FAITH

Quote for Today - January 13,  2013

"A bridge across the gulf of death."

Edward Young [1681-1765]

Painting by Edvard Munch [ 1863-1944]

FAME AND SUCCESS

Quote for Today - January 12, 2013

 

"Don't confuse fame with success. One is Madonna; the other Helen Keller."

Erma Bombeck, address at Meredith College - Commencement Address - USA Today, May 20, 1991

Questions:  

Do you agree with Erma?  Does Madonna Louise Ciccone put a lot of hard work into her craft - to make it as far as she has made it? Did Erma get a good laugh or an "Aha!" from this comment? Did anyone who heard her Commencement Address say, "I disagree!"?

Pictures: 

Helen Keller at her graduation from Radcliffe College in 1904

Madonna on cover of a record jacket.

FREEDOM

Quote for Today - January 11, 2013

"To some,
freedom means the opportunity
to do what they want to do.
To most
it means not to do
what they do not want to do."

Eric  Hoffer

Questions?

Agree or disagree?

What do you love to do?

What do you hate to do?

What disliked tasks come with the hats you wear?

AWE

Quote for Today - January 10, 2013

"The highest point 
we can attain 
is not Knowledge, 
or Virtue, or Goodness, 
or Victory, but 
something even greater, 
more heroic and 
more despairing: 
Sacred Awe."

Nikos Kazantzakis [1883-1957] in Zorba the Greek [1946], chapter 24

JOYFUL  OR  MISERABLE

Quote for Today - January 9,  2013

"The trouble with many is that they have got just enough religion to make them miserable.  If there is not joy in religion,  you have got a leak in your religion."

William A. (Billy) Sunday [1862-1935] in a sermon in New York in 1914.

WE BECOME 

WHAT WE EAT!

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Tuesday after the Epiphany is, “We Become What We Eat!”

Don’t we know that - especially if feel we ate too much during the holidays?

We become what we eat.

THE TWO MAIN  INGREDIENTS OF A GOOD MEAL

The two main ingredients of a good meal are good food and good conversation.

Good food - good words - good moments with good people - become us. Good food and good words sit well in our tummy and our being.

Bad words - hurtful words are hard to digest - and they stick to and can become extra weight in our memory.

When people stop eating and talking with each other - it’s over.

When people start talking to each other and eating with other again - there is hope.

A contradictory paradox for me on all this has been when I see on TV meetings in Palestine and Israel. I notice that they have on the table not just the agenda - but food. Next time I’ll have to look more carefully, but it looks like they have some water and some fruit.  What else?

I see that table and think: why can’t they solve their problems? They’re talking and eating with each other. I assume they are trying to stomach each other.  Maybe they are not serving the elephants in the room. Maybe the under the table stuff is missing - and not on the menu.

THE MASS

The Mass is a meal.

I don’t get it when people don’t get that. The Mass is the Last Supper of Jesus and it’s the First Wedding Banquet of Jesus - his dream of giving everyone a seat at the table - and celebrating with them.

The Mass is a meal - and a good meal is good food and good words. We digest the scriptures and we digest Jesus - the bread of life - and the wine of the wedding - that is in abundance. 

The Mass is  a miracle of abundance - and the cost of the wedding is sacrifice.

We never run out of the Sacred Bread and Wine; we never run out of people sacrificing for others and serving one another.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel - Mark 6: 34-44 - talks about one of the many feedings Jesus hosts to make sure everyone gets something to eat. They were there because they were hungry. We’re here because we’re hungry - hungry for food and hungry for the Word of God - especially in the scriptures.

I love a text in the second and third chapters of Ezekiel where the prophet says said he heard a voice say: “Eat the scroll” - eat the writings - digest them. I sense it was more than a metaphor - as I’m using the words here today. Based on the oddities in the book of the prophet Ezekiel, he ate the scrolls and then preached the Word of God.

As I was writing this homily last night, I noticed on a book shelf about 3 feet away from me this plastic medicine jar. [SHOW] 

It has Korean words on the label. I have no idea what it says. I once received 5 of these tiny medicine jars in the mail. They came with 10 paperback copies of a book I wrote which a priest in Korea whom I never met  translated it into Korean.  I opened up one of the jars and found inside what looks like pills. Instead  they are tiny paper scrolls - with Korean words on it. They are pink, yellow, lite green in color. Under the Korean words on the only one I opened and unrolled  was the English translation. This one had, “Let us love one another for love comes from God” 1 John 4:7. Surprise it’s from today’s first reading. What are the odds of that?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “We Become What We Eat.”

Today for reflection think about how the Mass has become you - not only with the Bread of communion - the Body of Christ - but also the Body of Christ - the Community. [Cf. 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31.]

You know most of the regulars here at this 8 A.M. Tuesday Mass. Aren’t they becoming part of you? We feed each other and off each other.

Next how have each others words and the words of the Bible Texts you hear at Mass - words that you have digested, words that have fed you - how have they fattened up your spirituality and your life? Amen.

LONELINESS

Quote for Today - January 8,  2013

"Loneliness is a game of pretense, for the essential loneliness is an escape from an inescapable God."

Walter Farrell, The Looking Glass, 1951