November 5, 2022

EXIT  SIGNS

We need exit signs - indications of where to go when we want to leave.

It's nice to know yawns work.

Watching watches work.

When we want to leave a party, we know words work. "Well, I have to get up early tomorrow morning. Thanks for a wonderful evening together."

People shoot out of churches and ball games - after communion - or after the 7th inning.

Then there are the exit signs before death - wrinkles, squinting, loss of breath, losing my hearing - aches and pains - there is going to be an end to all this.

My brother always liked to park his car - in the back - or off to the side - of a movie theater,  Why? Well after the movie - he'd rush to the side exit door - while most people headed for the front door.  And he made an early exit from life - cancer at 51.

EXIT signs.

We want to know when the sermon or the story is going to end.

Peter Jennings asked General Tommy Franks when we were going into Iraq. He answered: "Two questions I ask: Do we have enough soldiers to win the war - and do we have enough soldiers to keep the peace?"

Did anyone ask: "Do we have an exit strategy?"

When we have time to ponder life do we ever ask, "How many entrances in life, do we wish we never made?"

How about the question: "Any wrong exits?"

"The party's over."  Sometimes to hear that is good news; sometimes it's bad news."

What are the entrance signs to getting married?

What are the exit signs for ending a marriage?

What are the exit signs of life?

Maybe the exit signs we ought to looking for are the ones that say, "Rest area ahead."

 

 November 5, 2022

Thought for Today

"Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength - in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."

Alice Walker

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens [1974]

 November 4, 2022

Reflection

THE CREATOR

I'm sitting there praying - sort of spaced out.

It's early Monday morning.

I'm looking at the ceiling - where it comes to an edge - where it meets a wall - and then a floor and then I see that the work is excellent - and some of what I see is connected to people.

I picture the people who did this work a long time ago.

It just didn't happen.

Then it overwhelms me - that is - everything in front of me - above me - around me - under me - all was created - by others - other than me.

Then there is the universe.

In fact, there is nothing I made - trees,  cloth, nails, plaster, plastic, paper, flowers, nothing ....

Then it hits me - a question, "How could anyone be an atheist- - a word that begins with and A. It's the privative alpha - signifying without - followed by the word "theos" - the Greek word for God.

Joseph Oppitz - our philosophy professor - way back in college when we were studying metaphysics - had said, "The best argument for the existence of God - is the existential argument."

He added, "Everything that is in existence is in existence by either itself or something else is keeping it in existence."

I know I'm not keeping myself in existence.

Therefore something else is doing that.

That something is a Power.

Some call that power, "God!"

That power - God - the Higher Power - is keeping the whole of existence in existence.

What that power, that God, is like - that's another story.

Whether Christ is God - that's another story.

Now, how things, are created, that is where people use computers, paper and pens, and they start writing - they start figuring - they start trying to get to the bottom of things.

So no wonder a good name for God is "The Creator" or the "Higher Power that keeps all that  exists, in Existence."

I prefer to call God, "I am" and pause with and before and in front of all things - and say, "Okay, next!"

 November 4,  2022

Thought for Today

"Me want cookie!"

Sesaame Street,

Spoken by Cookie Monster

 nOVEMBER 3, 2022

Reflection

LITURGICAL  NAZI'S

I almost used the phrase, "Liturgical Nazi" in a sermon.

Good move that I didn't because that might have hit someone the wrong way.

Good move because when speaking from the pulpit, the people in front of the speaker, don't have the opportunity to speak up and ask for clarification.

The word "Nazi" or the image it could provoke is that of storm troopers breaking through one's door.

People could be grabbed and pushed into a truck - never to be seen again.

People don't go to church to be hassled or provoked.

Yet I have experienced - the so called "liturgical police" at times. It's not that often after a church service but this happens at times.

I've said "you" instead of "thou" in the Hail Mary - not expecting to get criticized for doing that - without realizing I was doing just that.

When I heard that the pope wanted to change some of the words in the Our Father prayer, I said to myself, "That should be interesting."

I'm sure someone would say,  "You can't change the words "hallowed" to "holy" or "art"' to "are" in the Our Father.

If you read the Douai or the King James Bible - you'll notice "thou" and "thy" a lot. Yet the New American Bible moved to "you" and "your".

