The title of my homily for this 5th Tuesday
after Easter is, “Leaving Us Peace;
Giving Us Peace.”
Today’s gospel, begins, “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Peace I
leave with you; my piece I give to you.” [John 14:27]
“Leaving Us Peace….” That’s like Jesus leaving the gift
of peace at our doorstep or on a table for us to pick up and eat.”
“Giving Us Peace ….” That’s like Jesus standing there and
handing us peace - like the peace he gave his disciples in the Upper Room at
the time of the Resurrection and a week later to Thomas. “Peace….”
MEANING
The Greek word used which we translate into “peace” is “Eirene”.
That becomes the little used English word “irenic” -
meaning “moving towards peace or conciliation.
I thought the word “serene” comes from this as well - but Webster doesn’t seem to go that way.
However, we know the name Irene - from which this word
arises. She was the Greek Goddess of Peace.
The name Irene
according to Google means: “one who creates a serious, thoughtful nature and is shrewd, efficient, and
business-minded.”
Another Google entry describes
the name Irene as meaning, . “A crazy, fun person who doesn't care what people
think of her. Usually a pretty girl, who
easily gets her crushes to like her back.”
Is anyone here old enough to
remember the song, “Irene, good night Irene, I’ll see you in my dreams.”
WHAT DOES PEACE CONSIST OF?
The word “peace” has a whole
basketful of meanings: harmony between
people and nations; friendliness; freedom from abuse; order - as is the
opposite of disorder; rest; contentment;
shalom; wholeness; perfect….”
If that is what peace is, I pray, “Lord Jesus leave peace at our door and on our table. Lord, Jesus, give us -
grant us - peace. Lord Jesus, then make us instruments of your peace.”
AN EXAMPLE
I once heard someone tell the
following story.
There was this regular group
therapy session for 6 men. They would meet once a week.
It was action - noise - energy
- yelling - what have you - except for one man. He was always quiet, peaceful,
and never said a word. When asked if everything was okay, he would say with a
smile, “Okay!”
In the 6th time
together someone mentioned his father.
At that, this guy - who was
always perfectly calm - flicked a tiny piece of lint or dandruff off his jacket
sleeve - near his wrist.
The counselor who was running
the group spotted this and said, “Wait a minute. John did you just push a piece
of dandruff off your sleeve?”
“What?” said John.
“When Harry mentioned his
father, you went, FLIP with your fingers and knocked something off your
sleeve.”
Silence.
Then the counselor asked John,
“What about YOUR father?” - and out came
a tirade of anger.
Up to that moment in their 6th time together as a group, John was
peace and quiet. At that moment out came bursts of anger about his dad.
QUESTION
I’ve thought about that story
from time to time - wondering if everyone has a stream or flow of angry
feelings flowing in some pipe or underground stream below their surface.
Then someone goes over that manhole cover and “Boom!” - out comes a burst of
anger - and the need for inner peace.
CONCLUSION
It’s a beautiful day today.
It’s spring time.
It’s resurrection time.
It’s new life time.
Take a nice walk on the calm
side of yourself - and let Jesus walk with you and consider where you need
peace.
Maybe you’re always thinking
and saying to yourself, “All is okay” -
but underneath you have flowing an underground angry memory with God - or you’re
still angry with another - your parents - a boss - a neighbor - a priest - a
counselor - or angry at yourself - for something you did that was stupid or
sinful or dumb years and years ago.
Let Jesus touch your side -
your sleeve - and hear him say, “Peace I leave with you; my piece I give you.”
Monday, April 25, 2016
WHO WERE YOUR TEACHERS?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily on this feast of St. Mark is a question: “Who Were Your
Teachers?”
To come up with a short homily for today - for this feast of Mark - I looked
at my bookshelf - for something on Mark or the Gospel of Mark. Surprise! At
first instance I saw mostly books on John - a few on Luke and a few on Matthew
but almost nothing on Mark.
Then I spotted a green book entitled, “The Journeying Self: The Gospel of Mark
Through a Jungian Perspective” by Diarmuid McGann. He was an Irish priest
from the diocese of Rockville Center in Long Island, New York.
[1942-2015]
WHO WERE YOUR
TEACHERS?
He begins by telling his readers who his teachers were. I found that
interesting.
