THIS IS MY PRAYER

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Second Sunday in Advent - Year C - is, “This Is My Prayer.”

I saw that comment in today’s second reading. Paul says the following in a Letter to the Christian Community in Philippi - which is part of Greece,

“And this is my prayer:
that your love may increase ever more and more 
in knowledge and every kind of perception, 
to discern what is of value, 
so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 
filled with the fruit of righteousness 
that comes through Jesus Christ 
for the glory and praise of God.”

Those words, “And this is my prayer….” triggered for me a series of questions:

·       “Do I have a prayer? A deep inner ongoing prayer?”

·       “If I do, what is it?”

·       “Are their various inner deep prayers that I have?”

·       “If I have an inner prayer, have I changed it through the years?”

·       “What are other people’s prayers, if they have an inner ongoing prayer?”

SAINT PAUL’S PRAYER

Let’s take a closer look at St. Paul’s prayer.

I would rewrite it. Greek New Testament sentences tend to be long and have few periods.

Paul prays that those he is writing to have an increase of more and more love in their lives. Good. Don’t we all want more and more love in our lives. That’s a good prayer.

But Paul refines what kind of love he’s talking about:  in how they know life and how they perceive what’s going on around them in their lives.

Next he prays that those he is writing to discern - figure out - understand -  grasp - what is of value - that is, that they are pure and blameless and do what is right till they meet Jesus Christ. And lastly that they do everything for the glory and praise of God. Those of you who went to Jesuit schools know that’s the Jesuit motto: AMDG - “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” - “For the greater Glory of God.”  Isn’t that what athletes are doing when they make a great catch or hit or basket. [Gesture: the point towards the heavens.]

So Paul is giving us a handful - a mindful - of basic prayers there….

Love - knowing and seeing what’s right and of value - and doing all for the glory and praise of God. Good prayer. Good prayers.

MY PRAYER

I’m going to end my homily this morning by asking all of us: do I have a basic prayer - and if I do, what is it?

I did my homework on this yesterday. I ask you to do your homework on all this today and this week.  Right now my prayer would be for peace in the world. Enough with the shootings. Enough with the wars.  Enough with the bloodshed. Enough with the craziness.

The other day when the San Bernadino killing stuff was coming in and as I was watching the news,  I was hoping [Hoping was the word I was using. Is hoping a prayer?] I was hoping that the killers were not Moslems. They mentioned there were three.  Then I  sensed that some TV commentators were hoping they were Moslems or Isis. I’m not sure of this - but I sensed they were saying that. I said this out loud to a couple of folks and they were hoping the same thing: that they were not Moslems.

Obviously, this is horrible stuff - and we wouldn’t want anyone to be doing this.

What would it be like to be living in Syria or Northern Iraq? I’m sure the majority of folks there - Christians and Moslems - are hoping and praying for peace - security - and an end to violence. What happened here in one day is happening every day in some places in our world.

So is that my answer to my first question which is: Do I have an ongoing deep inner prayer?

As I thought about all this - and these are just first draft thoughts and questions, I realized that I don’t think that’s my inner ongoing prayer. But the other day and recently that was my current inner prayer.

I sense that my ongoing prayer is different.

DROP OUTS AND THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR FAITH

I’m hearing and reading and noticing that it looks like our Church numbers are down.

I have  also been hearing lately that we have to reach those who have dropped out as well as the unchurched - and we need to come up with programs to do just that.

I heard of one parish in Pennsylvania who were asking for volunteers to stuff letters - letters of invitation - to folks who are not going to church to come back home this Christmas - no questions asked.

I would like to know how many people who have dropped out - got that thought to come back home to Church when Pope Francis was on TV - 24/7 - visiting the United States September 22 to   27, 2015.

That hope triggers for me a sense of what my inner prayer is. It’s for people to have faith - faith in God - that the Lord be with them.

Pope Francis keeps using the word “mercy” - which means “kindness” and “understanding”, “forgiveness”. It means “welcome home” - as in the Prodigal Son story.

