The title of my homily for this 3rd Tuesday of
Lent is, “Mercy and Forgiveness - Some Observations.”
Mercy and Forgiveness: two words we hear in today’s 2 readings as
well as the Psalm Response.
This year we’re hearing and will be hearing these two
words - mercy and forgiveness - over and over and over and over again.
What’s your take on these two words: especially mercy?
The title of my homily is, “Mercy and Forgiveness - Some
Observations.”
FIRST OF ALL -
POPE FRANCIS
First of all we can say that a constant theme of Francis
has been “mercy” - and he wants to stress it especially in this year of mercy
we’re in.
He has a book out, The
Name of God is Mercy.
The title of his Opening Announcement or Letter for this year of mercy was: The Face of Mercy.
In that Opening Letter for this year of mercy, Francis
begins with this sentence - this statement: “Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.”
See Christ, see mercy. See mercy, we are seeing God.
Hopefully when we are merciful, people will see God - in whose image and likeness we were
created.
So that’s my first observation: See Christ - see Mercy - See God - as Pope
Francis puts it.
SECOND OBSERVATION
- FORGIVENESS EASY, MERCY DIFFICULT
My second observation is this: it’s easier to grasp what the
word “forgiveness” is compared to what the word “mercy” means.
We get today’s parable about forgiving. A guy begs
forgiveness for a debt - is forgiven - and the then goes out and won’t forgive
his neighbor who owes him far less. [Cf. Matthew 18: 21-35.]
I get what the word and concept of forgiveness means. We
know about forgiving ourselves, forgiving others. This doesn’t mean forgiveness
is easy. It’s difficult. But I think we get the meaning of forgiveness far
quicker and clearer than what mercy means.
Mercy is tricky. In a way, for starters, we know or think
we know, what mercy is. We pray for it all the time: Lord have mercy. Christ
have mercy. Lord have mercy.
I hear mercy as a begging for forgiveness. We’re
screaming, “Take pity on me. Give me a break. I made a mistake, but give me a
second chance - another chance, another try at it.”
Then comes the mystery, the wonderment, about mercy. We
have our glimpses - but there is the hope that Francis is right - that all
those who talk about God being a God of mercy - that they are right.
This is our God. We hope God is the Part One King in
today’s gospel who forgives the guy who owes him. We hope God is not like the
Part Two King in today’s gospel who doesn’t forgive the debtor when he finds
out that he wouldn’t forgive a fellow servant. Doesn’t God forgive 7 times - 70
times?
And that’s just a slice of our deep wonderings about just
what is our God like.
THIRD
OBSERVATION: FRANCIS’ 5 MESSAGES ABOUT MERCY
In his book, The Name of God is Mercy, Francis gives 5
messages, 5 observations about mercy. I add them to my homily in case I’ve
confused you with my observations.
First of all, Francis says mercy is the essence of God.
It’s God’s ID card.
Secondly, take some time and come up with some names of people
who showed you what mercy is. Francis mentions several priests he knew. Lent is
a good time to do homework on questions like that. So name some names of family
members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, parishioners, whom you see as
merciful.
Thirdly, see listening as a key part of mercy. Listen but
don’t judge - like in confession - like in being with each other.
Fourthly, avoid self-righteousness. In fact, Francis
secretly hopes that those who are rigid, self-righteous, always complaining
about the faults and behaviors of others, that they slip - and maybe this will
help them slide into more understanding.
Fifth and lastly, put compassion into action. Show us
your mercy.
Monday, February 29, 2016
SKIN:
SOME REFLECTIONS
INTRODUCTION
The title of my
homily for this 3 Monday of Lent is, “Skin: Some Reflections.”
Since both
readings for today talk about Naaman - a man who had skin problems - I decided
to do a little reflecting on skin.
Give me some
skin. Give me something on skin.
REFLECTIONS
Skin….
It’s us. It’s our
color. It contains stories. It contains time. It’s our face to the world.
We rub our skin.
We itch our skin. We pick our skin. We wonder about our skin. We worry about our
skin. We check out our skin in the mirror.
It gets cut. It
gets burned. It gets scared. It gets bruised.
We don’t think
about skin as an organ of the body, but it’s listed as just that - and the
largest organ in our body - roughly 20 square feet.
It gives doctors, skin doctors, dermatologists, plastic surgeons, a job to do.
It used to
be described as the easiest of the
doctor jobs: if it’s dry make it moist; if it’s moist make it dry.
Not true because
we can have problems with rashes, eczema, psoriasis, acne, dandruff, cellulitis, keratosis, shingles, warts,
melanoma, scabs and hives, just to name
a few possible problems and worries.
What’s your take
on your skin? Mirrors can help us stare
time in the face - seeing our wrinkles and our aging.