He talked about his mom and dad first - then his three
brothers and his one sister. Next came a scripture professor in Ireland -
Father P.J. Brophy - who loved scripture - and that was the teaching and that
was the learning he received. It was nothing very specific or particular about
the Bible - just his love of scripture.
Next came the Jesuit Father Teilhard de Chardin and lastly were his
professors at Iona College in New York.
Just reading that much - not even getting back into a
book I read years and years ago - I asked myself - what did I learn from my mom
and dad - brother and two sisters?
When couples are preparing for marriage that is a key
question: family of origin.
How has our family of origin effected/ affected us?
Diarmuid’s dad was the extravert - and he learned what
it’s like to live in the shadow of an extravert - a bigger than life person. My
dad was just the opposite. My mother was also more the introvert. My brother was the extravert. Diarmuid’s mother was more the introvert and
she learned from suffering. She broke her neck in a car crash as a young
woman. She stayed with her oldest son in
his difficult days and as well as his sister who has hospitalized for a few
years. Mom knew and learned from
suffering - like her blindness coming on her in her old age.
MY TEACHERS?
Who have been my teachers?
One of the teachers who influenced me was also a
scripture professor -
Eugene McAlee. When
it came to the four gospels, he didn’t
like Matthew. He didn’t give us that much on Luke - only Mary’s stuff - in the
beginning there. He gave us some stuff on John - but Mark was his gospel.
And instead of taking Mark from the beginning - he taught
us method. He taught us that we have the rest of our lives to learn the
gospels.
He taught us the Greek side of reading the Gospels.
He taught us that Mark was precise. Mark was not poetic.
Mark was details - lots of details - specific.
Mark was Joe Friday - “Just the facts mam.”
So Mark would be one of my teachers.
Mark starts off with Jesus as an adult. He challenges us
right off the bat - to be face to face with Jesus the Son of God. He’s present
in our midst. Do I have an adult to
adult relationship with Jesus? Mark
talks about the kingdom. It’s in our midst. Do we sense that every day - that
I’m in the Kingdom and what a way to live every day?
Matthew - Mark - Luke and John? I like John first -
because he was the poet and I like a poetic approach to life. I like Luke next - because he was the story
teller - and I like story tellers. I too
like Matthew least - because he can be too strict at times - especially
compared to Luke - who was big or mercy and forgiveness - the message of Pope
Francis - big time.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Who Were Your Teachers?”
Name some names - and what did you learn? What does that
say about you?
What’s your favorite gospel? What does that say about
you?
What do you know about the gospel of Mark? He has many of the same stories about Jesus
but tells them in his unique way. What does that tell you about Mark?
The title of my homily for this 5th Sunday
after Easter [C] is, “A Sense of Awe at the Earth.”
Last Friday - April 22nd - was Earth Day. It's something that has been going on since 1970.
At our last staff meeting we were asked to say something
for the good of the earth this Sunday - so here goes.
THREE READINGS
I read today's 3 readings with the hopes that something in
the readings would be a good lead in for this theme of “Earth Day.”
Sure enough today’s second reading from the Book of Revelation is perfect. It begins,
“Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.” It ends, "Behold, I make all things new."
Perfect.
The reading talks about the heavens, the sea, the earth,
the city, dwellings and the human race. [Cf. Revelation 21: 1-5a]
Perfect.
Let’s work - let’s complain - let’s do our part to make everyone and everything better.
Next the reading uses the metaphor of a wedding.
We had two weddings at St. Mary’s yesterday. Seeing a
bride on her wedding day: what better image of newness and new life. Now at a wedding nobody
notices the bridegroom - except for two moments. The bride is
it. He’s chopped liver. I've noticed that the first moment is when the bridegroom is all alone at the top of the sanctuary steps. Then the music starts: "Here comes the bride..." or what have you. All stand and turn to see the bride coming down the aisle. At that moment
all the bridesmaids in the seats turn to see the bridegroom's face as his face sees his bride come
down the aisle in all her beauty. Tears and tissues. It's an awesome moment.
The other bridegroom moment is at the reception when he is called
out on the dance floor to dance with his mom.
Perfect.
Life is the moments.
AWE AND AWFUL
MOMENTS
The title of my homily is, “A Sense of Awe at the Earth.”
Not all moments are the same - obviously.
Some are same old, same old, same old. These are the moments we are on automatic pilot and we don’t notice
anything awesome. These are mac and
cheese moments.
