Since the Ascension of Christ is mentioned in today’s
gospel [John 20: 11-18], let me say
two things about the Ascensionthis
morning. So the title of my homily for this Tuesday within the octave of Easter
is, “The Ascension: Two Comments.”
FIRST COMMENT: THE ASCENSION - WHEN DID IT TAKE
PLACE?
Today’s gospel brings outthat Jesus says to Mary, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet
ascended to the Father.”
Some folks might even remember this scene and other
scenes about Mary and Jesus from the musical and the movie: Jesus Christ Superstar.
Then we read other post resurrection comments when Jesus
touches and holds his disciples. Remember when Jesus, the Risen One, asks
Thomas to put his hand into Jesus cuts and wounds [Cf. John 20:27.]
So I have heard some theologians wondering if Jesus
ascended to the Father right after the resurrection and then came back during
those 40 days after Easter - then he ascends to the Father again.
That’s my first thought - put out there in the form or a
wondering.
We can understand Jesus feeding people or walking the
roads of Galilee, but understanding what happens after death is quite tricky. Bread
and roads we have done; death not yet.
Does death and then resurrection put us into different
time and space realities than we are in
right now? The answer to that has to be “yes” but what it’s like, we have to
wait till our death to find out.
SECOND COMMENT: WILL THERE BE A MAJOR NEW THEOLOGY
IN THE FUTURE?
In the last century, there was a major change and
understanding of the resurrection, I heard some theologian say that just as in
our time the theology of the resurrection evolved - so too in the future a
whole new understanding of the Ascension will happen.
We Redemptorists would know that about Easter and the
Resurrection - because one of our priests, Father F. X. Durrell came out with
his church changing book, The Resurrection:
A Biblical Study, [1960].
When we were kids, Lent sort of ended on Holy Saturday
morning.Then the Liturgy shifted us
back to Holy Saturday evening and the Easter Vigil.
It was after that we saw and smelled the RCIA, the Easter
Vigil, Easter, the Resurrectionbeing as
important as it is - as Paul told us loud and clear in 1 Corinthians 15: 1-19 -that we wondered how we had slipped into the
mind set we were in for the longest time.
With that in mind and as an experience, is there a whole
new world of the theology and philosophy of the Ascension just sitting there.
Time will tell.
But I don’t know who the experts, the writers, the
scholars on the Ascension are, but let’s hope they will show up.
When - maybe this century?
We’re only 2000 years into Christianity….
Who knows what has to be developed more: Pentecost, the
Second Coming, as well as the Ascension.
April 3, 2018
Thought for today:
“The tragedy of life
is not death but in what dies inside a man while he lives - the death of
genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the death of the awareness that makes it possible to feel that pain or the glory of other men in oneself.”
Norman Cousins, in Saturday Review, October 2, 1954
Monday, April 2, 2018
DAVID’S TOMB:
KEEP
SEARCHING
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Monday in the Octave of
Easter is, “David’s Tomb: Keep Searching.”
This homily is about David’s tomb - from today’s first reading: [Acts of the
Apostles 14, 22-33]
If you have nothing to do and you like to look things up
on your computer, look up “David’s Tomb.”
I remember standing there in a small room in Jerusalem.
Our tour guide pointed to a dark blue cloth covered a sarcophagus or casket or
burial box, and said, “This is said to be the burial place of David.”
I immediately said to myself, “No way. You’re kidding.”
David’s dates are disputed - but it’s helpful to simply
say “David was from around 1000 years before Christ.”
This morning I read in today’s first reading, “My
brothers, one can confidently say to you about the patriarch David that he died
and was buried, and his tomb is in our midst to this day.”
That brought back the memory of being at that blue cloth
covered box in Jerusalem that I saw in January
of the year 2000.
So I looked up this morning in Google and a few other
spots on line, “David’s Tomb.”
Various places for his burial are mentioned- as well as doubts about the place I saw in
Jerusalem.
Keep digging.
DID YOU KNOW
Did you know that Grant’s tomb is empty?
But we know where our loved ones are buried. But not all.
Keep digging.
