FAMILY 

poem  FOR TODAY - mARCH 29, 2014

Begotten

I've never, as some children do,

looked at my folks and thought, I must

have come from someone else—

rich parents who'd misplaced me, but

who would, as in a myth or novel,

return and claim me. Hell, no. I saw

my face in cousins' faces, heard

my voice in their high drawls. And Sundays,

after the dinner plates were cleared,

I lingered, elbow propped on red

oilcloth, and studied great-uncles, aunts,

and cousins new to me. They squirmed.

I stared till I discerned the features

they'd gotten from the family larder:

eyes, nose, lips, hair? I stared until,

uncomfortable, they'd snap, "Hey, boy—

what are you looking at? At me?"

"No, sir," I'd lie. "No, ma'am." I'd count ten

and then continue staring at them.

I never had to ask, What am I?

I stared at my blood-kin, and thought,

So this, dear God, is what I am.

(c) Andrew Huggins

10 COMMANDMENTS 

FOR DUMMIES 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Friday in the 3^rd Week of Lent is, “10 COMMANDMENTS FOR DUMMIES.”

Every once and a while there is a story in the news about a protest against someone or some group who want to remove a stone monument with the 10 commandments on it. When that happens there is always uproar.

Religion can do that every time.

Recently there was mention in the Annapolis Capital newspaper the following: “Maryland Judge Halts Prayers at County Board’s Meetings: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 - 4:40 pm WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland says the Board of County Commissioners for Carroll County has to stop with opening meetings with prayers that reference Jesus Christ or any specific deity.”

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Mentioning Jesus is different than mentioning or displaying the Ten Commandments – but both bring us right into the issue of Church and State.

Separation of church and state is a button – in many ways – in the United States and around the world.

If Catholics were a minority, it might be a different story. For example, Christians are being killed or penalized or churches burnt down in various places in our world. There we would want separation of church and state.

As Catholics we know from  U.S. history there were attacks on Catholics and Catholic churches by the Know Nothings etc. etc. etc.

Religion can cause an uproar

THE 10 COMMANDMENTS

The title of my homily is, “10 Commandments for Dummies.”

Back to public displays of the 10 Commandments.... A good case can be made for allowing the 10 Commandments to be made public – because much of our laws have them as a background.

Moreover, many of our courthouses and government have had the Ten Commandments up there on walls or near ceilings for the longest time.  They constitute a precedent. Moreover, we mention God on money and on public buildings, etc.

We might have heard scholars point out that the Ten Commandments were around before Moses – in various forms. [1]  And we know there are variations of the 10 Commandments in the Bible as well. [2]

Do you know the Ten Commandments by heart. If I asked you to take out a piece of paper and write down the Ten Commandments, could you do it. You’d surely get, “Honor your father and your mother!” “Do not steal”, “Thou shall not commit adultery.”  But the other 7 you’d come close to naming each specific commandment – not to covet – not to work on the Sabbath – and what have you, but in general it’s my experience, most people can’t name all 10.

John Shea loves to tell the story that he was in a rectory on a Sunday morning and the phone is ringing. He picks it up – to avoid the person getting an answering machine answer for when the Masses are. If I remember the story somewhat correctly, a voice says, “Quick! Can you tell me the 9^th Commandment – I’m having a discussion with my daughter about the 10 commandments and she says, “Well tell me the 9^th commandment?’ I lied and told her I had to go to the bathroom. What is it?” And Jack Shea paused and said, “Off hand I don’t know.”

Maybe that’s why they put them in stone.

CONCLUSION: JESUS MADE IT EASIER

Here in the gospels we have the 10 commandments for dummies.

We just have to know 2 of them.

Jeremiah 31: 31-34 says that the day is coming when there will be a new law – and I will write it in your hearts.

So if anyone asks us for the 9^th commandment or all 10 commandments, Jesus made it easier. It’s in Mathew, Mark and Luke, the 10 commandments for dummies.

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Check your heart, those 2 commandments are written there.