Where it really hits home is at the Mass. People want priests to say and to pray it by the book.

Yet we were told to pray with variety in mind at times.

Catholic TV shows sometimes make comments about "liberal" behaviors.

I guess the bottom line for some people is, "We want uniformity and conformity."

I'm glad there are so many options in celebrating the Sacred Liturgy.

I went to Mass every week day - all through Catholic grammar school. It was the same Mass - the same readings - the same black fiddle back vestments.  It was the same music in Latin.

So it was wonderful waking up in the Catholic Church in my lifetime - with an updated Mass.  Wonderful. If someone wants the old way - I just smile and inwardly pray,  "Come Holy Spirit."

 November 3, 2022

Thought for Today

"These palms are greater than Versailles,                      for no man made them."

Derek Walcott,

Names (1976)

 November 2, 2022

Reflection

ADVENT  THEMES

Preparing for Christmas has a lot more energy than preparing for any other special day of the year.

It still has it - in spite of comments - in spite of these other feast days for people who are not Christian - that have been highlighted lately.

Here in the northern hemisphere - in the northern part of the northern hemisphere - darker, colder days certainly become a theme for talking, feeling and realizing.

Waiting is a major theme - waiting to see family - waiting for Christmas cards - waiting for gifts  - waiting in line.

Gifts - giving - trying to find a special gift that will lift the mind and heart of those we love certainly is a theme and a reality.

Lights certainly are part of the scene - lights in windows - lights in trees - lighting up wreaths - houses with long strings of lights.

Decorations are part of the scene and the season.

Pins - women wearing tiny replicas of wreathes and candles certainly enter the story.  Nice.

I like - or better what hits me each Advent is to do a whole book on Advent - a short book - on words beginning with  W.

Would I have enough material?

Waiting, watching, wanting, way, wisdom, we, whole, wreathe ....

That's what I have now  - sitting here on December 19, 2007.

It looks like that book of Advent themes won't be done this year. If I get to it, will I come up with enough words beginning with W?

[It's now November 2, 2022 - and I still haven't done this.  Surprise I am going to give 3 talks covering 3 themes beginning with W - in St. Mary's Annapolis, Maryland in early December.]

I

 November 2, 2022

Thought for Today

"The key to the mystery of a great artist, that for reasons unknown to him or to anyone else, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another inevitably .... The composer, by doing this, leaves us at the finish with the feeling that something is right in the world, that something checks throughout, something  that follows its own laws consistently, something we can trust, that will never let us down."

Leonard Bernstein [1918-1990]

The Joy of Music (1959)

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

 November 1,  2022

Reflection

BENCH - COUCH - LOVE SEAT

A bench, couch or love seat is certainly different than a single chair.

Just sitting there - each gives a different message.

I'm sure cave men and women sat on single rocks as well as long logs.

Church benches send a message - togetherness - while the priest sits up there in the sanctuary in a single chair - prominent to say the least,

The judge sits there in the courtroom - on his bench - but it's a single chair - as in the supreme court.

The jury sit in single chairs - but they are usually lined up next to each other - often in two single rows.

The witness - and the accused - when they are questioned - are in a single chair.

The audience in the court room are all lined up together - often on benches.                                                                            

What was in like at the Last Supper - not in the painting - but at that last meal together?

What will it be like at the eternal banquet?

I like booths in restaurants.  It seems more together.

Subways and buses have seats together - also plais - but they are a bit different - we might be next to each other - but we might nt talk to each other.

What would it  be like to sit with or next to God?

 November 1, 2022

Thought for Today

"The confessional and the autobiographical modes are paradoxical.  Two things seem to be true:  the more completely personal you are, the more universal your meaning becomes. And the more honest you are, the more mysterious you appear."

Finuala Dowling, 

the Poetry Paper, No. 3,  2006

L

 

ALL  SAINTS  DAY

TWO  OSERVATIONS

 

FIRST OBSERVATION- A BELIEF IN RESURRECTION

 

We Christians believe in the resurrection. We directly say that when we say  in the Nicean creed: “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” We also say that in Apostles Creed when we say near the end of the creed: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

 

We’re saying that Christ rose from the dead and the Saints are still alive as well because they too rose from the dead.

