THE LONGEST JOURNEY  
IS THE JOURNEY WITHIN....

Quote for the Day - May 21, 2010


"There is a great deal of unmapped country within us."


George Eliot (Marian Evans Cross) [1819-1880]

HOW MUCH WAS 
THE SERMON WORTH?

Quote for the Day - May 20, 2010


"A little boy watched his mother put a nickle in the collection basket at Sunday Mass. On the way home, she was criticizing the poor sermon they had heard. 'But mom,' the boy said, 'what do you expect for five cents.'"


Anon - and obviously not said on the way home from St. Mary's.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Quote of the Day - May 19, 2010


"Love your neighbor, even when he plays the trombone."


Jewish Proverb

MOVING ON

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Moving On.”

In both readings for this 7th Tuesday after Easter, there is a human experience we are very familiar with: leaving – moving on.

We’ve had this experience at least a zillion times.

We’re sitting there having coffee with some folks. We look at our watch – if that’s our method – and we say, “Oh, ooo, I gotta get going.”

We left home for that first day of school and it was tough and traumatic: sometimes for the child and sometimes for the parent.

We’ve moved – because a parent got a transfer or a divorce.

We’ve finished high school, college, a job, a parish, a term on a committee.

We’ve come to the end of vacations, movies, parties, games, and picnics.

So we know what it is to leave and to move on.

“Catch you later. I gotta go.”

PAUL AND JESUS

In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Paul is announcing he has to leave Ephesus and he tells them where he’s going: Jerusalem.

In today’s Gospel from John, Jesus announces at the Last Supper, “The hour has come ….” and he slowly begins heading for the door.

Last Sunday in the gospel from Luke we heard Jesus talking about leaving for the Father big time – and Jesus makes his Ascension into heaven.

WONDERING??????

As I noticed this common experience of leaving in both of today’s readings – moving on – I wondered if there is a helpful comment or message in that experience for a short 2 page homily this morning.

7 POSSIBLE THOUGHTS

Here are up 7 possible comments I came up with to chew upon. I’m sure I could condense them better, but I had to get to bed last night:

1) Every night when we go to bed, to sleep, we are letting go – giving up control. It’s only for a few hours – but it’s a letting go. We might not wake up. Do bears or animals who hibernate hesitate before they lay down for a long winter’s nap?

2) Every time we go to someone else’s house for a party or a picnic, it’s an opportunity to have a good time – but it’s an opportunity to be aware of others. If it’s a week night, some people have to get to work the next day. Life gives us lots of opportunities to think of others – have balance – not be a party pooper – but to be sensitive to others.

3) Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

4) At some point we are going to die – and that’s the big leaving. Death is a tough one. How are we doing in our ponderings about that reality? In the meanwhile, there is the challenge to stay healthy, exercise, and live life to the full.

5) “Leaving on a jet plane ….” Every time we take a trip – wave good bye – head elsewhere for a while can add to the spice and mystery of life. Leaving, moving on, can provide new opportunities – new growth – learnings about where we have come from, what was valuable back then, but we didn’t realize it till we left.

6) Waiting for others to return home from a vacation, Iraq, Afghanistan, college, a business trip, the winter in Florida, provides opportunities for new conversations, new stories, or what have you.

7) Partings give poets opportunity to write poems and songs about the tough feelings and sometimes wonderful feelings involved in this reality of moving on and leaving. Who in the English speaking world is not familiar with Shakespeare’s words in Romeo and Juliet,

“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

And those who read Emily Dickinson’s poems from time to time know the ending to poem No. 1732 – so let me end this homily with her words and finally leave this pulpit:

"Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell."

This was a homily for May 18, 2010 - the 7th Tuesday after Easter. It's basically a first draft sermon - but someone asked for a copy - so I'm putting it on my blog.

SELF MADE HOUSE

Quote for the Day - May 18, 2010


"An architect, who had worked for a large company for many years was called in one day by the board of directors. They gave him plans for a fine house to be built in the best part of town. The chairman instructed him, 'Spare no expense. Use the finest materials and the best builders.'

"As the house began to go up, the architect began to think, 'Why am I using such expensive workers? Why are we using such expensive materials?'