Notes:

Statue in picture on top: 10 Commandments monument outside the Oklahoma State Capital Building.

[1] Cf. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, “Exodus”, page 52-56

[2] Compare Exodus 20: 2-17 with Deuteronomy 5: 6-21

STUCK 

LIKE A STONE 

Poem for Today - March 28, 2014

A STONE IS NOBODY'S

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it. Made it a prisoner.
           Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it
           for the rest of his life.
His mother asked why.
He said, because it's held captive, because it is
           the captured.
Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know
           whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and
           the stone are mother and daughter,
           it is you who are getting old. The stone
           is only sleeping.
But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.
A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you
           who are conquered; you are minding 
           the prisoner, which is yourself, 
           because you are afraid to go out, she said.
Yes, yes, I am afraid, because you never loved me,
           he said.
Which is true, because you have always been to me
           as the stone is to you, she said.

(c) Russell Edson

I AM MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

Poem for Today - March 27, 2014

You Can Have It

My brother comes home from work

and climbs the stairs to our room.

I can hear the bed groan and his shoes drop

one by one. You can have it, he says.

The moonlight streams in the window

and his unshaven face is whitened

like the face of the moon. He will sleep

long after noon and waken to find me gone.

Thirty years will pass before I remember

that moment when suddenly I knew each man

has one brother who dies when he sleeps

and sleeps when he rises to face this life,

and that together they are only one man

sharing a heart that always labors, hands

yellowed and cracked, a mouth that gasps

for breath and asks, Am I gonna make it?

All night at the ice plant he had fed

the chute its silvery blocks, and then I

stacked cases of orange soda for the children

of Kentucky, one gray boxcar at a time

with always two more waiting. We were twenty

for such a short time and always in

the wrong clothes, crusted with dirt

and sweat. I think now we were never twenty.

In 1948 in the city of Detroit, founded

by de la Mothe Cadillac for the distant purposes

of Henry Ford, no one wakened or died,

no one walked the streets or stoked a furnace,

for there was no such year, and now

that year has fallen off all the old newspapers,

calendars, doctors' appointments, bonds,

wedding certificates, drivers licenses.

The city slept. The snow turned to ice.

The ice to standing pools or rivers

racing in the gutters. Then bright grass rose

between the thousands of cracked squares,

and that grass died. I give you back 1948.

I give you all the years from then

to the coming one. Give me back the moon

with its frail light falling across a face.

Give me back my young brother, hard

and furious, with wide shoulders and a curse

for God and burning eyes that look upon

all creation and say, You can have it.

(c) Philip Levine

Page 284-285

in The Penguin

Anthology of

20^th Century

American Poetry

Painting on Top:

The Effects of

Moonlight, by 

Eugene- Louis 

Boudin

PRIMAL SCREAMS

Poem for Today - March 26, 2014

A QUIET POEM

My father screamed whenever the phone rang.

My aunt often screamed when she opened the door.

Out back, the willows caterwauled.*

In the kitchen, the faucet screamed

a drop at a time.

At school, they called screaming "recess"

or sometimes "music."

Our neighbors' daughter had a scream

more melodious than my own.

At first, Col. Parker had to pay girls

to get them to scream for Elvis.

I didn't want to scream when I saw The Beatles,

but I did. After that, I screamed for even

mediocre bands.

Late in his career, John Lennon

got into Primal Scream.

Many people find it relaxing to scream.

Just as crawling precedes walking, so screaming

precedes speech.

The roller coaster is just one of many

scream-inducing devices.

The ambulance tries, in its clumsy way, to emulate

the human scream, which in turn tries to emulate nature.

Wind is often said to shriek, but Sylvia Plath

also speaks of  “the parched scream of the sun."

Jim Morrison wanted to hear the scream of 'the butterfly.

With ultra-sensitive equipment, scientists measure

the screams of plants they've tortured.

It's proven that if you scream at a person

for years, then suddenly stop, he will hear even

the tenderest words of love as violent curses.

And to anyone who speaks above a whisper, 

he will say: "Don't you dare. 