Acceptance is the
name of the game. If someone came up
with a great skin cream, I’m sure they would not call it, “Acceptance”. Instead it would be called,
“Beauty Preserver” or “Game Changer.”
TODAY’S FIRST READING
Naaman the army
commander of the king of Aram had leprosy. I’ve often heard that leprosy in his
day - was not necessarily Hansen’s Disease, but any kind of severe skin problem
or issue.
The message of
this story from the 2nd book of Kings 5: 1-15ab, is that the God of
Israel is the true God. He can heal skin problems and soul problems.
Naaman appears as
a brusque type of character - who thinks it is bizarre to have to go to the
king of Israel for a healing. He goes -
but he thinks he can buy his healing with all kinds of gold coins and classy
clothes. He goes to the king of Israel for the healing. The king basically
says, “You’ve come to the wrong person. Who do you think I am?” He’s angry with the whole idea, the gifts as
well as a letter from Naaman’s king?
In the meanwhile
Elisha the prophet hears about the story and sends a message that all Naaman
has to do is wash himself 7 times in the Jordan and he’ll be healed.
Elisha is giving
him a free, “Get out of leprosy pass.”
Naaman balks at
that and says, “Our rivers are better than the dinky Jordan River.”
His servants tell
him, “Follow the prophet’s advice.”
He relents - goes
to the Jordan - does what he is told and is healed.
TODAY’S GOSPEL
The people in
today’s gospel - Luke 4:24-30 - are sort of the same way. They don’t like the way
God works or Jesus’ description of how God the Father works. Once more we hear
the story of Naaman - along with a similar story about Elijah the Prophet and a
poor widow.
God is a God of
surprises.
For some people
it’s their way or the highway. And their
skin tells you in the face what they are feeling. Red roaring anger - which
along with tightened skin in our fists shows up when we don’t get our way.
CONCLUSION
The title of my
homily is, “Skin.”
This Lent touch
your hands. Rub your eyes, ears and face. Smooth your skin and thank God for
the gift of life.
Jesus was comfortable with skin. He touched ears - even putting his finger in
them. Eyes as well. He took some of his spit and touched someone he wanted to
heal in his mouth and tongue. He reached out to those with leprosy. He let
people reach out to touch him. He let a woman wash his feet with oil and dry
his feet with her hair. He washed feet. He touched the dead.
The title of my homily is, “Sitting Under the Apple Tree.”
As I read today’s readings - I noticed in the first reading -
the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. It was a key turning point of Moses’
life.
We all have them. Lent is a good time to name them.
Moses had been running, running away. He had killed someone. He
was in hiding. Here on a mountain, he
has a God experience. He was called from a life of moving away from - to a life of moving towards.
Then I read today’s gospel from Luke and I noticed the story of
the fig tree - and how that story could be a significant turning point in one’s
life.
It struck me how significant trees can be in one’s life. I remembered the old song, “Don’t Sit Under
the Apple Tree With Anyone Else than
Me.”
“Oh no!”
I looked it up on Goggle and found out that the song goes back to 1939 and then
1941 and into 1942 - 1943 - at the beginning of World War II. It’s a song about
a young soldier going off to war and has to leave the girl he loved. The message
to each other is, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else than
Me.” Glenn Miller and the
Andrews Sisters played it. It remained Number One on Your Hit Parade from October
1942 till January 1943. That was the longest period for a war song to be Number
One.
THE BIBLE AND
TREES
The Bible features lots of stories about trees. Genesis tells us
about the tree of life in the middle of the Garden of Paradise - as well as the
tree of good and evil.
Adam and Eve have it all. They are in paradise. However, there’s
a catch. They can’t eat from the fruit of a certain tree - the tree of good and
evil.
There’s always a catch.
There’s always the possibility of messing up a good thing -
messing up a good life.
How many lives - how many marriages - have we heard fell apart because
someone began to eat forbidden fruit?
And they bit into evil and their eyes were opened and they hid
from God in the shadows and the bushes in the Garden of Paradise.
Here’s Moses in today’s first reading experiencing God in the
burning bush. He asks God, “What is your name?”
That’s another great question for Lent - asking God his name - asking
God, “Who are You?” And God gives his name and who He is, “I Am Who Am”. That’s
Yahweh in Hebrew.
The Psalms begin with Psalm One saying we have a life choice of being
a tree planted near running water giving fruit every season or we can be a dead
leaf scattered in the wind. Our choice. Our move. We know the difference between
an apple tree and a dead leaf or a dead apple blossom.
Jesus says we can be a good tree or a bad tree. And here in
today’s gospel he says we can be a fig tree that produces figs or we can be a
dead tree.