"So he began to use poor materials and to hire poor quality workmen, and he put the difference in the cost into his own pocket.

"When the house was completed, it looked very fine on the outside, but underneath it all, there would certainly be problems.

"Shortly after it was finished, the board of directors held another meeting to which the architect was called. The chairman made a speech, thanking the architect for his long service to the company, and as a reward they were giving as a present: the house."



Anonymous - an old story with lots of variations and lots of food for thought.

BREATHE!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 7th Monday after Easter is, “Breathe!”

One of the 3 key images of the Holy Spirit is breath.

The other 2 are fire and the dove.

Suggestion for this week before the feast of Pentecost: become very aware of your breath.

Some people, as we hear in today’s first reading, could say, “We have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

Come Holy Spirit!
Come Holy Spirit to all peoples.
Come Holy Spirit – be to us as close as our breath.

BREATHING PRACTICES – DURING PRAYER WORKSHOPS

If you have ever taken a workshop on prayer, you might have experienced people saying, “Breathe!”

The several that I have taken said, “Practice breathing. Be aware of your breathing!”

You will have people have you stand up and stretch – and then at some point to have you sit down. They will ask you to be aware of your body – your butt on the chair – your back into the back of the chair – your feet on the floor – your hands on our lap or at your side.

Too many times we start praying too soon – too fast.

So prayer teachers will suggest coming into church or into your prayer space and stretch and be conscious of that as well as your body in a chair and then they will then suggest becoming aware of your breathing.

Some teachers will say plants give off oxygen – without which we would not be alive.

They will then tell you that our bodies breath in oxygen – O2 – otherwise we will not be alive.

Then if I have this right, the body changes that oxygen that we bring into our lungs and it becomes energy and fuel for our body through our blood system and then it becomes carbon dioxide – CO2 – and that goes back to our lungs and we breathe that out – and then that carbon dioxide goes back into the plants to nourish them and on and on and on.

You will be told to let go of that information and just be conscious of your breathing. Just “Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.”

ONE OF THE GREAT SCENES IN THE BIBLE

One of the great scenes in the Bible about breathing takes place in the Book of Genesis – when God creates, sculpts, the first human, Adam, meaning, clay, earth, and then God breathes life, the Spirit of Life, into that first person.

We grasp that because we know the difference between a statue and a human being – a doll and a person. We know the scene of the birth of a baby – when the delivery room people get that baby breathing.

We have stood at the bedside of a person dying – seeing their shortness of breath – wondering if they are still alive. We know when we are out of breath. We know when stairs and hills are tough – and we have to do some more exercising.

We might have seen scenes in movies or on beaches when someone drowns – and someone is giving that person artificial respiration.

So the writer of that story in Genesis has God breathing life – breath – into his creation.

PRAYER

And so a good way to pray is to just breathe in and out – breathing in the breath of God and breathing out the opposite of God.

A good way to pray is to deep breathe.

A good way to pray is to say, “Come Holy Spirit.” and breathe in the breath of life.

A good way to pray is to realize while we’re breathing in we are in communion with all people and all creation – trees, water, wind – which is all in union with each other. We’re all connected. We’re all in union with each other.

These chemicals are being recycled – along with water – and what’s in us was in others – and in plants and trees and we’re all in this together. Interesting.

And we know when we walk into a room – our spirit – our attitude – our mood – effects the mood and atmosphere of the room. Happy faces, sad faces, impact our face. So hopefully we rise from prayer and bring joy to the world.
Come Holy Spirit…..

CONCLUSION

Take the time this week – this time of preparation for Pentecost – to be aware of your breathing – and this amazing process called life – and its net, its interchange, and its interconnection. Be aware of the Holy Spirit in us and about us – and in all people. Amen.

Come Holy Spirit.







This is a weekday homily. Someone asked that I put it on my blog.

ON BEING SPECIAL:
ON BEING ONESELF

Quote for the Day - May 17, 2010

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone."


Remark by Coco [Gabrielle] Chanel [1883-1970]

Photo on left 1920; photo on right date unknown.

GRAVITY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Gravity.”

Interesting: that’s the reality that hit me as I began to reflect upon ascension – just the opposite of gravity.

Interesting: I also found myself taking a poetic approach to this theme of Ascension.