But then there are moments that are awesome - moments that overwhelm
us.
These are Lobster Thermidor or Baked Maryland Lump Crab Cake moments - or great
burritos moments - depending on your taste buds.
I saw the following in someone’s house recently. It was
handwriting on the wall: “Life Is Not Measured By the Number of Breaths We Take,
But By the Moments That Take Our Breath Away.”
Of course.
It’s good to sit down at the end of each day and look at
the moments of that day.
You saw a little kid put a dollar in the hat of a street
violinist. She creeped up carefully - looking back at her parents twice - her
parents who signaled her to go on. She looked up at the musician - and put some
green in his hat - looked up at his face again - and then ran back to her
parents with great delight and a great smile on her face.
You stopped to smell the roses or the lilacs on a
neighbor’s lawn.
You bought yourself an ice cream cone. Hey it’s good to
treat oneself besides the kids to ice cream and your got yourself two scoops -
rum raisin and pistachio with chocolate chips. Nobody was looking. Uuum good. Uum.
Great lickings. And you even toasted yourself with the cone.
You saw an old couple holding hands as they were headed
for an afternoon matinee movie.
You stopped to watch a flock of birds flying north.
It’s good to pause to look at what you saw that day on
the planet - and hopefully you had some awesome moments.
I hold that if a person does this every evening - as a
night prayer - you’ll see a lot more the
next day - because you have to do homework every night. I discovered this from
vacations - keeping a journal - and making a report of my journey that night -
on what I saw that day.
But there are also some moments that are awful - and we
spot them each day as well.
Ugh.
We saw a fight. We saw someone yelling at a kid. We saw
someone dump their garbage or wrappings or coffee cup on the street.
I notice in putting this homily together the close
connection between awe and awful and
awesome.
Life can be the good, the bad and the ugly.
Life can be the awe - the awful - and the awesome.
ACTION
I also began thinking about action - the action step - in
life.
By declaring a day as Earth Day - the hope is to get
action.
It works.
Mother’s Day helps florists and card shops - and moms get
a lot more “Thank you’s” that day compared to other days.
So too Father’s Day.
So too Qingming Day. I never heard of this till I was
looking up stuff for Earth Day.
Every April 4 to April 6, in China, it’s Qingming Day - a time everyone heads
for the cemetery where their parents or grandparents are buried and they sweep
and clean up the graves. Neat.
They also bring flowers and burn paper money and incense at their graves.
Neat - for the flowers. I wonder about the smoke - and
the stuff left on the cemetery grounds.
So too because of Earth Day - schools and churches and
organizations and cities do stuff to sweep up the mess. They plant trees. They
challenge us to not dump on Mother Earth. Let’s clean up the air and clean up
the water.
I noticed in a story in the New York Times the other day
about a parish in Brooklyn. They marched to the Gowanus Canal and prayed over
the water and poured holy water onto it. It’s still a mess. It was close to the
last stop on the subway before we got to Coney Island as a kid. We’d go over a
small bridge and we kids would hold our noses as we did and yell out, “Perfume
Bay.” I guess it’s still a mess. Some day - someday. The first step is
awareness and then action.
This year’s theme for Earth Day is not to waste food -
not to dump food - and awareness of the amount of food that is just dumped into
landfills - has gone down.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “A Sense of Awe at the Earth.”
I talked about the reality that there are moments when we
see things happening on our earth that take our breath away.
I remember my first trip into Mexico - going over the
border in a car in Nogales Arizona into Nogales Mexico - and as we went down
the highway I began to realize in 5 minutes the value of emissions control here
in the United States. Cough. Cough. Cough.
We have seen smoking going down in our lifetime. Cough.
Cough. Cough.
For the sake of transparency my dad died of emphysema -
not because of smoking however - but
from what they called “White lung”. He
worked with flour at Nabisco in New York and New Jersey.
Awareness hopefully leads to action
So where can make the earth more beautiful today - this week - in this life.
Last Sunday I suggested picking up at least one piece of trash - paper - what
have you - each day.
And be awesome for each other - each day - and when
another is awesome - give them an awesome “Atta girl” or “Atta boy” or “Atta
earth.”
And “Ooops!” it’s
Spring - and awesome beauty surrounds us - so make sure you see all around and give God at least one good, "Atta God" each day. Now that's a great Atta Prayer.
