REJECTIONS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Friday in the Fourth Week of Lent  is, “Rejections!”

Question: How well do we deal with rejections?

They happen.

TODAY’S READINGS

We find this theme in today’s two readings.

In the first reading from the Book of Wisdom 2:1, 12-22 - we hear that those who try to be just and fair and lead a good life - are rejected by those  who don’t want to go that way. Those who don’t cheat - those who try to be good - often make the bad feel guilty - and they want to retaliate.

In today's gospel  from John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-20 - we hear more and more about Jesus experiencing rejections. Folks want to kill him - the ultimate rejection.

SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

If you’ve seen the movie, Shawshank Redemption, you know the ongoing theme of "Red" - Ellis Boyd Redding - played by Morgan Freeman. He keeps on coming up for parole in the Shawshank Prison and every time he is rejected. You see the stamp come down on paper - with the word “REJECTED” stamped on the paper. “Rejected!” and the word seems to fill the entire screen.

When we are rejected we want to scream - to fill the entire scene with our scream.

NEWMAN STREET PARK

Yesterday I was walking by that little park at the bottom of the street down from St. Mary’s Church.

There are no kids or parents in the swing and climbing section - but there was a mother and two tiny little kids in the basketball area. The mother throws a soccer ball to the little girl - instead of to the little boy - who then throws a tantrum. Did he feel rejected by his mother? Will he be that way for the rest of his life - screaming when someone else gets chosen ahead of him?  I don’t know. Time will tell.

Rejection.

PART OF LIFE

Rejections are part of life.

A basketball team has 5 players on the floor at a time. A baseball team has 9 players on the field at a time. Lacrosse has 10.  Some players seem to spend their entire time as second stringers and never get into a game. Some kids don’t make the team.

People date and then break up - one is often hurt - feeling rejection.

People get divorced and sometimes their kids feel deep rejection.

“What am I, chopped liver?”

Some 115 cardinals were up for pope - only 1 got elected. It seems he was a surprise pick.  How did the front runners take it? Were they angry?

Not everyone gets into the school play. You can’t have two Dorothy’s or 2 Scare Crows or 2 Tin Men in The Wizard of Oz.  A kid thinks she does a great job in a play,  but nobody is there after the show to give her a dozen roses.  What does that feel like?

For the past 25 years or more I've seen kids get trophies - even though their team didn't win. Is that smart. Is it healthier if only the winning team gets the trophy and there are no trophies for second place?  Which helps people prepare better for the future?

How well do I do with rejections - or experiences which we interpret as rejections?

TODAY IS THE FEAST OF ST. CLEMENT HOFBAUER

Today - we Redemptorists celebrate the feast of St. Clement Hofbauer. If he didn’t become a Redemptorist - we wouldn’t be here in Annapolis. It was our place in Vienna, Austria that sent Redemptorists to American in 1832.

Clement Hofbauer and a buddy, Thaddeus Hubl, came down to Rome with the idea of joining a religious order and becoming priests. On one of their visits, one morning they decided to go to the church whose bells rang first.  It was the Redemptorist Church of San Giuliano’s.

They became Redemptorists in Italy and were told to go back and start the Redemptorists on their side of the Alps. They couldn’t get into Austria. They were rejected,  so they went to Warsaw, Poland. They worked there for 21 years - but were rejected and had trouble getting located anywhere.

St. Clement experienced lots of rejections - but never gave up.

It’s life.

Redemptorists all know the story - we've heard it 100 times - about the time he went into a bar to beg for money for his orphanage. Some guy laughed at him and spit beer into his face. Clement says, “That’s for me. How about something for my orphans?" He got about 100 silver coins from the people in the bar.

How did those orphans feel having St. Clement and other Redemptorists caring for them.

CONCLUSION: JESUS CHRIST

Suggestion: when you have experienced a rejection find a cross. They are at the end of rosaries - or picture this gigantic cross here at St. John Neumann’s Church - and ask Jesus for help.

Picture stamped over this image of Jesus - in big red letters: REJECTED. 

ST. CLEMENT HOFBAUER

Feast Day - March 15

Reflection  by our former Rector Major - 

now Archbishop of Indianapolis.

RAGE

Quote for Today - March 15, 2013

"People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing."

Will Rogers  [1879-1935]

BEGINNINGS

Quote for Today - March 14,  2013

"The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings."

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882]

3 IMAGES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Wednesday in the 4^th Week of Lent is, “Three Images!”

Today’s readings give 3 powerful images for our consideration about our connection and our relationship to God.

1) TRAPPED

The first image is that of being trapped. We’ve all been deeply moved when there is a story of miners trapped deep in the ground – and they are saved.

Or we have been moved deeply when hostages are freed.

Or we’ve been moved with horror on seeing TV documentaries on Auschwitz, Dachau, Buckenald or any of those concentration camps where Jews were gassed and burnt to death. Then we rejoice when we see our soldiers or Russian soldiers getting there and freeing the men and women who survived.

Well, in today’s first reading from Isaiah, he gives the great image of prisoners being freed. Those in darkness, hear, “Come out. Show yourselves.”

In the gospel the same image is found and it’s even deeper. It’s the scream of God over all the graves of the world – the scream of God at every funeral – calling people to new life and resurrection.

Being liberated – being freed – becoming untrapped – rescued is a  very powerful image.

I think of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” – his unique opera on this powerful theme of the freeing of prisoners.  Beethoven was asked to write an opera on this theme. He was given a book that told the story about political prisoners in Spain. The main story line of the opera is “Fidelio” -  the fidelity of a woman with her love for her husband.

A man named Florestan is arrested in Spain because of his opposition to those in power. He is put in prison – and then in chains – he is brought to the deepest part of the prison. His wife, Lenore, poses as a young man and takes job after job, step after step, to work her way into the prison to save her husband.

