The title of my reflection for today is, “Rock: A
Meditation on Rock.”
Since today’s two readings give rock a prominent place -
as I was preparing some thoughts forthis morning - I said, “Why not put together a short meditation on
rock?”
READINGS
The first reading – Isaiah 26: 1-6 - describes the Lord
as an eternal rock.
Isaiah says that after saying, “Trust in the Lord
forever.”
Okay, I get that.Isaiah throws in a curve - the opposite.Beware of being too lofty and overbearing like a mountain. You might be
humbled as you tumble down to the ground.Remember dust is disintegrated rock. Think about it: you might end up as road - trampled underfoot
by the needy - stepped on by the
footsteps of the poor.
Hear that comment: “… the footsteps of the poor.” That’s 5 words thatI need to do some thinking about - but not now. Today I’m meditating on
rock.
And today’s gospel – Matthew 7: 21-27 - has Jesus saying
to build your house on rock - not on sand - so that- when the wind and storms of life - hit your
house - you will stand - because you’re built on rock.
TODAY - PICK UP A ROCK AND MEDITATE ON IT
Walk around your
house and find a stone.
I mean inside your house.You could do this outside, but for starters, try inside your house.
Surprise you spot a small stone on a book shelf.You ask, “What’s with this stone? What’s the story about this stone?
It could be a rock from a vacation - or a rock with
writing on it - given to you as a gift or a souvenir.
Think of Simon and Garfunkel’s song, “I Am a Rock …. I am
an Island.”
Yeah, sometimes people are too cold, too alone, too
unfeeling. In those experiences being a rock is negative.Then there are people who are our rocks - our
strength - like the Lord in today’s first reading.
I’ve been to Gibraltar.If you ever are on a Mediterranean Cruise and Gibraltar is an option -
go for it - outside or in.On the
outside, beware of the monkeys – they grab cameras, pocketbooks, packs and food.On the inside see if you can get down into at
least the middle level cave.
It represents security - hence Gibraltar being a symbol
for an insurance company.
Contrast rock with opposite objects - like paper and
scissors - in that wonderful game: “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”
Think of all the people who have had stones, gossip,
words, thrown at them.
Words – hard words – hard sounding air – can hurt.
Picture the lady in the gospel – John 8: 1-11 – who was
caught in adultery.
Did she hear the words, “Adulterer!Sinner!” “This woman was caught in the very
act of adultery!” for the rest of her life in that village?
Or did she stay with Jesus words, “Let him without sin
cast the first stone”? Or “I don’t condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Or the story about words that are like bloody rocks are
in the gospel story of the guy in the cemetery who was bashing himself with
stones. Did he spend his life hitting himself for mistakes or regrets from
years past all his life? {[Cf. Mark 5: 5.]
CONCLUSION
So that’s a few ideas to trigger a few ideas inside your head.
That’s what a preacher tries to do.
Let me close with the old joke we used to tell as kids: “Was
Goliath, the giant in the bible, surprised when David hit him in the head and
killed him with a stone?”
Answer: “Yes! Such a thing had never entered his head before.”
“The worst thing that can happen to a priest is that God gives him what he wants.”
Father John Monaghan,
page 126 in Monsignor
George A. Kelly’s book,
Inside My Father’s House,
Doubleday 1989
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO US
THAT WE KNOW THAT SOMEONE KNOWS WE EXIST AND EXISTED?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this First Wednesday in Advent
is a question, “How Important Is It to Us that We Know that Someone Knows We
Exist and Existed?”
I got that question not from today’s readings, but from
the Give Us This Day booklet that I
know you all have.
On page 56 for this December 4th, there is a
short biography of someone I never heard of before: Sister Anuarite Nengapeta - a Congolese nun and Martyr - dates
1939 to 1964.
Then a few pages later - also for today, December 4th,
they have a reflection on the Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria who were
part of the 19 Algerian martyrs - men and women - who were killed in the 1990’s.
MAGNIFICAT
AND GIVE US THIS DAY
I don’t know how many of this type of booklets there are
around the world - booklets that give the readings of the day - some prayers and
some reflections.
I’m familiar with the Magnificat
and this one, Give Us This Day.
Magnificat has
lots of beautiful religious art - maybe expensive paper - and features stuff
from ancient saints more than modern ones.