Well, as you might have noticed, today’s readings are rather poetic.

And here in the Northern Hemisphere this feast of the Ascension takes place when all is springing, greening, flowering, outward and upward. In Spring the earth is very poetic.

Gravity….

What goes up, must come down. Is that always true? Does the Law of Gravity always work – here on Planet Earth?

THE FEAST OF THE ASCENSION

I’ve read a couple of times that the theology of Ascension – the feast we’re celebrating today – the Ascension of Christ into heaven from earth – from hanging around here with his disciples in some mysterious ways – and then moving back or forward into the hereafter – has a lot more study and development to go through. And that’s a reality in the history of Christianity and theology. It takes centuries – prayer and reflection – development – nuancing – rereading the Scriptures – rereading the writings of the Fathers of the Church – and those who came after them – so as to understand bit by bit these illusive mysteries in God – the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And talking about mystery, there is the great mystery that the Son – the Second Person in this Trinity – is also human besides being Divine. We grasp the human; hopefully we ascend to the Divine.

Gravity – to ponder from time to time the heavy reality of God – and to ascend – to rise – to get up – to stand up after that pondering – that kneeling or sitting down – that kind of praying – with newness of life – with lightness of spirit.

And I’m assuming that’s one hope of this feast – that we leave church today – with bounce and leap of Spirit – but not completely up in the air – that’s unrealistic – but down to earth – but with a renewed mission, plan, hope, to make this a better world because of our presence and life in it.

I think that’s a possible flow of prayer and thought from today’s readings: looking up – then getting back down to business. Isn’t that what Luke is saying in today’s first reading from Acts and today’s Gospel – that life has it’s ups and downs – mountains and valleys – as well as the plains – the flat dull of life at times – and then to get a bounce and a lift – because if we flat line it, we can be dead before we’re dead?

THE BOOK OF GENESIS

We don’t use The Book of Genesis for this feast, but I think it’s important background for this feast. The Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, has God coming down to earth. Genesis begins with earth – God getting down to earth and creating and forming and sculpting us up out of the dirt and mud of earth – and breathing “ruach,” the Hebrew word for Spirit into us – that we too might experience life – togetherness – twoness, threeness, Trinity – family – community – being a person – having intelligence – imagination – creativity – play – laughter – joy – future – possibilities – forgiveness – gracefulness – foreverness – eternity – the whole mystery and gamut of being a person.

The Book of Genesis says we are created in the image and likeness of God. God does not want to be alone – so God created us.

We don’t want to be alone and so we work and hope for relationships with others – marriage, friendships, neighbors – and hopefully a relationship with God.

The Book of Genesis says God loved to be with his creations – Adam and Eve – Hebrew words for the first male and female – and to walk and talk with them in the cool of the evening in the Garden God created.

Genesis paints with words the deepest dreams of human beings – the desire for paradise – everything going right – so we too can say what God says, “And it is good!”

But Genesis also paints with words the deepest nightmares of human beings – brother killing brother – eating forbidden fruit – being thrown out of paradise – a flood that destroys everything – as well as discovering, “And all went wrong!”

To me the two heaviest, gravest, toughest texts in the whole Bible are: Genesis 6: 6 and Matthew 26:24b.

Genesis 6:6 “And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

Matthew 26: 24b – about Judas – “It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

When parents feel that – or say that – that’s grave. That’s deadly.

And underneath all this is the gift of freedom. We humans are given the gift and power of being able to make free choices.

And give people freedom and they can make gardens or junkyards. They can liter or make lovely. They can choose to destroy – rather than to rise, to ascend, to higher aspirations.

So the gift of freedom – choice – comes with the possibility of great joy as well as great grief.

These are central realities to what makes human beings human – that we can climb, keep evolving, ascending to the Trinity.

I love the first book of the Bible – because it spells out in poetry – what I see happening every day – with us males and females.

God wants to walk and talk and be with us in this garden called Earth – and God cries when we destroy it – and each other.

Genesis – that first book of the Bible – says all these things.

God wants us to rise – to ascend higher and higher and higher.

Evolution – rising from earth – to see humans choosing life – choosing to rise - to stand on our own two feet – these steps humans can make, the human dance, gives God great delight.

Devolution – falling on our face – making a mess of our life – gives God great sadness.