I’ve gone searching for one ofmy father’s sisters in a graveyard in
Portland, Maine. I had found the other two sisters.
I had been there once, but I couldn’t find it when I went
looking for it about 4 years ago.
Keep digging.
BURIED WITHIN
US
I like another idea about burials better: the ones inside
us.
Those we love are buried within us - in various ways.
Keep digging.
My sister Mary loves the book, It Didn’t Start with You.
Why we walk and talk the way wewalk andtalk - keep digging.
Our grandparent’s values and faith - are buried within
us.
This should make us hesitant - so keep digging and
talking to each other about what our moms and dads were like - and grandparents
as well.
I am trying and working on this with my sister the last
few years.We’re trying to resurrect why
we are the way we are - not just getting our DNA - but hopefully we have small
museums of old letters from way back, etc. etc. etc.
In the meanwhile, save your letters and write your
memoirs.
CONCLUSION
Christ has died. Christ has risen - Christ will come
again.
David has died - please God he’s risen with God.
Praise God and please God, we’ll find David in the
scriptures and glimpses about what he was like.
Praise Godand
please God, we’ll keep finding Christ buried within us and not just in the scriptures.
And hopefully when we visit the sick, turn the other
cheek, forgive 70 times 7 times and do another thousand things, we’ll dig and
realize we are discovering how Christ is buried and where he is buried and has
risen in us. Amen.
The title of my homily is, “It Finally Dawned on
Me.”
It dawned on me yesterday: Easter is like Christmas. It’s
a moment of light.
At Christmas Jesus comes out of the womb into the light
of the world - and slowly becomes the light of the world. At Easter Jesus comes out of the tomb as the
light of the world. The darkness of death did not put out the Light of the
world.
NOTICE THE
GOSPEL FOR THIS MORNING
Notice the gospel for this morning from John. It begins, “On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark,
and she saw the stone removed from the tomb.
Remember the 3 word sentence from Holy Thursday
evening. Judas leaves the Eucharist -
the Last Supper. He goes to get his
money - the 30 pieces of silver - for betraying Jesus. Then he wants to bring
to the garden those who want to have Jesus arrested and killed. The 3 words: “It was night.”
We all fall asleep.
We are all in the dark at times.
Not everyone wakes up at
the same time. Not everyone wakes
up the same way. We’re on vacation - at the beach. Some people get up early -
like 5:46 AM - to head for the beach so they can stand at the water’s edge and
see the sun rise. Some get up at 10:30 AM.
Bacon - bacon - bacon - the scent of bacon sneaks and
slides into their nostrils around 10:29 A.M.
For others - the scent of God sneaks into and slides into
our brain at 5:15 A.M. God dawns on us early on some mornings.
It’s Easter Sunday Morning.
GOD IS A
TRINITY
Not everyone knows this, but God is a Trinity, the
Trinity.
God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - are
3 Persons, 1 God.
Not everyone knows this…. Not every religion teaches
this. Not every Christian community proclaims
this the same way - as we Catholics do.
God is a Trinity - three persons.
It’s an amazing awareness - to know this. It’s a gift of
faith. It’s a teaching that some people pass onto other people - without
knowing that’s what they are doing. Did
your mom or dad bring you into a church - take your hand and put it in the Holy
Water - and then make the sign of the cross on you and say, “In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit? Amen.
God knows persons.
God knows people. God knows that
faith - light - dawns on people at different times. It all depends where we are and who we are.
God knows about people. God created us and gave us
freedom. God knows fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives,
free spirits and not so free spirits.
And God made us so free - as free as God is - well to a
degree - meaning that God doesn’t crush us if we don’t get this - or don’t accept
this - or grow with this - that is - till this finally dawns on us.
Hey, love and acceptance, awareness and connecting with
each other - would be nothing, would be horrible, would not have its joy and
it’s “pinchability” - if the other had to love us.
Think of a moment in our life when we felt and found out
that another likes us - another loves us.
They want to find time to be with us. Pinch me. I’m
recognized. I’m loved. I’m wanted to be with another. Woo… Woo…. Wow…. Wow.