Give Us This Day
has more modern cartoonish type art - perhaps cheaper paper - and the lives of modern Christian heroes.
I used Magnificat
for years and now I’ve been using Give Us
This Day the last few years.I don’t
know if there is an article somewhere telling the history, the niche, the
audience for each of these two booklets.
For December 4th, Give Us This Day triggered the question that hit me last night as I
read the two descriptions of people like Sister Anuarite Nengapeta and the
Algerian Martyrs.
I found more on the internet about who these people were. That’s when
several questions hit me: “Who Knows I Exist?”;“How Important Is That to My Psyche and to Who and How I Am?”; and then
the title and question of my homily came: “How Important Is It to Us that we
Know Someone Knows We Exist and Existed?”
FOR STARTERS: GOD KNOWS I EXIST
That is a basic teaching in Christian spirituality?
But at times we wonder: “God Do You Know I Exist?”
Did Mother Teresa ask that question during the 50 years
she said she felt she was in the dark - and had doubts - most of the time?
Yet we wouldn’t be here in this chapel this morning if we
didn’t have the faith to believe God knows I exist.
At a red light the other day - while driving - I saw a squirrel dash across the street - and
not get hit by a car.At times I’ve said
to God as I see a bird or a squirrel or a tree, “I believe you are totally
aware of every bird, squirrel, tree, blade of grass, dead leaf on the street
under a car tire.”
HOW ABOUT OTHERS?
The question that hit me for this homily is, “How
Important Is It to Us that We Know that Someone Knows We Exist and Existed?”
All of us are from somewhere else.Will someone on the planet wonder how we are
doing today?Did those 19 people who
were murdered and martyred in Algeria get birthday cards?Did their friends and those they servedknow they existed?
Is the reason why some people leave religious life and
marriages because the other - the others
- don’t give us a moment’s attention and the hope is that someone else out
there will?
Can that need be measured, talked about, considered with
each other?
MR ROGERS
I just saw the movie, “A Beautiful Day in the
Neighborhood” - that featured Mr. Roger’s, who was on TV from 1968- 2001. He
helped kids see that they exist and feel their feelings and know that they are
important.
CONCLUSION
Today’s two readings feature crowds. We’re part of the
over 7.5 billion people on the planet.
I was with my brother’s family for Thanksgiving week and
I watched how everyone held, spent time with, touched a new born baby - the
only baby at a meal for 43 people.I was
looking forward since Joey was born 7 months ago - to see him and hold him. I
watched how everyone embraced him. I wondered what was it like when I first arrived. I wondered about
the other 42 people in the room. Did they still feel loved, noticed, embraced,
known, worried about - cared about?
Even if in time everyone in the room saw that we are like the people climbing the mountain for food
in today’s first reading from Isaiah 25: 6-10 or like the crowd in today’s gospel
from Matthew 15: 29-37 - that someof us
are lame, some of us are blind, some of us can’t really tell others about how
we feel and think - and yet we can touch Jesus - be in communion with him and
be lovable and known and loved.
Today see and know the people you see and don’t know.
In Edward Albee’s play, A Delicate Balance, mother says that we sleep “to let the demons out.”
Sunday, December 1, 2019
ADVENT: 4 MESSAGES
INTRODUCTION
Today - as we begin Advent 2019 - I would like to preach on
“Advent: 4 Messages.”
I would like to touch
on 4 points that come out of today’s readings.
I hope they are right
to the point as we begin the season of Advent.
1)
Wake up.
2)
Put off.
3)
Put on.
4) They
are a Beginnings that Becomes an Ongoing.
1) FIRST POINT:
WAKE UP
We all know what it means to hear a knock on our door and we
hear the words, “Wake up!”
We all know what it feels like to want to stay in bed, to
snuggle up under the covers, especially on a cold morning like this morning and
go back to sleep.
We all know what it means to give up, to say inwardly to
ourselves, “The hell with it. What’s the use? I’m hiding here or I’m getting
out of here and going home and going to go to bed.”
Well, Paul, uses that feeling, that reality, as a metaphor
for a basic teaching in today’s first
reading. He simply says to us: “Wake up!”
He says, “It’s time for you to wake up from your sleep!”
