THE LORD BE WITH YOU.

AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT.

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 20th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “The Lord Be With You. And With Your Spirit.”

This coming November 27th, the First Sunday of Advent, one of the possible opening prayers at Mass is, “The Lord be with you. And with your spirit.” It will replace, “The Lord be with you. And also with you.”

We’ll discover together if this change and the other changes in our Mass will switch smoothly.

I don’t remember what it was like back in the 1960’s and 70’s when other changes took place.

We’ll see.

A SLIGHT DIFFERENCE

It’s interesting that today’s first reading has “The Lord is with you.”

That’s a one word, one verb, difference from “The Lord be with you.”

The old Latin was “Dominus vobiscum.” It has no verb. I assume it’s understood. So I assume it can be translated “be” or “is”.

And the altar boy and the parish responded, “Et cum spiritu tuo.”

So the change will mirror the Latin in this second phrase, the response, “Et cum spiritu tuo.” “And with your spirit.”

So someone just gave a teaching - an explanation - of one of the upcoming changes in the Liturgy of Mass. I’m sure some of us, the bulletin, Catholic papers and magazines, will be mentioning more and more tiny bits of info as we move towards next Advent.

I’m assuming we’ll learn by doing. People will have missalette in hand and priest will have missal in hand - till the changes become second nature.

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Let me take a moment to point out something about today’s first reading: Judges 6: 11-14 - the call to Gideon. It has the announcement: “The Lord is with you.”

When you heard today’s first reading, did it ring any association bells? This is something that the scriptures are often trying to do: trigger thoughts, memories, as well as other scripture stories and texts.

It rang loud and clear something I heard back in 1962 - when we studied today’s first reading for the first time. The professor had us read today’s first reading and then read the gospel of Luke 1:26-38. That's the annunciation scene. He asked, “Any comments!” We said, “Both are very similar.” He added, “Both are annunciation accounts.”

There are various, “Dominus vobiscum” scenes in the Bible. It’s a greeting. So it’s not just a “Hello”. It’s bringting the Lord be into the greeting. We still do this. When someone sneezes, many still say, “God bless you.” When someone is going in for an operation or they are taking a trip, some say, “May the Lord be with you!” or “I’ll keep you in my prayers.” Or “Please God you’ll have a safe trip!”

Lithuanian blessings, Irish blessings - Polish blessings - Italian blessings - are loaded with the “God” or “Lord” word. Praise God.

Then there is today’s annunciation scene  from the book of Judges. Just as in Mary’s annunciation scene, after the opening greeting comes questions, some fears, some wonderings, and then comes the blessed assurance. “The Lord will be with you.”

So we begin Mass and end Mass with the “Dominus Vobiscum”. It’s a Latin Blessing - but before that a Hebrew Blessing - underneath that, a human blessing - a prayer and a hope that we all realize we’re not here alone - and we won’t leave or go it alone today.

CONCLUSION

“The Lord be with you.”

I said that to see what you would answer.

After November 27 it will be a mix of “And also with you” and also “And with your spirit.”

Hopefully this sermon and these future changes will be much ado about something.

STOP YELLING! 

PREACH US 

GOOD NEWS!

Quote for Today - August 16, 2011

"A popular preacher once said of his pulpit efforts, 'I always roar when I have nothing to say.'"

Anonymous

ASSUMPTION

Babies are born with beautiful baby skin.
Little kids light up and run when they
spot a playground - every time.


Teenagers flirt and dance and yank
each other’s hair and back packs -
and love to laugh and give high 5’s.


Twenty to thirty nine year olders think the
whole wide world is theirs.


Forty to sixty year olders come down
to earth - their knees and backs and
schedules telling them: “There are limits.”


Sixty to seventy year olders start to stop
to look a lot deeper into the things one cannot
see or prove: God?; Meaning?; Is there
an answer to our “Why’s?” and our Cries?;
“Is this all there is?” or worded another way
as the big question: “Is there resurrection after this?”


Seventy to ninety year olders - if they
make it that far - go to more wakes
and funerals and doctors and find
themselves more and more sitting in the stands
of off to the side - some with rich smiles,
some with sad snarls or scars - or because
of hurts that never healed. Assumptions!