It’s the same with parents – seeing their children star on stage or field or in academics – or just in being neat kids – gives moms and dads great delight. And the opposite gives them great fright.

And when we fail, lucky for us – God doesn’t give up.

We can read the Jewish scriptures or the Parables of Jesus and read how God sent prophet after prophet to challenge us to rise – to ascend – to do our best – and too often we kill prophets – especially the Son sent by the Father with the hope: “Surely they will listen to my Son.” [Cf. Mark 12:1-11]

CHRIST
Christ – Christianity – proclaims there is more – there is this call for ascension – here and hereafter.

Christ was degraded, beaten, abused, made to carry his cross to his place of death – and thrown down on the ground and nailed to a cross and then raised up against a dark sky – and cursed some more and then dies and is buried.

Christ was one of us – experiencing the ups and downs of life – in dramatic messy scenes.

Christ is also one of God – experiencing resurrection and ascension after death.

THE ASCENSION

The Ascension celebrates hope – gives us hope – that we – even if we fall, we can rise and ascend to the Father – who created us for forever.

The Ascension is spelt out in today’s Gospel – Jesus is going home to the Father.

The Ascension for us is spelt out in today’s first reading: okay Christ has gone. Now let’s get back down the hill and get back down to work.

Gravity. Go down that hill and do the stuff that I have done.

Love one another as I have loved you.

I understand love as "love in spite of". Love in spite of – in spite of the crush and crumble of stuff and situations, body, spirit – broken lives – broken families at times – sickness – loss of job – is the way to ascend.

Don’t you love it when you see a couple 46 years married and it’s obvious to everyone, these two love each other in spite of the wrinkles and the love handles – and that they have heard each other’s stories a thousand times – and they still laugh and smile at the right time.

Love in spite of gravity – aging – sagging – bending – stooping over – aches and pains - cancer in the prostate or breast – is the way to ascend. While aging, while gravity is winning, while the grave starts to come into sight or focus, this couple or this person knows there is ascension from the grave because of Christ.

CONCLUSION

So this feast of the ascension is an Easter feast, a resurrection feast, that yes we die – but as Christians we hope in the hereafter – in the next life.

I know you’re not supposed to do it ecologically and for a few other reasons, but I still love it when families release balloons on the anniversary of the death of a loved one and everyone stands there looking up at the sky.

I loved it when I went to my brother-in-law’s sister Marge’s funeral and one of her daughters released a whole strip of live butterflies.

I loved it at another funeral when they released a half-dozen white birds – who flew off into the sky and all watched them as they ascended and disappeared.

And then everyone turned and went back to living everyday life. Amen.

PUT DOWN 

Quote of the Day - May 16,  2010


"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."


Eleanor Roosevelt [1884-1962] in Catholic Digest, August 1960, p. 102

HAVING THE GRACE
TO LIFT UP YOUR FACE

Quote for the Day - May 15, 2010


"The time
cracks into furious flower. Lifts its face
all unashamed. And sways in wicked grace."

Gwendolyn Brooks [1917- ] In The Mecca [1968], The Second Sermon on the Warplane, stanza 4

OBLITERATED

Quote for the Day - May 14, 2010

"Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky."

Anais Nin [1903-1977], The Diary of Anais Nin, volume III, January 1944

EITHER OFF OR ON?

Quote for the Day - May 13,  2010


"There are going to be times when we can't wait for somebody. Now, you're either on the bus or off the bus. If you're on the bus, and you get left behind, then you'll find it again. If you're off the bus in the first place - then it won't make a damn."


Ken Kesey [September 17, 1935 --- November 10, 2001], Quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test [1968], chapter 6


Painting on top: "The Green Car" by the American artist Wiliam Glackens [1870-1938], Oil on canvas, 1910.

BETTER KNOW BASEBALL

Quote for the Day  May 12, 2010

"Whoever wants to know the heart of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams."

Jacques Barzun [1907- ] God's Country and Mine [1954]

NEEDS

Quote for the Day - May 11, 2010


"From birth to eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash."


Sophie Tucker [c. 1884-1966] Said at sixty-nine. She is also said to have said, "I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better."

Didn't Woody Allen say basically the same thing?