Florestan’s arch enemy decides to kill Florestan with a knife – and Lenore jumps in front of her husband and holds off Pizzaro with a pistol. She stops the murder of her husband. She exposes Pizzaro for what he is.  She helps the political prisoners to be freed. She takes off her husband’s chains. There is a great trumpet call when the prisoners are set free.

Beethoven was an optimist that stayed an optimist – when Romanticism in Europe went sour and heads rolled.

So the first of the 3 images that I'm mentioning today  is that of being freed. We know that many people come back to God when they are stuck – in prison – caught in a problem – when they experience the death or sickness of a loved one.

2) MOTHER

The first reading from Isaiah has the second powerful image. It's that of a mother. Isaiah says what every mother feels: even if all forget you, I won’t. We know this. Stand in any place where there are small children and we'll see them children clinging to their moms. When scared we see little kids always running back to their moms at church, in the playground, in the supermarket.

And all our lives our moms remain central.

Well, Isaiah uses that image and says that God loves us with motherly love. In fact, he says, "If a mother forgets her child, I’ll never forget you."

Question: how am I like my mother?

3) FATHER

And the third image is that of a father. If you want to understand Jesus and his relationship to his Father, the gospel of John is a good place to start.

Jesus is always talking about his Father. Jesus sees life through the lens of his Father.  As today’s gospel [John 5:17-30] puts it, his fellow Jews want to kill him because of this. They make the leap that he is equalizing himself with his Father.

Today’s gospel - and much of the Gospel of John has Jesus doing just that. We see and hear that everything Jesus does is in light of his Father.

Today’s gospel is very Trinitarian. You can hear in its words the proclamation of John’s church that Jesus is the Son of Man and God is Our Father.

Question: how am I like my father?

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Three Images”.

I believe the 3 images that I pulled out of today’s readings: father, mother and being trapped are very powerful.

Question: is every person like a child - feeing trapped and we cry out to God as our Savior, our Mother and our Father.

DANCING

Quote for Today - March 13, 2013

"If I could tell you what it meant, there would  be no point in dancing it."

Isadora Duncan [1881-1927]

TWO DREAMS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Tuesday in the Fourth Week in Lent is, “Two Dreams.”

Have you ever in your life time had a time when you were writing down your dreams? Some spiritual writers and directors ask folks to do just that. Then when you have them written down, you can look at them more clearly.

I have a loose leaf filler leaning against the wall next to my bed. Then when I wake up in a dream -sometimes I write it down. My handwriting is pretty bad - but my dream handwriting is 20 times worse. Then I go back to sleep. If the dream was very vivid, when I read it the next day - some of it comes back to me.

A FEW RULES

If you decide to write down your dreams, these are some of the rules I was taught.

1) You are the interpreter. You can calmly interpret what you saw means. Don’t let others interpret for you. It can make interesting breakfast talk - but you be the interpreter. There are books that tell you what water or trees or birds or boats in a dream might mean. You can look at them, but from what I’ve picked up, the dreamer of the dream is the best interpreter.  You make the associations. Remember Freud’s famous comment: “Dreams are the royal road into the unconscious.” Dreams can get us in touch with stuff we might not be looking at. If you think this is New Age or esoteric stuff, then think it’s esoteric and New Age. But remember both Josephs in the Scriptures were into figuring out dreams.[1]

2) Catch the predominant mood: fear or fascination - positive or negative energy. Ask what happened to you yesterday  or what you ate yesterday? What’s going on in one’s life, etc. etc. etc. lately.

3) Notice recurring dreams. Many people have a recurring or returning dream. Mine is - the church is filled - and I’m trying to find the right reading or prayer for the day in these big red books and I can’t find it. I remember one dream when I had about 50 of these big red books up here in the pulpit. A priest who taught us Patrology [Early Church Writers] used to tell us that his recurring dream was trying to find a church he was going to that weekend and couldn’t find it.

4) And sometimes dreams tell us exactly what’s happening. When I was living in a retreat house right next to the Atlantic Ocean in West End, New Jersey from 1969 to 1976 - I had a dream that I was being pulled into the ocean. A Nor’easter was raging outside and water had worked its way through a wall - and the leak soaked my floor and the water on the floor worked its way up into my bed - because the blankets were touching the floor and acting like blotters.

TODAY’S READINGS

Now why did I give that song and dance about dreams?

Well, one way to read the scriptures is to see some of the stories in them as dreams. Today’s two readings - especially today’s first reading from Ezekiel has water - lots of water flowing in the temple. At first it’s ankle deep, then knee deep - then waist deep. Then it  becomes a river - a river with fruit trees on each side - as well as fish. And the trees give fruit and its leaves are medicine.

Now that could be a great dream to have - a healing dream - a dream that tells us God wants to wash us, refresh us,  nourish us - and all is tasty and all is good, so don’t worry.

So too today’s gospel. What would it be like to have the same problem for 38 years. We feel crippled. Each time we crawl for help - everyone else slides by us and we’re not healed. And finally Jesus comes to us and heals us right now.

Today’s readings as dreams are already written down. Bring them to prayer as if they are dreams and they are happening to us.  Then ask Jesus to heal us.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Two Dreams.”  

Coming to church, don’t we want the church - this church - to be a healing place - where we experience God healing and feeding us? Don’t we want to be washed in the Living Water - that our faith in Christ is not just ankle deep, not just knee deep, not just waist deep, but we are river deep in Jesus Christ and in his love? Amen. 


NOTES

[1] Genesis 37: 5-11; Genesis 37: 19; Genesis 40 and 41; Matthew 1:19-25; Matthew 2: 13-15; Matthew 2: 19-20.