TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Tuesday in Holy Week  is, “Tremble, Tremble, Tremble.”

One of the moments I look forward to every Holy Week here at St. Mary’s – is when Harry Thompson sings and plays the Negro spiritual, “Were You There.” 

Have you ever been there when Harry sings that? It can make you tremble, tremble, tremble.  This 1926 spiritual song by J.W. Johnson and J.R. Johnson captures Good Friday for me.

You know the first two verses and you know them well. You’ve been there.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

We have meditated on the moments when Jesus – on the cross - shook in horror and pain – when he trembled, trembled, trembled. One moment there on the cross he felt the total absence of God – and he screams out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

We also know Jesus felt just that in the garden – in the agony in the garden – which we read about in Matthew, Mark and Luke.[1]  Some scholars think the opening words in today’s gospel is John’s way of presenting those same feelings of Jesus - but in the upper room. [2] We read there that Jesus was deeply troubled and declared openly, “I am telling you the truth: one of you will betray me.”  The scholars think this is John’s way of capturing the  tremble, tremble, tremble of Jesus in the Agony of the Garden. John has Jesus go to the garden – but he’s arrested almost immediately just after he arrives. The others have him praying and asking his disciples to pray one hour with him – before Judas arrives with the soldiers for his arrest.

TREMBLE, TREMBLE, TREMBLE

The tremble, tremble, tremble moments of life happen when tragedy and trouble hit home: deaths, divorces, drugs, being dropped, alcoholism, betrayals, cancer, and the crush of so many other things – like being out of work – and deep inner itches – like feeling like a motherless child.

Those are the moments we know Good Friday in our own soul – in our own family – in our lives. Those are the moments the Stations of the Cross are not just on the walls in our churches – but they are on the walls of our soul – and we are making them – and hopefully we’ll say and pray, “Thank you, Lord, for the gift of faith.”

Tremble, tremble, tremble….

CONCLUSION

As Christians we begin our prayers with the sign of the cross – perhaps because we know it’s the cross is so often the beginning of our knowing Christ and life. It’s being on the cross that we so often realize Christ is hanging in there with us – and we can be the good thief and steal our way into his kingdom – at any moment – but especially when we’re feeling tremble, tremble, tremble moments.

NOTES:

[1] Matthew 26: 36-56; Mark 14: 32-52; Luke 22: 39-53; John 18: 1-11]

[2] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, The Anchor Bible, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York, 1970,    page 577.

REVELATIONS 
FROM THE LAND 
OF SICKNESS 

Poem for Today - April 15, 2014

FEVER

I have brought back a good message
          from the land of 102 degrees:
God exists.
I had seriously doubted it before;
but the bedposts spoke of it
          with utmost confidence,
the threads in my blanket took it for granted.
the tree outside the window dismissed all complaints,
and I have not slept so justly for years.
It is hard, now, to convey
how emblematically appearances sat
upon the members of my consciousness;
but it is a truth long known,
that some secrets are hidden from health.

(C) John Updike

THE  HOUSE  WAS  FILLED 

WITH  THE  FRAGRANCE  OF  OIL 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday in Holy Week is, “The House Was Filled With The Fragrance of Oil.”

It comes from the following comment in today’s gospel: “Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.” [Cf. John 12:  1-11]

In today’s gospel Mary poured on a lot of expensive perfume – anointing the feet of Jesus and then she dried his feet with her hair.

That was quite a scene. For starters women did not do such things – separation of men and women in society was very strict – so all these scenes in the gospels where Jesus is interacting with women – are quite radical.

I’m assuming we don’t get that – here in the United States – but in other parts of the world – these gospel texts are very revolutionary.

Based on the book, The Bookseller of Kabul, if some members of the Taliban get their way, this way of Jesus will be not be tolerated.

In today’s gospel, Judas is cast as the bad guy. He was against the anointing – and the motive is money. He used to help himself from the common purse – and if Mary could have donated the money to Jesus, Judas would have access to even more money.

PERFUME – AND  - SMOKE

We’ve all walked into an elevator or a room and someone very recently was in that same room – and they were heavy on the perfume.

I don’t know about you, but I wince – in the presence of heavy perfume.

I was once stationed in a place where an interesting dynamic happened every other day.

There were 2 smokers there and 1 heavy after shave lotion guy.

The aftershave guy was a big time anti-smoker. This happened before the ban of smokers to outside buildings. This also happened before the arrival of all kinds of cell phones.  Well the anti-smoker guy let it be known that after-smoking smell was to be banned. Well, the 2 smokers retaliated with the comment that aftershave lotion users should be banned – especially if you picked up the common phone after them.

Ugh – the aftershave scent could be horrible. And to be transparent, I preferred the after smoke scent to the aftershave scent.

CONCLUSION: A MESSAGE FOR TODAY

Enough of that….

A message for today for us could be the question: What scent do I leave in the rooms I’m in.

Today’s first reading would challenge us to be gentle and just.

Today’s psalm would challenge us to bring courage and trust – not fear into the rooms we’re in.

Today’s gospel challenges us to be lovers of Jesus as we bring his message and life into the rooms we’re in. Amen.

We who receive Jesus in the bread and the wine and are in communion with him – what is Jesus’ aftertaste taste like in us?

IN MY BOAT 

ON THE LAKE 

Poem for Today - April 14, 2014

THIS YEAR

As this country rocked like a boat in Galilee's storms.
I spent the whole year not losing my faith in God alone,
just doing as I could what had to be done.