In Matthew the fig tree doesn’t get a second chance. In Luke - true to
character - we are told that the fig tree has a second chance. This is the year
of Luke. Luke is the gospel of mercy and forgiveness. We’ll hear his stories
this year - especially Luke 15 with its three get parables of mercy and
forgiveness - the stories of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son.
These stories are key to this year of mercy that Pope Francis is stressing and
pushing.
Judas hung himself from a tree.
He gave up. Oh no.
Jesus was killed on the tree of the cross. He gave us himself. Oh
yes!
Trees. It’s Lent. It’s cold here in Maryland and I don’t see us
sitting under a tree these cold days. But I can see us sitting here in church
on the wood of trees - benches - sitting under the tree of the cross.
I’ve gone into many churches in my life - outside of Mass times
- and I’ve seen many people sitting there quietly - in late morning - or
afternoon - sitting quietly on wood under the tree of the cross.
Here in St. John Neumann we have this gigantic tree of the cross
- and right underneath it, is the Eucharist - and we can hear Jesus say
to us - the words of life, “Take and eat! Take and drink.”
Bread and wine - like trees - planted in the earth - growing -
becoming the food of life for us.
And many people find church as holy ground - like Moses
discovered the ground to be holy where he experienced God in a new way - when
God called him to bear fruit in a new way - and God said out of the burning
bush, “I Am Who Am.”
Lent is a good time to drop into church and sit quietly - with
our God.
This year is a good year to come through the doors of this
church or St. Mary’s - designated as one
of holy churches for this year of mercy. Our doors are open and it’s good to
think of the doors of our lives. Have we shut any doors on others? Have we had
a door slammed in our face? Do we feel the church has shut its doors on us?
Lent is a time to take a seat and eat the great messages of God
to us.
Lent is a good time to have a Moses moment.
Oh yes.
TREES
When I lived in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, from 1976 - 1984 I was
driving up Route 611 one late afternoon and I was driving into the sun and it
was coming through a red beautiful Japanese maple tree and I had a God
experience. I was seeing the burning bush - while driving.
I say this to get you thinking about God experience moments in
your life and have any of them been connected to trees?
Around 1975 I was attending a weekend conference by Father Tom
Berry a Passionist priest - who was world famous to some as an earthologist - anthropologist
- poet - theologian etc. etc. etc. It was being held at the Cardinal Spellman
Retreat House on the Hudson River. He
invited people to attend a conference where he wanted to give a New Creation
Account - pulling together everything he and we knew up to that moment in 1975.
The priest - a friend of mine - that I went with - told me that
I would understand only about 1% of what Tom would be saying. He was correct -
but what I got that weekend was 100 doors to open - like what were the Native
Americans about - what science, so too
Confucius, so too Buddha, so too Mao of the Chinese revolution and on and on
and on.
However, that Friday evening as Tom Berry began he told us as he
pointed to the glass doors along the side of the big room we were in - that at
the bottom of the lawn just out there - that leads to the Hudson River - is
this gigantic 450 years old oak tree. Tom Berry said, “I think we’d get more
out of this weekend if we all simply sat down under that old tree and watched
the Hudson River go by this weekend.”
In time I understood that message 100 per cent. But it took
time. Oh yes.
People get 100 times more of God and Holy Ground stuff and life
when they sit in sacred places much more
than from sermons and talks.
Has that been your experience? Like moments sitting in airports
or malls watching the world going by. Like sitting in a quiet room in a rocking
chair holding a baby while babysitting for our kids. Like sitting in a window
seat on a bus or a plane and looking out the window at the world we live in.
Like the moment Jesus said to Nathaniel, “I know you. I saw you
sitting under a fig tree the other day.” Like the moment Sir Isaac Newton sat
under an apple tree and an apple fell to the ground and he realized the law of
gravity. Like the moment Buddha after
trying both extremes of life - pleasure and complete fasting - discovered, was
enlightened, realized under the Bo Tree - that the answer to the mystery of
life was in the middle.
Like when I think about all this I remember in the 1940’s - as a
family going to Bliss Park in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and climbing this neat hill and sitting
under this great big gray bark tree - my dad and mom setting up a blanket there
- with food for a picnic - and we four of us kids would roll down the hill or
run down the hill - the same hill we snow sled down in winter and then have a
family picnic in summer there. Under that tree we were learning: This is the
meaning of life. There is holy ground. There is God. There is the gift of life
together under a great tree of life.
CONCLUSION
The title of my homily is, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with
Anyone Else than Me.”
“Oh no!”
It’s Lent. Take the time to sit with the most significant person
- persons in your life and talk and listen to each other about your life
together. Oh yes.
Take the time to sit together with God - and thank God for the gift of life -
and talk about the fruit of your womb - the fruits of your work - the fruits of
your life. Oh yes.