We tend to be like the people we heard about in the Book of
Genesis - in the time of Noah - that Jesus talks about in today’s gospel - they
are unaware that a flood is coming. They
are unaware that they are being robbed of a better life every day. [Cf. Matthew
24: 37-44.]
George Gurdjieff - the Armenian - Greek - mystic and
spiritual teacher often talked about most of the human race be sleeping. We are all
sleepwalkers. We are sleep takers.
He - said humans can keep developing- evolving - from Human
# 1 to Human # 7.
Saint Augustine was converted through this second reading
for today from St. Paul to the Romans
13: 11-14.
Augustine heard the words, “Take and read.” and he picked up
the letter to the Romans and read these words from Paul.
“It is now the hour for you to wake from sleep.”
I once had a job called, “Novice Master.”
Looking back now - years later - I realize my job was to
give wake up calls.
I’ve wondered from time to time novices whowere sleep walkers.
Some slept the whole year I had them.Looking back from a distance, I feel bad that
I didn’t challenge them enough.
Eventually most left. And I heard from time to time about
some who are still asleep.
So the first big message for advent is simply: “Wake up!”
SECOND MESSAGE:
PUT OFF
The second message for Advent is to put off.
We know what it means to put off clothes, put off pajamas or whatever.
Well Paul says, Wake up and put off deeds of darkness. Put
off darkness. Put off worrying about the desires of the flesh.
Put off lust, jealousy, quarreling, bickering.
Put it all off.
Let go.
Change.
It’s he purgative way - the Purgative Stage in spirituality.
Empty out.
THIRD MESSAGE: PUT
ON
The third point is to put on.
It’s the taking on a new way of doing life.
It’s the Illuminative Stage in spirituality.
It’s the climbing a new mountain as Isaiah tells us in
today’s first reading. [Confer Isaiah
3: 1-5]
It’s walking in new paths.
It’s taking on new instructions.
It’s turning in our swords into plowshares and spears into
pruning hooks.
It’s peacemaking-
not war making.
It’s putting on the Lord Jesus Christ and clothing ourselves
in light -clothing ourselves in the
Lord Jesus and making no provision for the desires of the flesh.
FOURTH POINT:
BEGINNINGS ARE TO BECOME ONGOINGS
Beginnings are easy. It’s the on goings that are tough.
Stick-to-it-tive-ness is sticky, tough stuff.
I don’t know about you, but I find it easy to begin a
project.
It’s the conclusions I find tough.
Coming up with a topic and then a title for a sermon is easy - compared to
coming up with a sermon - coming up with substance - meat - beef- and then an
ending.
We’ve all seen scenes of someone starting a letter or an
essay or a story and tossing page after page on the floor.
But to stick to the idea, the paper, the sermon, to the end,
to complete the project, now that’s work.
I have had a million and one ideas for sermons. I have less
than 10,000 sermons on my computer.
Advent is a time of new beginnings, fresh starts - but it’s
only one day - and today is the start of only one new Advent.
But the job is to continue ...
To keep it up..
To finish the task.
JOE DONDERS
In a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent, Joseph Donders
gives a good example about all this.
He went home to Holland. It was
Christmas time. He was at this big church. The church was packed for Christmas.
An old priest - at this parish said to Joe, “Isn’t it great. They still have
faith. Here they are at church.”
Off to the side was an old sacristan who said, “Yes, great, but four
weeks from now, the church will be empty again.”
Beginnings are easy.
And Joe Donders thought about that. He was right. The
sacristan was right. He remembered a time when a group of parish workers came
to him in Africa.
They said to him, “Hey, we have programs for those who are
to be baptized, those who are to make first confession, those who are to make
first communion, those who are to make confirmation, those who are to be
married, but what about something for those in the middle?”
“A group of both high-school seniors and a group of couples who had been married more than
twenty years found that both groups had a more romantic, passionate view of
love than couples who had been married less than five years.The researchers concluded that high-school
seniors had not given up their romantic view of love, and the older couples
were enjoying ‘boomerang passion’ as a result of their long-term investment in
tending their marriage.”
“I confess that sometimes I wish they weren’t
listening.I can tell you, as a
preacher, that I bear a terrible burden when people listen, really listen, from
the depths of their souls.”
November 27, 2019 - Thought for today: “In His will is our peace: it is the peace into which all
currents and streams empty themselves, for all eternity.”