 

So that’s the first observation:   we believe in life after death.  Jesus and the Saints are alive for starters. Not everyone believes this.  We do.

 

SECOND OBSERVATION:  THE SAINTS ARE MODELS FOR THE HERE AND NOW – FOR LIFE HERE ON EARTH BEFORE DEATH

 

So we look at Saints as models on how to do life.

 

We look at Saint Joseph as a model to quietly be there to protect each other.

 

We look to Saint Anthony as a model to help others who lose things.

We look to Saint Francis Assisi to become instruments of  peace  to and for each other.

 

We look to Saint Alphonsus – San Alfonso -  as a model on how to use our time well – especially to be there for the poor and neglected.

 

We look to both Teresas to have and to live an inner life.

 

We look to Philip Neri to have a smile on our face and a sense of humor in our lives.

 

We look to Francis de Sales to say to each other – especially the nervous Nellies in our neighborhoods:  “Omnia suaviter” -  translation “Caln down” or “Nice and easy.”

 

We look to Saint Thomas the Apostle to voice our doubts and scream out when we know, “My Lord and My God.”

 

We need St. Luke the Gospel writer to remember and tell each other the parables of Jesus – like the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan and Lazarus at our doorway.

 

We need St. Martin of Tours to remind us to give the shirt off our back to the cold and the naked – as we meet them on the roads of life.

 

We need saints like Katherine Drexel to hold babies like John McGowan

 

And especially we need people like the great Andrew the Apostle to bring others to Christ like he did for  his brother Peter.

October 31, 2022

Reflection 

QUESTIONS

I went out to dinner last night with a couple whose marriage I did.

During the dinner the guy says, "I have a question...."

Thinking about that this morning, I wondered, "Does everyone have a question?"

Meaning, "Here's a priest.... Here's a chance to ask a question that I've always wanted to ask."

I have questions I'd like to ask the pope, the president, God for that matter.

For example, "Bishop, when you're at the National Bishops' Conference, is there anyone there who raises their hand and ask about asking Rome to change the annulment process - or who's behind this or what have you? Is there time for questions?"

So yes, I guess people sit there in church and something a priest says triggers something else and we have a question.

I think of Clement Jedrzejewski. He was off on the  articulation of one's questions - refining one's questions - getting to all of one's questions.

He was off on saying, "There are no stupid questions - only stupid answers.

So last night someone asked, "What is the Purgatorian Society?  Is it a group of people?"

Jokingly I said, "Yes. And they wear capes."

Questions?   They are hooks.  We use them to go fishing.

 October 31,  2022

Thought for Today

"What else is there to say but everything?"

Gwendolyn Brooks,

In the Mecca (1968), Stanza 16

 October  30,  2022

Reflections

IT'S  OKAY

Its okay not to like spinach.

Spinach is good - but it's okay if you don't like it.

In my sermon yesterday for the Feast of Christ the King - 2007 - I mentioned  a saying about priests and pastors that I had heard: "1/3 of the people like you; 1/3 don't like you; and 1/3 don't care."

Then I talked about religious art and I mentioned the big cross at St. John Neuman Church.

Well after that Mass, a little old lady stopped to say, "Good bye" to me. Then she added,  "Thank you for saying it's okay not to like the big cross up there in our church."

I didn't exactly say that.  That was not my aim.

Yet she was thanking me for helping her to think about something she didn't like - and it was okay to do that.

The plate is passed around the table and we don't have to take Aunt Martha's leek soup.

Buffet style food gathering places are wonderful for those who like variety - for those with likes and dislikes.

What happens in a family of vegetarians if one kid likes meat?

What happens when "have to's" are forced on those who don't have "want to's"?

I've noticed forced - or attempted have to's - on the part of religious leaders - popes - and church leaders. It's part of wanting uniformity, control, a united front, etc.

Parents must have extra stress when the other parent is too severe or too strict on one of their kids - and it drives the other crazy.

What were the parents like  in the story of priests and nuns who join very uniform driven religious communities?  Were those parents too severe or too lax?

Is it okay to say, "It's okay!"

It's okay.

There I said it.

 October  30,  2022

Thought for Today

"Those who want to write good poems should be reading good poetry, not how to books.  Indeed, every fine poem is a how to manual."

Billy Collins, 

Poets and Writers,

Macrh, April, 1995