I have gone crazy inwardly when priests make digs - sandpaper quips -stupid comments to folks in church on Ash Wednesday - Easter - and Christmas - to once or twice a year Catholics. I want to scream out, “Welcome!”

I began to notice at weddings and funerals that folks would say afterwards: “Now that wasn’t too bad.” Better folks in the back of church after weddings and funerals would say, “I might be coming back to church Father.”

So I have found myself praying for folks at weddings and funerals that God makes sense to them - that faith and hope and trust in God - as part of their life - is triggered.

So this Christmas give your seat to those who look lost - who are looking for room in this Inn.

FRANCE PAGAN

I’ve been saying and reading and hearing how we have been moving into a period called “post-Christianity” - for many Catholics and Christians.

That means they are not seeing life with the Christian  and Catholic value system that they were given.

As I was working on this homily yesterday, I remember first hearing this about France - when I was in the major seminary in the 1960’s. I was hearing the phrase “France Pagan” - that less than 10 % of the people of France were going to church.

I heard mention of a book entitled, France Pagan - which I saw but never read. I looked it up in preparing this homily. It was entitled, France Pagan: The Mission of Abbe Henri Grodin. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s he was in on Worker - Priest movement. Pope John 23 of all people suppressed this movement. Pope Paul VI started it again. Then it was stopped again.

Abbe Henri Grodin used the phrase “the deChristianization of Europe”.

The message he screamed was to reach out to the French working class. What better way than to get out of the rectory and get into the working places.

I remember my first day in my first assignment as a priest. I put down my suitcase to shake hands with my first pastor and he said within one minute pointing to the floor of the rectory: “Andy, this is not the parish. It’s out there in the streets and homes of this neighborhood.”  I became a priest to go to Brazil - but here I was on the Lower East Side of Manhattan - right in East Village - and along with Haight Asbury in San Francisco - it was the center of the whole thing called, “The Hippie Revolution.”

It was right after Vatican II and that meant nothing to all kinds of folks I bumped into all through those few streets called, “Most Holy Redeemer Parish.”

I noticed as I read about this stuff yesterday mention of another book, Not Cassocks  But Coveralls. It had the same message: be out there with the people.

Last month we had a province meeting - a convocation - and one of the speakers was Bishop Joe Tobin - who was our former Rector Major in Rome. He’s now Archbishop of Indianapolis. Talking about coveralls, he told the story about when he was pastor in our church - Most Holy Redeemer in Detroit - that he was in his coveralls working on a toilet of a poor lady in the parish. Joe can fix anything. Well, he gets it fixed - walks back to the rectory and they tell him, Mother Teresa is down the street in her nun’s place there and she wants to see you. He say, “I got poop all over these coveralls - and I gotta change and take a shower first.” “Nope,” they said, “right now. She wants to see you right now.”  So he meets Mother Teresa, he told us, in his poop and coveralls. I loved the story. I never liked pomp and circumstance. Now I’m going to restate that: I like poop and circumstance. And isn’t that what Pope Francis told bishops and priests?  Be out there with the people. Smell like the sheep.

So I have to think about all this. Do I end up doing what Father Eddie Byrne did when I was working on the Lower East Side. His parish was very poor so he drove a taxi cab at night. The last and probably only job I had in life was working one summer during college delivering Coca Cola. That’s the real thing. Isn’t the call of the gospel to make all this real? Yes, we come to church, but real gospel life is to be lived out there with the people - at work and with their families.

CONCLUSION

So thinking about all this, my deepest prayer would be: Faith - faith in God - faith in Jesus Christ for us Christians - and Catholics.

What’s your deepest prayer?

These are just first draft thoughts on paper about all this. I sense this is what Paul was about. I sense this is what I hear lots of parents saying about their kids who have dropped out of Church - especially when they say, “I don’t know what my kids will do when the tough stuff of life hits them big time.” Or to say the same thing with a better translation - part of which I can’t say in church: “when the s_ _ _ hits the fan.”