - and turned off when up
close - like at the dinner table. It’s a place where people eat with other -
and eat up each other - seeing the sacredness of the family table - receiving
in communion the other - if Christian, seeing each other as the Body of Christ
and saying "Amen" to Christ within the other. Number Six:
Experiencing the Real Presence of each
other.
Number Seven: A family is a place where one learns about
faith and hope - in God and in one another - knowing the primary church is the
home - where mom and dad are priests - and kids are parishioners - and members
worship, pray, play with each other - and the classrooms and playgrounds in our
homes are always open. Number Seven: A home is a church
and a school.
Number Eight: A family is a place where the truth will
set us free. It’s a place where we can be the real me - the real we. It’s a place where we can be at home to each
other - without masks or titles - walk around in t-shirt and sweat pants - but
that doesn’t mean we can be PITA’s to each other. To make a family work, takes
work. Go back and check Number Six. Number Eight: A home
is a place where we can become truly free - but that takes work.
Number Nine: A family is a place with a door - where
people make significant - key - wonderful comments to each other - when another
is leaving and when another is coming back home through that door - and those
comments sculpt us into better and better persons. Number
Nine: We’re aware of what is said coming and going in and out the door of our
home.
Number Ten and Last: A family is a place where people
learn to overlook, forgive, understand, accept differences and peculiarities,
as well as sin - but the messy gets cleaned up, people try to speak better, be
better, and learn to understand each other. A “Holy Family” does not mean a
sculpture or statues of people with hands folded [GESTURE] as in prayer - but
hands that clap for each other, hands with a deck of playing cards in hand,
forks in hand, hand in hand, hands on shoulders, hands in prayer and support of
each other. Amen.
Number Ten: A family is a place where
we are joined by hand and have to hand it to each other - generation after
generation after generation.
December 26, 2015
THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
’Twas the Day after Christmas,
when all through the house,
there were remnants of wrapping
and boxes and presents, glasses
and plates and every sort of just this
and just that - just resting and sitting
there on tables and rugs, and under
the edges of chairs and the couch,
just here, just there, just everywhere.
So the Mrs. of the house, after just
this and just that - put on her coat
[Since 1993 I’ve been writing a story for Christmas in
memory of an old priest - a friend, Father John Duffy - who died Christmas Eve,
December 24th, 1993. He wrote a Christmas story every year for his
niece - and I have continued that tradition. I had typed a few of them up for
him. He was a horrible typist - and never got into computers. So here’s my
Christmas story for this year - typed up - nice and neat - for you. It’s based
on a few true stories. It has deep sadness in it, but I decided to go with it,
because of some tough stuff I’ve heard from some people this year - people who
need to hear Happy Endings. So a story
with just that title: “Happy Ending.”]
When a baby is born, when a baby is baptized, when a
little kid slides down the slide in the park - mom, dad, sometimes slide into the future and
wonder what will become of this little
one of ours.
Tom and Gladys didn’t expect what was to happen in their
future when they slid into the stretch limo - that afternoon as they left
church - after their picture perfect wedding ceremony and Mass.
Tom and Gladys - in time - had two kids - a boy and a
girl. Tommy Jr. came first - then came Penny. Gladys didn’t like the name
Gladys - never no how - and growing up said, “If I have a girl. She won’t be a
Gladys. She went by her nickname “Glad” - even enduring - sometimes hearing -
during her high school years, “Here comes Gladbag!” when she walked into class
or onto the soccer field.
Time slid on - as their kids grew up. Tommy and Penny did well in school and sports
- and bringing neat kids - friends - into their house - and into their lives.
Tommy Jr. went to college - but went by the way of R.O.T.C.
and ended up in the army and ended up in Afghanistan. Penny went to college
with a partial scholarship for soccer.
Tom Senior and Gladys adjusted to all of life’s changes
up to then. Most were ups - and the downs were not that down.
Only Gladys or Glad was home when they came to the house
to tell her that Thomas Jr. had been killed in Afghanistan. It was December 23rd,
just two days before Christmas. An I.E.D., an Improvised Explosive Device
killed him and two others in the vehicle - they were in driving - down some dirty dusty
road.
The glad obviously switched to sad. The funeral was a daze - in that same church
where Tom and Gladys were married 27 years earlier.
And then things got worse - much worse….
The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary are 5 and the
Stations of the Cross are 14. Sometimes troubles double and then multiply. Sometimes life can be really tough - really rough. Sometimes
life contains the stuff we don’t want to talk about - or think about - especially
at Christmas time.
And everyone knows Christmas time can very, very merry -
and for some - very, very lonely and sad.
Penny had gotten pregnant - but was on the other side of
the country - and as a single mother struggled - but she was stubborn and trying to make it
on her own - a day at a time.
Her parents invited her back home over and over again -
especially when her brother had been killed.
Penny - like her parents - didn’t take her brother’s
death well - obviously.
Tom and Gladys didn’t know it at the time - but Penny had slipped into heroin
abuse. It started with pain killers after blowing out a second knee. The first
knee went while playing soccer years and years ago. Being a single mother made
things even tougher.