RESURRECTION

Quote for the Day - May 10, 2010

"Spring bursts today, for Christ is risen and all the earth's at play."

Christina Georgina Rossetti

SHE WAS GREAT

[Yesterday at lunch – 4 or 5 of us were sitting there – and someone said, “I don’t see any connection between tomorrow’s readings and Mother’s Day.” Someone else said, “You’re right. You have to preach on one or the other.” Someone else said, “You better say something about Mother’s Day or else?” Afterwards I was thinking to myself, “Maybe write a story – about a mother!” Then it hit me to just sit down at the computer and start imagining. So that’s what I did and that’s how I came up with this reflection. I don’t know what this actually is – other than a sort of poetic reflection about the gift and mystery of life. From past experience, some of you who don’t get poetry, won’t get this – but as my mom always used to say, “You did your best” So once more the title of my reflection is, “She Was Great.”]

I never met her – obviously – because this is the 21st century and she lived in the 13th century. I never knew her – obviously – because our family can only trace back its roots till the 1830’s or 1840’s – to a man named Edward the Carpenter. I have no clue to what this woman back in the 13th century looked like – sounded like – whether she had a long life or a short life – but obviously I do know she existed, and she had at least one child, because I exist.

I exist, therefore I know she existed.

Now that’s one of life’s most simple syllogisms – one of life’s great truths. Cause and effect! Sex and consequence: a baby.

Life! Praise God.

I always love to quote Groucho Marx’s words, “If your parents didn’t have any children, chances are, you won’t either.”

Existence – being alive – being here and now – like every blade of grass – like every flower in Mary’s Garden on the other side of these stained glass windows and plaster and red brick wall – exist – flower, flourish, grow – because of a cause greater than itself – a gardener, a planter, a pruner, a planner, water, sun, seed, fertilizer, earth, oxygen, birds and bees, the second collection …. and God the Creator of all this that surrounds us – all this that is around us.

So pinch yourself if you have a pulse, while you’re sitting here today – and thank your mother and grandmother – and all those in your line for the gift of life.

I am here – but I’m aware that I wouldn’t be here except for others – mother – father – grandmothers, grandfathers – love – God.

So too you. So too my great, great, great, great great – I don’t know how to calculate and label what number of great it is, for that woman, that mother, sometime back in the 13th century ….

I pinch myself because of her.

Without her I wouldn’t be here today.

I could do this same reflection on some other woman in my chain of mothers – who became a mother back in the 9th century – or 4th century – but this morning I’m thinking about this unknown woman in the 13th century – whoever she was.

Who was her husband? Did she have any other children? Did she love to dance like my mother? Did she have a smile and a love for walking like my father? Did she come from the same area of Ireland that my mother came from or did she migrate from somewhere else? I don’t know.

God, there is so much I don’t know – but I do know that one thing about her – this nameless woman – that she gave birth to a child, who gave birth to a child, who gave birth to a child, who gave birth to a child, who gave birth to a child, all the way down to me.

I think of these things when I see college kids on television who set up rows and rows and rows of dominoes – and then they knock over that first domino that hits another domino and we then see the so called “domino effect”. I think of these things when I see a pregnant woman. I think of these things when I see a grandmother at a baptism of her new born grandchild. I think of these things on Mother’s Day.

A lot of love and a lot of luck – a lot of mystery and a lot of happenchance – had to happen to get me and each of us into the specific skin we live in and the church and bench we are sitting in today – to get us to this moment of our life.

Thank you God. Thank you mysterious woman.

And I wonder: did she think about her grandmother – and back as far as she could think and how her story got to where her story got to in the 13th century? Did she think ahead to those who would come after her?

Life – a chain – like the beads on a rosary – with lots of mysteries – broken at times – but when repaired, it can continue and continue and continue and continue – even without batteries – just with life.

I think about this on Mother’s Day – and a pinch of sadness slips into my musings – that I became a priest – and my line – in a way stops with me – just like my sister Peggy who is a nun. Neither of us have children obviously.

But I am grateful – very grateful for my other sister having 4 children – two boys and two girls – and those two girls have 4 sons and a daughter – and my brother’s wife gave birth to 7 daughters and so my 9 nieces got me to know husbands and lots of grandnieces and grandnephews who will keep our line going – hopefully to the 23rd century and on and on and on.