These are all assumptions. More or less….
Isn’t this the way it is for everyone?
Faith and hope are assumptions as well as
words - in the first half of life. In the second half
they are decisions. Walls? Doors? Christ!


Sometimes we find Jesus at the seashore
after a night of catching nothing. Sometimes
he’s just standing there and like a little kid
spotting a playground we can run to him.


And then there is Mary - Perpetual Help -
the One who is always on the edge of the wedding
or standing in the crowd or along the way
or under the cross - the Sorrowful Mother.


In life she, like Jesus, was aware of neighbor,
those who ran out of wine or bread.
Life: sometimes it's fullness, sometimes it's emptiness,
and sometimes it's in between ….


In death, Jesus and Mary are pictured for us
on walls of churches as well as in art museums,
two who became more and more aware of the Father
as they came home to His embrace.
At least that’s our assumption.
At least that’s the assumption called “faith”.


And so to sum some of this up: First things first….
We go from baby skin to wrinkles,
from dash and flash to sitting and pondering.


It seems we have to become aware of all
the other things first - before we become aware
of the great assumption: Resurrection - the
stepping not into the grave but into the
Eternal Dance - the full Wedding Feast -
dancing with each other - with Jesus and Mary
with Eternal Bread, Eternal Wine on our Holy Breath.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2011

ASSUMPTION OF MARY 

Quote for Today - Feast of the Assumption - August 15, 2011


"In very deed,
Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth,
Reintegrated are the heavens and earth;
From sky to sod,
The world's unfolded blossom smells of God."

Francis Thompson [1859-1907], An Ode after Easter.

Painting on Top: Assumption of Mary

WOOOF! WOOOF! WOOOF!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Wooof! Wooof! Woooof!”

I’m going to divide my homily into two parts.

PART ONE: THE POSSIBLE “WHY” OF TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel we have an intriguing scene where a strange woman confronts Jesus. She gets Jesus to change his plans. She gets him to think outside his territory - and heal her daughter - who is tormented by some kind of a demon.

At first glance, this is an, “Uh oh, oh no, Gospel!”

Jesus tells the lady, “I’m not here to help you. I’m only here for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

This sounds so foreign to Jesus. Isn’t he here to save - to heal - to help - everyone?

Next, Jesus uses the dog word. He says, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

Uh oh! Oh no!

This doesn’t sound like Jesus - implying that someone is a dog.

Speaking of sheep and dogs, this woman outfoxes Jesus. She says, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

The gospel doesn’t describe what Jesus’ face looks like at this great comeback. Matthew’s text only has Jesus saying, “O woman, great is your faith. Let it be done for you as you wish.” Then our gospel for this Sunday ends, “And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.”

Question: why in the world did Matthew include this story in his text - when it seems to make Jesus look so un-Jesus-like?

Scholars have various takes on why this text is included in the gospel. One comment could be, “It makes the gospel more real because many would delete this text from the Gospel. The fact that it’s here in Matthew and that it makes Jesus seem like sandpaper - rubbing someone the wrong way tells us this is real stuff.” This is put here to bark out a strong message.

Scholars also like to say that a gospel text tells us what’s going on in the community that the text comes out of. Translation: some scholars have the thesis that Matthew comes from a Jewish Christian community - some time between 75-90 AD - somewhere in southern Syria - maybe even Tyre and Sidon - or from Antioch - which is not that far from Tyre and Sidon - the locale of today’s gospel. [1] Was the text designed to challenge the Jewish Christian community in that place to welcome foreigners, strangers, people of Canaanite origin - and women - into the Christian community there? Is the text telling us about a struggle going on in one early Christian community - that didn’t want strangers - especially strange outsider women acting up in the local community?

This theme of welcoming outsiders is given even more weight, because of the choice of today’s other two readings. The second reading from Romans continues with Paul’s struggle between Jews and Gentiles. Today’s first reading - a text from Isaiah 56 - is dated around 515 BC - after the temple is rebuilt. It specifically stresses welcoming foreigners into the Jewish community. [2] The first reading ends, “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” [Isaiah 56:7]

Isn’t that the dream we all have? Isn’t that our song: “all are welcome, all are welcome, in this place?” Don’t we feel pride - or a sense that I’m in the right place - when we see at Sunday Mass - a great collection of different looking people? Look around this church right now! Aren’t we an interesting kennel of people? Wooof. Wooof. Wooof! If we all barked at the same time, wouldn’t we sound like a great orchestra of different barks in the dark night? Won’t the kids from this parish who are at World Youth Day or Week that starts tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday in Madrid, Spain, come back with a wider and deeper sense of what the word, “catholic” means. It’s “kata holos” in Greek. We are the whole catalogue of different looking people on this planet - well over a billion of us.