This time Tom - dad - husband - was the one who got the
news that Penny was found dead - from an overdose of heroin. They didn’t see it
coming.
How could she do it? Couldn’t she think, think, about her
baby girl, Judy.
They flew out to where she was living and were able to
start the preliminary paper work to acquire Penny’s little girl and bring her
back home with them. They had a small, small funeral out there - because back
home it would have been too much.
People who had experienced Tom Jr’s death and found it so
difficult - when they heard about Penny’s death - were speechless. Yet close friends
knew that silence, just standing there with either Tom or Gladys helps very
deeply.
Thank God, Tom and Gladys now had a granddaughter, Judy,
to raise.
Thank God, Tom and Gladys were still working - and Gladys
was able to retire - early.
Thank God, Tom and Gladys had a good marriage. They
worked on it.
They held onto each other. They put one foot in front of
the other. They often went out for walks with each other. Now they could take
their granddaughter with them on walks through the neighborhood and to the
local park. They made it through the night
- and then through the days ahead.
In time they loved it when folks in the mall or the
supermarket or outside church or at the park would say, “Wow you have such a
beautiful daughter.”
They would smile and love to say, “Thank you.”
Judy grew more and more beautiful and kept her
grandparents young.
When Judy was in the fifth grade, Tom and Gladys had another surprise.
Judy became “BF” “best friend” with another fifth grader,
Mary, from just up the street.
And these two became best friends for life. In fact, when Judy got married years and
years later, Mary was her maid-of-honor and Judy was her maid- of-honor when
she got married - and Tom proudly walked both of them down the aisle as dad -
when each got married.
What? What
happened? What happened here? Tom going down the aisle as dad for both Judy and
Mary?
Well, as Mary told
me the story years later - here’s what happened.
It too was a very sad story - but it too has a happy
ending.
You never know what’s going on inside that front door of
the other houses on your street.
Mary’s parents were heavy alcoholics and when she would
come down the stairs in the morning to go to school, there would be no
breakfast - and often no parents. Sometimes she would spot them both passed out
on the family room couch.
Mary would get dressed by herself - put on her back pack
with her books and walk up the street
and up the front steps to Judy’s house. The door was always open in the morning
for Mary. Gladys made sure of that.
Then - as Mary told me - with an amazing smile of joy on
her face: “Mrs. Glad would get me breakfast, comb my hair, clean me up, give me
a nice morning kiss on the top of my head - and get me ready for the day.”
Then looking back on all this, Mary told me, that what
Mrs. Glad did for me saved my life. And Mr. Glad did too. My dad disappeared
along the line. He left us. And so Mr. Glad gladly walked me down the aisle
when I got married as well.
She also said the following. It was around Christmas
time. She didn’t know she was giving me my Christmas story. Mary said, “One
door was closed - like the Inn in the Christmas Story - but another door was
open - the house of Mr. and Mrs. Glad - like in the Christmas stable or cave
story. Amen.”
The title of my homily for today, December 22, is, “Magnificent.”
Since we have Mary’s Magnificat as today’s gospel, the word and the
theme of magnificent hit me.
What would it be like to have an ink pad and one of those rubber stamps
with the word, “MAGNIFICENT” on it?
What would it be like to go into Office Depot orStaples and ask to have
such a rubber stamp made up with that word “MAGNIFICENT” on it.
I wonder if the person at the counter would be surprised. They would
have seen and sold standard rubber stamps with words like “FRAGILE,” “SEND,”
“APPROVED,” “REJECTED,” and “FYEO - For Your Eyes Only.”
But the word “MAGNIFICENT,” I don’t know if they would have that.
MARY IN HER
MAGNIFICAT
Mary in her Magnificat stamps as magnificent the goodness of the Lord, the
realization that the Lord spotted her - a lowly servant up there in the tiny
village of Nazareth - that the Almighty has done great things for her, that God
has shown mercy on those who fear him in every generation and on and on and on.
She rubber stamps God’s valuing the poor and God’s frustration with the
rich and powerful who don’t do for the poor and the weak enough.
LOOKING AT OURSELVES
Looking at ourselves, looking at our
neighbors, our parish and our world, what would we stamp as magnificent? Do
this slowly and we might see moments we saw a beautiful sunrise or a forest of
rich red Autumn leaves or the volunteers in the St. Vincent de Paul Society
helping the poor.
We might stamp as a MAGNIFICENT moment seeing
kids coming towards their Christmas presents on Christmas morning.
We might stamp as MAGNIFICENT being at marriages,
baptisms, Thanksgiving dinners with a filled house - and anniversaries.
We might stamp as MAGNIFICENT a kid’s choir
or an adult’s choir singing Christmas carols - or a mighty chorus singing
Handel’s Messiah full blast.
We might stamp as MAGNIFICENT a funeral
that was quiet, simple, sweet for a mom or a dad - or a big funeral like the
one we had for Bernie Bernsten who was always here for this Tuesday morning 8
AM Mass.