And if you feel like a fig tree than hasn’t been producing, here in Luke, hear
Luke tell you that Jesus says, “Start cultivating the ground around your life -
get fertilized, so that you’ll start bearing fruit again. Tell God you don’t
want to be cut down. Oh no!
February 28, 2016
10 QUESTIONS
Do couples hold hands walking towards
a church more than other times in their life -
especially when they are going to the
funeral of a friend their own age?
Do Italians really get angry when someone
cuts their spaghetti with a knife before eating?
Do marriages get shaky at 7 year markers or are
the ingredients of an earthquake always present?
Do fat people talk diet to themselves 100 times
a day and 100 times more that the diets their
family and friends recommend to them?
Are people who say they are “spiritual and not
religious” telling others, “Get off my back!”
Is death a much tougher question mark for men
than for women - especially those who had babies?
Does our unconscious talk to the unconscious
of the other person - and we both know without
knowing - what’s going on between us?
Would the way we live our life make a difference if we knew there was nothing
The title of my homily for this 2nd Friday in
Lent is, “Expect Mess.”
Last night I sat down to write this homily. When I read
today’s two readings the thought and the theme that hit me was, “Expect Mess.”
If we expect life to work perfectly and to go according
to our plan, we’re in for uneasy and antsiness of mind. We’re in for mess.
If we know - on the other hand - at times things are not
going to go according to plan - that things will get messy at times - then in
the long run we’re going to be a happier camper.
TAKE TODAY’S
FIRST READING - GENESIS 37:3-4, 12-13A, 17B-28A
Jacob - now called “Israel” - loves Joseph best of all
his sons.
How many parents have we heard say, “I have no
favorite!” So too teachers - they claim
that they have no favorite student.
In reality we all have our favorites - for various
reasons - in various ways - and this can mess things up.
We might not think we have favorites - but those who
watch us in action, know. They see us favoring one kid over the other. Then
sense we like so and so better than so and so.
So what else is new?
In this first reading from Genesis Joseph’s brothers want
to kill him. They just don’t like him. They don’t like his mouth. They don’t
like his dreams.
Next comes a change in the story. Reuben speaks up. Instead of killing Joseph directly,
he suggests that we throw Joseph in a cistern. This will give him time. He plans that he can come back and rescue Joseph.
Next comes the great change in the story. A caravan of Ishmaelites
come up the road. They are merchants on their way down to Egypt. Judah says, “Why kill our brother? Let’s
sell him to these traders and tell our father that he was killed by a wild
beast.”
Keep reading. We’ll find out how good things will happen
out of this complete family mess
TAKE TODAY’S
GOSPEL - MATTHEW 21: 33-43, 45-46
In the parable for today the chief priests and the elders
are trying to mess up Jesus - so he tells them about the parable of landowner. Like God the Father, the land owner keeps
sending his agents to pick up some produce from his land. The tenants want the land
to be theirs - so they kill and maim and mess up everyone and everything - so
as to get their way.
The obvious message from Jesus to the Pharisees is that
life has its payback. Life has its crosses and difficulties and disasters and
it’s going to hit them some day. Expect the cross. Expect mess.
SIN AND
SUFFERING
Today’s readings also triggered for me the mess called
“sin”.
They also trigger the reality of “suffering” - which at times is part of the
mess of sin.
The Stations of the Cross are not just on Church walls - they are on the walls
of our own homes.
Lent is a good time to take a look at how we deal with
sin and suffering - how we deal with mess - how we make our stations of the
cross.
SAYINGS &
STORIES
It’s been my experience that people have sayings and
stories to deal with mess.
The other day something went wrong about a Mass at St.
Mary’s. I heard a lady respond by saying philosophically, “This too shall
pass.” That saying works for many people. I remember reading way back a story
about that saying. A great king of Persia asked his wise men to come up with
a saying that will sum up the secret of happiness. He added that it has to make
the happy sad and the sad happy. The saying that won was, “This too shall pass”
- and it can be inscribed on the inside of a ring - to be looked to at times of
turmoil.
Do you have a
saying like, “This too shall pass” that helps you deal with the messy moments
of life. Or do you have a story that helps you deal with mess? I’m sure you
heard the origin of “This too shall pass.”
The other day I
added that I follow the July 4th Principle: “What difference will it
make next July 4th what happened today.” I’ve heard other people
say, “What difference will it mean in 20,000 years what happened today.”
A man told me
that his old Irish mother used to say, “It could be worse.”
CONCLUSION
We can learn a lot from mess - the messes
of life.
Pat Livingston wrote a whole book on this
entitled, Bless this Mess.
The great
baseball pitcher Christy Mathewson. - said, “You can
learn little from victory. you can learn everything from defeat.”
So when mess hits us, pray, Bless this
mess.”
When the messes of life hit us, ask, “What’s the learning here?” Think of before and afters - and make the afters a beautiful mess.