PART 2: DON’T JUST SIT THERE - BARK!

Part 2 is to look at the “why?” we all come to this place - to this church - each Sunday.

This woman in today’s gospel tells us that one reason we come here is because we want God to heal our children - to heal our demons - so we can walk out of this experience better than when we walked in here.

We come here to pray.

To be cute, I’ll add: “We come here to bark at God.”

Woof. Woof. Woof.

The barking dog gets the biscuit.

The hanging around dog spots the piece of meat or bread that falls to the floor.

I was wondering as I read today’s gospel if any priest around the world will spot the question that comes up from time to time in our church - about blocking communion for some people. A man sort of growled at me going out of Mass here at St. Mary’s one Sunday morning when I preached about the great gift of Eucharist. He was moving fast as people were saying, “Good-bye,” “Have a great weekend” I thought he used the word “hypocrite” concerning the issue that not all could go to communion. I didn’t really get a chance to see his face or who he was or what have you. I wanted to say something like, “It kills me at times as well.” Or, “Do you want to talk some time?” I didn’t know if he was Catholic or if he belonged to another communion or what have you.

I know the Catholic Church’s teaching and position and “Guidelines for the Reception of Communion”. It’s on the inside cover of our missalettes. It’s clear and it’s the present teaching. It tells all of us that receiving communion is a very sacred and serious reality for all of us. I know a few years ago we proposed that people who can’t go to communion come up for a blessing - and I think I read somewhere that is a “no no” in some places - so I’ll have to do my homework on that. But I still see people come up for communion and I’ve blessed lots of people - and lots of children who haven’t received their first communion yet - at that moment of communion.

I want to say that, but that’s not the heart of Part Two of this homily.

Part Two would be this: I would hope all of us would come to church with great faith - the faith that this woman in today’s gospel had - and that we come here to bark, bark, wooof, wooof, and ask Jesus to heal us of our demons.

We don’t have to go it alone in this life. We have our demons - our sins - our fatal flaws - our weaknesses - and it’s important to name them - and then scream out to Jesus here at Church - for help.

And if you know God, you know that He seems to be deaf and to ignore us. I say that because I’ve heard in the past 46 years of being a priest, lots of people saying that they have been praying for patience or purity or for humility or for an end to comparisons or jealousy or envy or for their kids and everything seems to remain the same. Nothing happens.

Bark louder - scream for some scraps of help from God’s banquet table.

Receive communion today and say, “Thank You, Lord, and now that I have you by the teeth, I need help.”

And in communion tell Jesus - tell Jesus the Son of God just what you want.

Be like this lady in today’s gospel. Be bold. Be tough. Get Jesus into your grasp and be clever enough to not let him go till he gives you a healing. Amen.

CONCLUSION

As a way of remembering this homily, that is, if you want to remember it - could you all bark, bark, or go, “Woof. Woof. Woof” right now.



NOTES

[1] “The Gospel According to Matthew,” by Benedict T. Viviano, O.P., page 631, in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1990.


[2] “Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah, by Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P. page 344 in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 1990.

PRESENT  OR  ABSENT?

Quote for Today - August 14,  2011

"William James, [the Harvard philosopher and psychologist], was walking along a Cambridge, Massachusetts, street accompanied by a pair of his students, a boy and a girl.  A large, imposing figure, white-bearded, swinging his cane, talking to himself, oblivious to the others, approached them. Remarked the girl: 'Whoever he is, he's the epitome of the absentminded professor.'  'What you really mean,' said James, ' is that he is present-minded somewhere else.'"

Clifton Fadiman, General Editor, The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Toronto, London, 1985, page 305.

Picture on top: William James (1842-1910)

SEEING  IS  MEING!

Quote for Today - August  13,  2011

"As I am,  so I see."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series: Experience