Will someone on Mother’s Day in 3010 wonder about where they came from and how they got to that moment – and be grateful for people way back in the 20th and 21st centuries – and before that?

Life – “Ah sweet mystery of life….” – as the old song goes.

Pinch yourself if you’re a mom or a dad – and you brought new life into this world.

Read Shakespeare’s Second Sonnet every once and a while – that is, if you are a mother or a father – because it’s a powerful poetic reflection – much more literary than this poetic reflection – on one of life’s most amazing realities: being a mother or a father.

The poet – is standing there at the age of forty and he’s feeling older – at 40 – well it was way back when – when people died younger – and he says, “When forty winters besiege your brow – when you look in the mirror and see all those wrinkles in your face– when there are deep trenches in thy beauty’s field – when your youth and its pride is tattered and falling apart – when your eyes are sunken – when your lusty days are less – when you look at your life and have to make a shameful confession of greed and self-obsession – that you could have done better with your talents and your life – when at that moment you ask, “what have I done? – what stands for me?” – see your child and say:

“This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count
and make my old excuse,'
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.”

Wonderful!

Hopefully those with children are thankful for their children.

Hopefully those who have children have wonderful children.

Yet I wonder: no wonder parents of older kids hope parents of younger kids really enjoy their kids when they are small – and so innocent – before they disappoint or break hearts. Is this why grandparents love to be with their little grand kids?

And what about those of us without kids?

I rationalize and realize that every act of kindness can be mother to another act of kindness – that a baby smiles – because a mom and a dad – grandparents – siblings – a woman in the supermarket – smiled and the child mimicked that smile – something that people have been doing since the 13th century – since the 1st century – since the beginning of time?

Love begets love. I know that Jesus who didn’t have children told us to love one another – and that love begets more love – and more love begets more love – in our homes, in our workplaces, in the park – giving another parent a chance to put her kid on the swing – or letting others out into traffic or out of parking lots – ahead of us – and on and on and on.

Peace begets peace.

What happened to Cain and Abel? How come Cain killed his brother Abel? How come there have been wars and so much destruction – and so many people are killed before they had a chance to become parents?

Life – it can be as fragile as a spider web anchored on the passenger side of a car to a side mirror and the other end of the web to a garage shelf – a web spun out in the night – only to be destroyed and disappear without the driver knowing it as she or he pulls out of their garage in the morning to get to work.

Life – it goes on – like people in all those cars on Route 50 and 97 – as well as the Bay Bridge – people heading somewhere – with stuff in their trunks and glove compartments – with stuff on their back seat – with stuff in their minds – with stuff in their stories – experiences of love and hate, patience and impatience, hopes and giving up.

Life – today we celebrate our moms and all the moms who have gone before us – back to the 13th century – back to the beginning of time – all those who got us into this great chain of life and existence that we are part of.

In today’s gospel Jesus says he and his Father and the Spirit can dwell within us.

On Mother’s Day we can also say our moms and all the moms who have gone before us – also dwell within us – otherwise there would be no me called me.

Life – amazing stuff – pinch yourself and thank God for your mom and your grandmom - and all those who got you to this day. Amen.

MOTHER'S DAY

Quote for Mother's Day - May 9, 2010


"My child looked at me and I looked back at him in the delivery room, and I realized that out of a sea of infinite possibilities it had come down to this: a specific person, born on the hottest day of the year, conceived on a Christmas Eve, made by his father and me miraculously from scratch."


Anna Quindlen, New York Times, Mary 13, 1986

GOD - EVERYWHERE

Quote of the Day - May 8,  2010


"I didn't know what she was saying when she moved her lips in a Baptist church or a Catholic cathedral or, less often, in a synagogue, but it was obvious that God could be found anywhere."


Lillian Hellman, An Unfinished Woman, 1969

THE SACRED

Quote of the Day - May 7, 2010


"'One sacred memory from childhood is perhaps the best education,' said Feodor Dosteoevski. I believe that, and I hope that many Earthling children will respond to the first human footprint on the moon as a sacred thing. We need sacred things."


Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons, 1974

STORIES:
TELL ME YOUR STORY

Quote for the Day  - May 6, 2010


"All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by ... religion, whatever else it has done, had provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need."


Harvey Cox, The Seduction of the Spirit, 1973

DEFINITION OF RELIGION

Quote for the Day -  May 5, 2010


"If I were personally to define religion I would say that is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance."


Attributed to Theodore Dreiser [1871-1945]

BEING IN
THE KINGDOM OF GOD

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 5th Tuesday after Easter is, “Being in the Kingdom of God.”

I was debating whether to use the words "being in" or "entering into" the Kingdom of God.

Whenever I do a baptism, there is a space in the ceremony where the priest or deacon reads a Gospel text. In the book there are 12 options at least, but I always pick the same gospel every time: Mark 10: 13 -16. It’s the scene where Jesus becomes indignant with his disciples for trying to push people away who have brought their children to Jesus to have him touch them.

I picked that text originally because we were taught it was an early baptismal text that establishes that the early church baptized babies. After using it about 10 times, I began to realize the great message in the text when Jesus says, “Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

I like to say to parents and those at a baptism that a child gets us out of ourselves and into the mysterious world of childhood again. A baby cries in the night and a husband says to his wife, “I’ll take care of the baby. You’re tired after a long, long day being a mother.” Selfish self- centered people can change when they have to change babies and schedules and their whole life – to raise a child – to be family.

I like to say to parents and those at a baptism that a child gives us glimpses of the mysterious world of imagination – that "Kids say the Darndest Things" – as Art Linkletter used to put it – that if someone takes the time to hear a kid explain his or her crayoned drawing – the adult goes, “Wow!” And a great smile comes on one’s face. Sometimes parents and grandparents need an audience to describe what their kid or grandkid said or did.

It could lead us to have God show us what God makes – spiders and squirrels and skunks and shrimp – trees and stars – a drop of sweat or a pinch of salt. And we go “Wow!” to God’s masterpieces.

When we get out of our state and into a child’s state – we can get into God’s state. We can leave the kingdom of me and entered the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of we.

SUFFERINGS

Well, last night when I read today’s first reading I began thinking about all this. Paul and Barnabas are giving us another way to enter into the kingdom of God – besides learning from children. It’s suffering.

Paul and Barnabas, as our text for today puts it, say, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.”

Ba Boom! There’s a second threshold and entrance into the Kingdom of God: suffering.
I prefer the being a child – but Paul and Barnabas are talking to us.

It’s the way of the cross. It’s the seed dying, otherwise it’s just a seed, but if it’s buried, planted in the earth and dissolves to self, then surprise new life rises through the soil.

It triggered the memory of the old saying, “Suffering enters the human heart to create there places that never existed before.”

It triggered for me what I hear the Liberation Theologians of South America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and much of Asia, say for years now: with the poor we can discover the riches of God. Discover them. Be with them. Don’t put them down. If the term “liberation theology” is one of your buttons, then check out Mother Teresa. She was saying all this but even louder. The poor can be our best teachers – and bring us to Jesus. And more, it’s what Jesus is saying over and over again – when he talks about the Kingdom of God – those who were getting it – and those who weren’t – those who have fit through the eye of the needle – and discovered the riches of the kingdom.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Being in the Kingdom of God.” I talked about two keys to the Kingdom: being a child and suffering.

RELIGION

Quote of the Day - May 4,  2010


"Religion to me has always been the wound not the bandage."


Dennis Potter (1935-1994)

THE TIMES 
THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

Quote of the Day - May 3, 2010 - A song ....


THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin
’Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’


Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Picture: Bob Dylan singing with Joan Baez during the Civil Rights "March on Washington" August 28, 1963 - photo found on a Bob Dylan site.

Song Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music

Now compare Bob Dylan's song with yesterday's second reading from the Book of Revelation 21: 1-5a - which I place below.


SECOND READING – REVELATION 21: 1-5A

Then I, John, saw a new heaven and a new earth.
The former heaven and the former earth had passed away,
and the sea was no more.

I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.
He will dwell with them and they will be his people
and God himself will always be with them as their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes,
and there shall be no more death
or mourning, wailing or pain,
for the old order has passed away.”

The One who sat on the throne said,
“Behold, I make all things new.”