“Beware of invoking the fear of Communism as an excuse for
avoiding change in the structures which confine millions of the children of God
in a sub-human condition.”
Helder Camara
[1909-1999]
Friday, March 29, 2019
March 29, 2019
DEW
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this First Friday in Lent, is, “Dew” - just that short 3 letter word: “dew”.
Mention of dew is made in today’s first reading from Hosea 14: 5, “I will be like the dew for
Israel.”
I was thinking of going with the gospel - especially
because it talks about the theme of the two Great Commandments to love - to use
thatfor a short homily. But then again
- when I spotted that mention of dew in the first reading, I said to myself, “You’re
due - D U E - to say something about D E W.”
I get that same thought every time I use the 2nd
Eucharistic Prayer - when the priest says, “Make holy, therefore, these gifts,
we pray by sending down your Spirit upon these gifts like the dewfall.”
I always notice that prayer - that mention of dew - and it
often hits me as sounding so sort of different.I ask, “What is that about?”
Asking God to send down his spirit on us like the
dewfall, that is kind of different. It’s
quite unique
So maybe it will sound a bit different to me in the
future ifI do a short homily on it
sometime - like now. We’ll see. Time will tell.
So that’s why I decided to see if I could figure out afew things about dew.
Dew does not appear in the New Testament - but it does
appear some42 times in Old Testament:
mainly in Daniel, Judges and here in Hosea.
TASK
So I made it my task last night, to see if I could come
up with a couple of thoughts about dew
for this morning.
FIRST THE REALITY OF DEW WAS WATER
Dew is water. Without water, there is no life.
Here in Maryland, we often get dew on our car windows in the
morning - and if it’s cold enough, it’s
frost.Frost then is dew that got cold
feet.
Here in Maryland - and many other places, if you walk out
on grass in early morning you’llget wet
feet and wet shoes.
That’s it. That’s dew- landing especially on the ground- on green plants and car windows - silently saying, I’m here.
SECONDLY: PRESENCE OF GOD
Dew - in Jewish theology - is like the presence of God.
Dew comes silently.
We hear rain - but dew is absolute silent - settling
everywhere.
Carl Sandburg in his poem called “Fog” talks about fog
coming over the city - quietly - like little cat’s feet.
Like waking up in the morning and walking outside to get
the paper - we discover our feet got wet - may we feel the presence of God on
our feet every morning- like the dew.
THIRDLY: THE RESURRECTION
In Jewish theology,the dew tells us that there is resurrection.
If there is only dust - dirt - and no water, there is no
possibility of new life.
God made us of the dirt - the dust of the earth - along
with water.
When there is dew on the earth - where somany are buried - there is the possibility of
new life. Dew tells us aboutearth
rising. Plants and the earth and the dessert can only bloom if there is bloom.
“The worst thing in the world is not sin; it is the denial of sin by a false conscience - for that attitude makes forgiveness impossible.”
Fulton Sheen
7 LEARNINGS ON FORGIVENESS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 3rd Tuesday in Lent is, “7 Learnings on Forgiveness.”
Lenten homework:Get
a clean piece of paper or a blank
computer screen and come up with 7 learnings on forgiveness.
I picked the number 7, because 7 is the number in today’s
gospel.
I did my 7 last night - to practice what I’m preaching. If
you do this, it’s not like writing on sidewalk cement. Nope. It’s an ongoing process, but come with 7 and
then revisit your 7 every Lent or whenever you have time or you have trouble
with forgiving someone.
# 1: Everyone has to deal with the issue of forgiveness.
Everyone has been hurt by someone out there: neighbor, family member co-worker.
Someone gipped us, stole from us, talked about us behind our back. So number
one: everyone has to learn to deal with forgiveness.It can me major. It can be minor. It can be
abuse.It could be forgiving another. It
could be forgiving oneself. Name your poison. Name your hurt. Name your daily,
“bummer”. Everyone has to deal with the issue of forgiveness.
# 2: Forgiveness takes time - sometimes a long, long
time. That’s number two.Walk. Talk.
Vent. Give yourself time to get over a mistake or a hurt or a cut - so that you
can heal.
# 3: Everyone has hurts in their way back when - hurts that
still affect us all these years. Like our dad wasn’t a hugger and his dad
wasn’t a hugger and his dad wasn’t a hugger, so we got no hugs. I hear that one
at times. Or we allow envy to eat us up - envy that se use comparisons to hurt
ourselves - envy because we weren’t the
favorite. For some, we feel we’re still treated that way today.Or some family member or classmate did much
better than we did - and that reality and issue shows up in ways that still
bother us.
#4: Sometimes we’re not fair - like the guy in today’s
gospel. Some boss forgave us - even though we were as guilty as sin. Then we
don’t catch forgiveness, and we don’t forgive others.We might even say the words of the Our Father,
10,000 times, “Forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass or hurt us” - but we don’ttrespass into that way of doing life.
# 5:Sometimes we
won’t forgive another as a way ofpaying
them back. Somehow we think we’re hurting them by ongoing anger or resentment
and we hope they sense it or see it. Many times they have no clue this is going
on.
# 6: Learn to say
what Jesus said from the cross, ‘Father forgive them because they don’t know
what they are doing.’ People are dumb. We’re dumb. In one split second we can
ruin something that took 20 years to build. In one short second we can mess
ourselves up.
# 7:Be
creative in your pay backs.Silence
sometimes is a great weapon.Or there is
the Chinese Proverb: “If your enemy wrongs you, buy
each of his children a drum.”Orsometimes our motive is: “This person is not
going to learn, so my being screamfulisn’t going to work. Forgiveness might and that might hit them into
feeling small, since you are being big with the way you’re forgiving that
person.
CONCLUSION
That’s my homily. That’s my homework for you. Come up
with 7 learnings about forgiveness.