Don't you dare raise your voice to me."

* Caterwaul 14th Century, 

to make a harsh cry,

to quarrel noisily

(c) Elaine Equi [2003]

Painting on top: 

The Scream 

[Skrik in Norwegian]. 

It's one of 4 paintings 

by Edvard Munch 

done by Edvard Munch 

between 1893-1910. 

They were entitled, 

"Der Schrei der Natur"]

The 4th version 

sold at Sotheby 

in 2012 for 

$119,922, 600.

SIGNS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this feast of the Annunciation is, “Signs!”

As we heard it today first reading from Isaiah – when it comes to God – people are often asking for signs. [Cf. Isaiah 7: 10-14; 8:10]

Signs – seeking them, seeing them, announcing them – is something that is often happening in religion.

IT’S NORMAL FOR ALL OF LIFE AS WELL

We are all looking for signs – how another is doing – what’s happening – what the weather will be – is another okay. It keeps TV news programs going – as well getting people to look at their phones or the astrology section of the newspapers.

We like hearing annunciation moments: “I got into the college of my choice.” “I got a job.” “We’re engaged.” “We’re pregnant.”

We like good news – revelations that life is continuing.... and we like signs for those things happening.

But sometimes wanting signs can be an itch.

JESUS

At times people wanting signs seems to frustrate Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were always asking for signs and Jesus often responds by saying, “No sign is coming.”  Then sometimes he says mysterious things like, “The only sign you’re going to get is the sign of Jonah.”

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH

In religion if there is anything that happens on a regular basis it’s people announcing revelations. And on a regular basis there are folks who believe in these revelations – and there are folks who are skeptical of these revelations.

And from time to time the Officials in the Church put out the warnings that this is strange stuff – the world is not going to end on such and such a date – and so many people are going to hell or what have you.

Officials in the Church – local and world wide – tend to criticize the odd stuff and the bizarre – like moving and weeping statues – often don’t say anything about places like Medjugorge – even though the local bishop criticizes it.

It seems the Church follows the Gamaliel principal from the Acts of the Apostles. If this is of God, nothing can stop it. If this is not of God, this will disappear in time. [Cf. Acts 5: 34-42]

ANNUNCIATION

On this Feast of the Annunciation – when it comes to looking for signs in our need for reassurance of God’s presence – isn’t it enough to say what Isaiah says in today’s first reading and Luke tells us in today’s gospel? The sign is Mary ever Virgin, ever mother, ever bringing Christ into our world. [Cf. today’s gospel Luke 1: 26-38]

I’ve often wondered why God also seems to be all ear and not much mouth.

When people push revelations from some mystic or some person – I want to say: read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If someone claims some document has miraculous information, I’ll say, “What about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?”

CONCLUSION

If someone wants a sign – if someone wants a miracle in our midst, receive Communion.

If someone wants a sign, get in touch with Mary’s Annunciation Moment – we’re celebrating it today March 25^th - and then be there to reflect upon the Nativity – the great Christmas story – 9 months from now - when Mary and Joseph bring Christ into our world. 

And by the way it’s only 278 shopping days till Christmas.

OOOOOOO

PAINTINGS: On top. The Annunciation, Smithsonian-American-Artist.

Near end: Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation - Don't know if Tanner did the top one as well.

BELIEVING IN LIFE 

Poem for Today - March 25, 2014

ONLY ONE VOICE

Only one voice
but it was singing
and the words danced and as they danced held high
oh with what grace their lustrous bowls of joy.
Even in dark we knew they danced but we
none of us touched the him of what would happen.
Somewhere around a whirl, swirl, a pirouette,
the bowls flew and spilled
and we were drenched, drenched to the dry bone 
in our miserable night.

Only one voice
but morning lay awake in her bed and listened
and then was out and racing over the hills
to hear and see
and water and light and air and the tall trees
and people young and old began to burn
the catchy catchy tune
and everyone danced and everyone everything
even the last roots of the doddering oak
believed in life.

(C) Jessica Powers, 

from Mountain Sparrow