I don’t know about stamping a big
chocolate chip cookie in milk as MAGNIFICENT or a juicy pulled pork sandwich at
Adam’s Ribs. I don’t know about a team
winning the National Championship, the World Series or the Super bowl or the
Stanley Cup.
We have the mouth - we have the mind and
the words - the eyes that see - and we could have an imaginary stamp to stamp
anything we see as MAGNIFICENT. So it could be a great play - a great song - a great meal - a great piano recital or
violin solo - or a radical moment with God in prayer.
It could also be in French - MAG NI FIQUE
- spoken with a hand gesture and with a kiss smack of the lips.
CONCLUSION
A test - some homework - a questionnaire:
Looking at our life, imagine yourself stamping
5 top moments from one’s life with the word “MAGNIFICENT” on it - especially
moments that were full of grace - and the Lord was with us.
Looking at our life, with an imaginary
rubber stamp, stamp the word "MAGNIFICENT" on 5 people who have been "MAGNIFICENT" to us and for us.
The title of my homily for December 21st in Advent is, “The Hail Mary! Savor it! Say
it Slowly!”
I have a complaint - but I don’t want to make this a
complaining homily.
The complaint is the rushing of prayers: like the Hail Mary.
Instead of complaining, I want to suggest a few things
about saying the ancient prayer: the Hail Mary.
This is a very easy homily - because we all know and say
the Hail Mary all the time.
So a homily entitled, “The Hail Mary! Savor it. Say it
Slowly.”
BREAK IT DOWN
Let’s begin with
“Hail.”
It’s a greeting - a
message - a connection - we say 100 times a day. It’s simply, “Hi!” or “Hello.”
In German, it’s
“Heil!” We’ve heard that before.
So “Hi Mary!” I’ve
never heard anyone who tried to modernize the Hail Mary to “Hi Mary!” - but “Hi” or
“Hey” or “Hello” is what we’re saying. It’s the call to connect - to greet. It’s the
beginning of communion and connection - be it long or short.
Next comes the
other’s name. Who are the names of the persons in our communion - connection.
Mom, dad, brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends.
Name tags are an
attempt to help communication.
I read somewhere that
the number one word people who are in love say is the name of the person they
love. They are saying it inwardly all the time.
I’ve been with many high school groups - and I've noticed that girls write the name
of the kid they like, love, are after - 100 times on their note pads or loose
leaf fillers. Men sometimes do the tattoo.
Full of grace comes
next. We’ve heard people say, “You’re
full of baloney", etc. etc. etc. Mary is filled with grace, which means for
starters: gifts - the gifts we need, especially, faith, hope and charity.
We’ve all heard
someone begin talking to us - buttering us up - and we wonder what they want - what they want to
eat up in us - probably our time.
Does Mary say back to
us, “Okay what do you want?”
And in the Hail Mary
we express what we want. Help - for us sinners - for our family - for health -
for patience - for strength.
We add, “the Lord is
with you!” Translation: Mary, you can do it.
You can help. You have the Lord on your side.
All those who think
we think Mary is God - tell them we don’t. But we do think “The Lord is with
her.”
And because of the
Lord we think she is blessed among all women - because blessed is the fruit of her womb, Jesus.
I noticed on the
Democratic debate on Saturday night each candidate was asked about roles their spouse might take on if elected president. Fun was made of Bill Clinton if Hillary wins. Martin
O’Malley our former governor - made a double blessing - that his wife, Katie,
doesn’t need me to be delegated any duties - and besides that she gets her skills
and gifts from her mother. One commentator said, “Smart move, praising not only
his wife, but also his mother-in-law.”
So praise is key to the
Hail Mary - not just prayers of petition.
We know the first
part of the Hail Mary contains 2 scripture texts from here in the Gospel of
Luke. We heard one here in today’s gospel.
We also know that by
at least the 13th Century the Hail Mary was being used in the
Western Church and had added two words, “Mary” and “Jesus” to make the prayer
clearer. We see that in various writings. St. Thomas Aquinas is often mentioned
for saying this.
We also know Part
Two, the "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of
our death" - is first found in print by 1495 in Girolamo Savonarola’s “Esposizione sopra l’Ave Maria.”
We know that the
Dutch Jesuit Saint, Peter Canisius - whose feast is today - has that second part
of the Hail Mary in his 1555 catechism.
Scholars next say
that it made its way into the Catechism of the Council of Trent 11 years late.
Here’s the sentence in that Catechism. "we render to God
the highest praise and return Him most gracious thanks, because He has bestowed
all His heavenly gifts on the most holy Virgin ... the Church of God has wisely
added prayers and an invocation addressed to the most holy Mother of God ... we
should earnestly implore her help and assistance; for that she possesses
exalted merits with God, and that she is most desirous to assist us by her
prayers, no one can doubt without impiety and wickedness.” CONCLUSION
So when saying the Hail Mary, say it slowly. Savor it. It has a long history. Say it to Mary - not
at Mary.
Didn’t Jesus - the fruit of her womb - say something like that - not babbling
our prayers, but praying our prayers.