The bottom line is that we all catch this main message of
Jesus.
Let me close with a wonderful little story.
In a far corner of a New York Cemetery there is a small
gravestone polished smooth by the wind and the weather.The stone has no name on it - no date -
butit has one word on it -“forgiven”
May that be all of us.
Monday, March 25, 2019
March 25, 2019
Homily
March 25, 2019
Thought for today:
“A painting about which we were unable to separate fact from fiction was the ‘Virgin and child’ in the Paulin monastery at Czestochowa,
in Southern Poland.A Polish reader
living in Leicestershire asked us to confirm the following story about the
painting, knows as the ‘Protector of Poland’, and said to have been painted by
one of Christ’s apostles.
“When Sweden invaded Poland in 1655, the Swedes tried to
remove the painting in a horse-drawn wagon, but could not budge it an inch.
Exasperated, two Swedish soldiers drew their swords and slashed the virgins
cheek.As soon as their swords touched
the canvas, the soldiers fell dead. And nobody has since been able to cover up
the scars.
“Although unable to confirm it to the letter, we were
happy to find out that such a good story certainly was based on some fact.Admittedly Our Lady of Czestochowa, first
said to have been painted by St. Luke,
is now believed to be the work of an unknown Italian artist in 1383.But the painting certainly took on a special
significance after the heroic defense of the monastery in 1655, when the
invadingSwedes were defeated after a
70-day siege.
“Following this miraculous victory, King Casimir of
Poland proclaimed: ‘To touch Our Lady of Czestochowa is to touch the very soul
of Poland.’ Whether by Swedish swords or not, the Virgin’s cheek remains
scarred, and every year thousands of pilgrims go to see it.”
Old
Codgers’
MOST
VALUABLE PLAYER
M V P:now that’s a very tricky award!
M V P:now that could be very subjective.
M V P: now is that just for teachers or
athletes, or necessary people?
M V P: how about down syndrome folks?
M V P: how about the handicapped?
M V P: the blind, the deaf, and the lame? M V P: everyone has value. M V P: everyone is unique. M V P: everyone deserves notice.
[Instead of a homily
for this 3rd Sunday in Lent [C] I wrote this story yesterday. I used
it for the Kids’ Mass this morning and the 11 AM Mass.]
The title of my story for today is, “Second Chance Fig Trees.”
Once upon a time there was a farmer whose only fruit
trees were fig trees.
And he had lots and lots and lots of fig trees in his
orchard - thousands and thousands and thousands of them.
Now when he first started to grow fruit trees, he had
orange trees,apple trees, pear trees, but
he had his best luck with fig trees. So
that’s what he settled on: fig trees.
He soldhis figs
to Nabisco - for their fig newton bars - to Keebler and to Kellogg’s - for
their fig newton bars - and his figs were the best in California - where he had
his many, many fig trees.
His trucks brought his figs to bakeries all around the
country and then ships brought them to countries all around the world.
He sold his figs to Costco, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Amazon.
Vegans loved his fig bars. They were perfect for snacks
and power bars. In time creative bakers put in chocolate chips, blueberries and raspberries.Then they came up with new products. The
latest is organic dark chocolate fig truffle bites - brand new March 2019.
“Uuuum delicious.”
Now to the story about the day that changed everything for
him and his fig trees.If a fig tree wasn’t producing figs, he had his workers chop
that tree down - almost immediately.
“No use ….”he would say,“No use wasting time and space,
land and fertilizer on lazy fig trees.”
“Cut em down!”
Then one day, believe
it or not, he gave the order to cut down this one little fig tree- but something stopped him. He couldn’t
believe his eyes, but this one little fig tree - seemed to be crying. He
couldn’t believe his ears, but he seemed to hear this little fig tree saying,
“Give me a second chance.”
He told his workers, “Give this tree here extra water. Give
it extra fertilizer - and if by this time next year, it doesn’t start
producing, more and better figs, then cut it down. Why should we let it do nothing?”
Sure enough,it started
producing great figs - the best he ever tasted.
Sure enough, something else happened, not just to his fig
trees, but to his personality.
He was known to be a really tough boss - always grouchy -
always yelling at his workers.
He was also - always
yelling athis kids - never, ever, ever,
giving them or their teachers of their coaches or anyone a second chance.
Well after giving that fig tree a second chance, he didn’t
notice this about himself, but he started to be nicer to drivers on the highway
- to people on line - in the supermarket - to neighbor and family members who
just wanted to talk about nothings.
Surprise his kids saw this change in their dad and they gave
him a second chance.
And this is not the end of the story. A twist turned things
around a bit more.
His dad died - his dad who had started their fruit tree
business - way, way back, and a long time ago.
Nowhe was always
tough on his dad - for not being busy enough - for not doing enough - for not
figuring out - fig trees were the way to go.
Now the priest who was doing his father’s funeral didn’t
know any of this. He was just trying to come up with a homily for the funeral.
He did know that the family was famous for their figs.So he looked up in the bible the two stories
about Jesus and fig trees,
In one story, the figs were not given a second chance.In the story we heard this morning, the fig
tree got a second chance.
Well, the priest who
preached at the funeral of the father of the man who gave that fig tree a
second chance - used that second story of Jesus for his homily and he said our
God is a God of second chances.
He really didn’t know anything about that farmer - and his
father - but when that farmer heard that
story that Jesus gave, he was hearing
about himself.
He started coming back to church - giving church and Jesus a
second chance. He gave himself a second chance. He really didn’t like himself.
But most importantly - his whole life changed -giving
lots of people - lots of chances - second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and
seven times seven chances.Amen.
Thought for today: “We must reserve a little back shop, all our own, entirely free, wherein to establish our true liberty and principle retreat and solitude.”