So God is other and we are other and God wants us and
sometimes this dawns on us - that God knows us and wants to be in a
relationship with us.
Do we?
Hopefully, it dawns on us - that life is about mutual
love - love that is freely given - one to the other - not out of obligation -
but out of choice.
This is why I don’t like the term: “Sunday obligation” or
“Holy Day of Obligation”. I prefer,
“Holy Day of Opportunity” or “Sunday opportunity.”
This means we want to be on the dance floor with God.
We’re not dragged from our chair - but we get up. We take God’s hand saying, “Yeah - wow” to God. God wants this dance -
this moment with me.”
Life: Father and Son dancing - and the Spirit of love
between them dancing and hopefully, we want to join in this dance.
Amazing - amazing grace - amazing that God the creator of
this whole spinning - moving universe - is on the dance floor and wants to
dance with me - and all the people on this planet.
God is on the dance floor - dancing.
When does that dawn on us - that God is not alone - God
is there on the dance floor - spinning, and spinning, dancing and dancing, and is calling me and
all the people before and now, onto the dance floor called existence.
And so many people are just sitting there saying, “I
don’t dance!”
And the Lord of the dance - keeps dancing and laughing -
and switching hands with billions of people - hoping all of us will enter into
the dance.
God is Three - God is with billions - God is alive.
Oh, people might say they believe in God. People
might know with words that God is a
Trinity. People might even make the sign of the cross - especially when in
trouble, asking help or praising God “In
the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
But God is more than words - talk, talk, talk.
God is a relationship. God is forever calling us into this relationship in and
with God.
CHRISTIANITY
Christianity teaches that people were not getting this.
So God - in the fullness of time - went different.
God became one of us - so we can become one with God -
actually enter into the Trinity.
Has this dawned on us yet?
Jesus became one of us.
What happened next - is what many who have tried Marriage
dot.com - have discovered.
Sometimes the one we meet - is not the one we want.
People meet Jesus - but sometimes it’s a no go.
The gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the
Word; the Word was in God’s presence, and the Word was God.”
Then the Gospel of
John says, “And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.” [That’s
Christmas.]
Then the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus did life as
an us. That’s the life of Jesus - as part of the Trinity.
Then the Gospel of John tells us that people rejected him
- but to those who accepted him - he gave them the power to become children of
God.
The others killed him.
The gospel of John and the other gospels tell us that
Jesus rose from the dead. [That’s Easter]
And for the past 2000 years Jesus has dawned on people -
and they became his followers.
CLOSING MESSAGE
Last night all kinds of people all around the world came
into the dance, the community, called God, called Christian.
They just spent months and months - perhaps years and
years - preparing for that moment.
Christ dawns on people at different times as we heard in
today’s gospel.
I love the line in the gospel for today that the beloved
is the faster in the run to the tomb - and he’s the first to believe - but he
lets Peter go in first. Most think this is John - he saw and believed.
I like to add: the power of the pen.
When you write your life - write down the moments - when
Christ - the Risen Lord - dawned on you. Amen.
April 1, 2018 -- Easter
SHAKING HANDS
Nervous when you came into my upper room and said, "Peace!"
I was still scared. I was hesitant.
My hands twitched for a moment. Then I itched my left wrist with
the nails of my right hand. Then you reached out your hand to mine. At that I knew all was okay with us.
“What reason have
atheists for saying that we cannot rise again? Which is more difficult, to be born, or to rise again? That what has never been, should be, or that
what has been, should be again? Is it
more difficult to come into being than to return to it?”
Blaise Pascal, Pensees, 1690
Saturday, March 31, 2018
HOLY
SATURDAY:
THE SILENCE OF
SOME SATURDAYS
The title of my reflection for this morning is, “Holy
Saturday: The Silence of Some Saturdays.”
Saturdays are interesting days!
Some Saturdays we just want space, quiet, no
interruptions.
Maybe to fix something - to get a part for something that is broken.
Maybe to just relax, catch up, just be.