Laid up sick, I suffered for more than a month.
there were many hard things in the family and the world,
but having endured it all meekly. it proved more valuable
than any good fortune could have been.

These days, as I dream bright dreams of the world beyond,
entrusting all things to His divine Will,
even if storms are forecast for the coming New Year
there is nothing I fear.

(c) Ku Sang, 

translated from

the Korean by

Brother Anthony

of Taize.

Painting on top: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee [1633].  This is the only known seascape picture by Rembrandt van Rijn. It was on a wall at the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts when it was robbed in 1990.  Check Mark 4: 35-41.

DEAD

Poem for Today - April 13, 2014

POETE MANQUE

I have beaten him often, head and heel
says the Lord, and I find no sound in him,
neither the savage growl of the drum
nor the sweet clean resonance of the bell.
I never hear the sea of the seasons roll
through him, nor night and day toss and hum.
A sodden gourd, or cracked vessel, says the Lord,
he is good for nothing now but heaven or hell.

(c) Ernest Sandeen

THE RELATIVITY  OF  TIME

As you know, as Einstein said, “Time is relative.”

Years ago when most houses had  one bathroom, this old saying made sense, “How long a minute takes depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”

Sometimes - time seems to sit still – like sitting in traffic – like sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s. Sometimes - time flies – like a great meal and it’s getting late and the waiters and waitresses want us to finish up so they can clean up and go home – and we’re wrapped up in great conversations.

Not every day, not every weekend, not ever week, not every month nor every year is the same.

Holy Week – Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday – is upon us. Some of us remember Ash Wednesday. Maybe we whispered to ourselves a spiritual hope or two – a Lenten Resolution – and here it is Palm Sunday.

It makes a difference how we spend time. The key is not to judge others – but to judge ourselves: how we’re doing.

I know I judge. When driving I wonder about those who drive along the shoulder or the exit ramp as far as they can and then move left to get into the regular two or three lanes – and beat 50 cars on Route 50. I wonder about those who sneak in side doors and skip lines if possible. Is that their regular personality? Does that pattern sneak into how they give their time and life to family or work or what have you – or who have you?

I went in a side door at a wake in a church in Bowie two Sunday’s ago. The crowds were enormous. I still feel a bit of guilt about that. Hey those on the long lines were waiting – slowing stepping their way to the Church steps  – why can’t I? – like everyone else? I rationalized. As I was meeting family members of the deceased – I could see those on line in the back still coming in. And whispers of “unfair” were clinging to my inner ear.

Time is relative.

It all depends on who we are – our spirituality- our sense of fairness and how we treat one another. Everything relates, is relative, to the I, I am.

I would assume that how we do Lent, how we do Holy Week, how we move those 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, how we move these seven from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, how we drive, how we notice other drivers, how we notice waiters and waitresses in a restaurant – how they notice our needs, is somehow connected to how we spend time – how we see or don’t see each other – and especially how we see ourselves.

I would assume how we spend Holy Week will help us deal with the Good Fridays of our life that might or might not happen on Friday’s.  Deaths happen every day of the week. Crosses, betrayals, family deaths - and then the long wait to go through a wake in a Funeral Parlor, the Funeral Mass, the long ride to the cemetery, the burial, all happen –all take time  often when we weren’t or aren’t ready for them. Then there’s the time -  till we experience a personal Easter for us – the time from the death of another  -  to the acceptance of a death of another - to the experience of the act of faith we make that the one we loved is with the Lord – and it’s time for us to rise from feelings of death – and walk in new time.

It’s all relative. It all relates to how we spend our time – instead of sneaking in side doors to avoid life – or speed past all those in the same traffic of the same kinds of pain and waiting.

So this week is Holy Week. We’re in traffic near the end of the 40 day trip called Lent. We’re getting into Holy Week – closer to the Bridge into Easter and resurrection and flowers – new garments - and new life in Christ.

This week we have some sacred moments – we might miss – lots of times for Confession – now called, “The Sacrament of Reconciliation”. Is there anyone or anything we need to reconcile? This Thursday can be like any other Thursday or it can be Holy Thursday. 
We’ll have that renewal of the Mass this Thursday night at 7:30 at St. John Neumann. This Friday can be like any other Friday, or it can be Good Friday – where we enter into the Lord’s Passion on the Cross – and with the whole community we venerate the Cross in silence and song. Next Saturday evening we have the Long Easter Vigil when folks come into our church – and that night and the next day, next Sunday, we renew our Baptismal time – and celebrate once more The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

How we spend this week, how we spend our time, is relative.

That’s the title and theme of this homily.

But how we spend our time affects and effects who we are - and how we are to each other and to the Lord – but especially how we are to ourselves.

WHAT WAS 

YOUR MOTHER LIKE

Poem for Today - April 12, 2014

HOT COMBS

At the junk shop, I find an old pair,
black with grease, the teeth still pungent
as burning hair.  One is small,
fine toothed as if for a child. Holding it,
I think of my mother's slender wrist,
the curve of her neck as she leaned
over the stove, her eyes shut as she pulled
the wooden handle and laid flat the wisps
at her temples.  The heat in our kitchen
made her glow that morning I watched her
wincing, the hot comb singeing her brow,
sweat glistening above her lips,
her face made strangely beautiful
as only suffering can do.

(c) Natasha Trethewey