Or to break the day up: to do some shopping, some
visiting, some different stuff. Then there are long weekends - likethe Saturdays on Memorial Day or Labor Day or
Presidents day weekends.
Then there is a Saturday with a wedding - or an
anniversary.Sometimes we look forward
to those Saturdays; sometimes we don’t - depending on who’s getting married or
whose celebrating their 25th
or 50th anniversary. Feelings about time and money and others can be
terribly subjective.
Then a funeral happens - and often it’s on a Saturday.
TITLE
The title of my reflection is, “Holy Saturday: The
Silence of Some Saturdays.”
This day - Holy Saturday - sort of mugs or dulls us - sort of like after
a death in the family.
Funerals often make us more silent and more quiet - and
often they are inconvenient - like a
funeral on a Saturday morning.
We do the whole funeral thing - with various types of
emotions - and then people get moving back home - sometimes a good distance - and
we’re all sort of alone - with post funeral feelings.
A funeral can be high energy, high maintenance, and then
there’s the low after the high.
We met up with cousins, aunts, uncles, friends of our mom
or dad or close friends of the one who died.
Or deaths remind us of other deaths - or selfie thoughts
about our life.
If we were very close to the person who died - it’s then
we need some private time, silence, space, to pull together what we just went
through with a funeral of a close family member
This day, Holy Saturday, is just sitting there between
Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
And we Christians are reflecting on Jesus’ death.
The whole world of the apostles and the disciples had caved in.
Their Lord, their savior, their Messiah, has just been
arrested - put on trial and then railroaded to death on the cross on Calvary.
They weren’t ready for this - anymore than any of us are
with a family death - especially when it’s too sudden, too quick, too much of a
surprise.
The disciples had guilt - that they panicked and ran. The
apostles had to deal not only with the death of Jesus - but also the death of
Judas.
What about Mary? Yes. And yes about the other Mary and
the other women who were much better about being present with Jesus - under the
cross - than the apostles.
What about us?The
apostles still feared, “Are they going to come after us?”
They hid in the locked Upper Room as the scriptures tell
us.
Thank God for Joseph of Arimathea. He was a secret
follower of Jesus as well as a member of the council who condemned him to
death: the Sanhedrin. Luke and Mark and Matthew tells us he went to Pilate and
asked for the body of Jesus. Good move. He got Jesus’ body and put the dead
body of Jesus in a tomb that was never used.
So thank God for Joseph andJohn and the Holy Women - they are like soft background
music on Calvary and the next day Saturday till Easter Sunday morning.
We need the rest of Friday P.M. - after Jesus’ death - and
then all day Saturday to get us to Easter and Resurrection.
John and his gospel tells us that John was pondering all
this - in this mulling time called Holy Saturday.
We need pausing time. We need space after tragedy. We
need silence after the noise.
We need the brief words from Hosea which we heard in this
morning’s short reading: He will revive us after two days; on the third day he
will raise us up to live in his presence.
We need cryptic Old Testament prophetic words like that -
to get us through post funeral type days when we’re quiet - when we need to
make great acts of faith in Jesus - the Risen One - who can get us through the
pain and the quiet - of Holy Saturday type days. Amen.
March 31, 2018
Thought for today:
“Do not leave my hand without light.”
Marc Chagall [1887-1985], Interview
[1977].
March 31, 2018
BEST PIECE OF ADVICE
Some admiral in giving a commencement
address said, “The best piece of advice
I can give you is to make your bed every
morning.” I
laughed to myself when
I heard that - because I never make
my bed. Why would I want to do that? Then again - I better challenge myself: "What would be my best piece of advice?"
My best piece of advice would be this: “When you sign your signature, your name, to anything, write it clearly, carefully and exactly." Hey, who sees our bed? But others see our work and what we're willing to put our name to. It might make life easier for the other person who is trying to figure out, "Whose name is this?" Don’t laugh now, it could become a collector's item some day. You never know.
The title of my homily is, “Stations of the Cross On the
Walls of My Mind.”
It’s Good Friday. Besides this Good Friday Service - many
parishes and churches have the Stations of the Cross - today.We have 3 of them here at St. Mary’s:for the kids at 12; for parishioners at 1:30; and a Hispanic outdoors Stations of
the Cross at 5:30 P.M.
If we go inside most Catholic Churches around the world,
we see along the walls of each church, a set of 14 Stations of the Cross.
If we go inside Catholic Churches - we sometimes see
people making the Stations of the Cross - by themselves - especially during
Lent - and with others publically during Lent as well.
And a couple of years ago a lady told me she heard a
priest say from the pulpit, “Pick out just one station of the cross - sit under
it - and let that station of the cross sink into our being. Or pick out one
that says the most to you - and then meditate on, ‘Why?’”
She said she picked, “The fourth Station of the Cross.”
She continued, “It became my station.”
She added, “Whenever I came to church, I would sit under
that station - on the side aisle usually.That fourth station: ‘Jesus meets his sorrowful mother’ had particular
impact on me, especially because of my mother and how she was there for me when
my family fell apart because of my son’s alcoholism.”
ON THE WALLS OF
MY MIND
Once more, the title of my homily is, “Stations of the
Cross on the Walls of My Mind.”
If we step back in prayer and meditation and thought and
memory, all of us can come up with our own personal stations of the cross.
Suggestion: Get a blank piece of paper and draw 14
boxes.Now think about the Sorrowful
mysteries and moments of our life.I
don’t think we would have 14 - maybe 5.Then draw in a box with stick figures or if you definitely announce, “I
can’t draw” - use a few words for the title of a suffering spot or stop or
station or place or space - in your life.
It might be Anne Arundel Medical Center - where a loved
one died. Or a nursing home or hospice house or your house of a loved one’s
house.
Whenever I’m on the Gowanus Parkway in Brooklyn driving towards Long Island, when I go by the Long
Island University Hospital - I feel very deeply - that this hospital was the
place where my nephew Michael died at the age of 14- so very suddenly of cancer. I wasn’t there
when he died, but I heard that he said to tell his little sister, Maryna, who
wasn’t allowed to go up his room at that time of the evening, “My room is
overlooking the parking lot down below. I’ll turn all the lights on in my room
and get up on the window sill and wave to you down below.” They stood there in
the parking lot, looked up and saw him
waving. He died early the next morning - and the night before was the last time
everyone but his dad saw him.
I would also put Moses Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn
where my dad died. I’d also put 6th avenue and 59th
street in Brooklyn where my mom was hit in a hit and run accident - while
crossing the street - on her way to church and then to work.
So places of death are stations of the cross for many. So
too places where someone said something that devastated us. So too places of
divorce.Does everyone have a First
Station where we were condemned by someone else unjustly.
So too places where we fell - one, two, three, many
times.
So too places where we were stripped of our dignity.
So too jobs and situations where we were nailed to a
cross and we couldn’t escape.
These stations of the cross are sitting there hanging on
the walls of our memory.
As we look at the story of our life - triggered by places
or movies or songs - or conversations we see these personal stations, these
crosses hanging on the walls of our memories.
Warning: these can be too much.If might be better to do a few of them with
trusted - very trusted family members.
Suggestion: I’m talking here about sorrowful mysteries. Maybe
draw 5 or 14 boxes of glorious moments, glorious mysteries - or 5 or 14 moments
of light and insight in one’s life.
And obviously, don’t do all this at once.
Maybe if they can become rising, resurrection, recovery
moments, then the 50 Days after Easter
till Pentecost is a good season to do this or take years to do this slowly.
CONCLUSION: GOOD
FRIDAY
These are Good Friday reflections.
Today is a Good Friday to walk inside our story and see
the moments of our lives and see that Jesus walked the same steps we walked.
Today is a good day to hear one of two of the last screams of Jesus from the cross.
Hear those screams.Haven’t we said the same prayer, the same words, made the same scream
ofJesus in our life when we felt
abandoned by God, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me.”
How many times have we felt there was nothing left and
all we could say in our deepest darkness, “Father into your hands I handing
over me to you.”
If we do that, then we understand how a Bad Friday - a
bad moment in our life can become a Good Moment ora Good Friday.
