COMMUNION.... COMMUNICATION.... REALLY LISTENING.... CATCHING - REALLY CATCHING AND THEN CHEWING ON EACH OTHER'S WORDS - COMFORTABLE AND UNCOMFORTABLE WORDS - NECESSARY HOPES - WE BETTER. COMMUNION .... COMING TOGETHER VS. COMING APART. CHEWING ON OUR DAILY BREAD.... COST: DYING TO SELF - RISING FOR THE OTHERS - A DYING TO TOO MANY SELFIES. COME ON - ENOUGH OF THE NON-SENSE.
The title of my sermon for this 25 Tuesday in ordinary
time is, “Some Data About Some Churches.”
The main theme would be the “WHY?” of temples, churches.
shrines.
ISRAEL
Israel starts with a tent
- as their Holy Place.
There was Moses’ Tent and then David’s tent and we read
that God sent prophets to David to tell him, “You got a great house there David
and I just got a tent, so how about building me a temple?”
How’s that for a great reading and a great message for a
church building campaign?
So we know Solomon builds the first temple - sometime
around the 10th Century BC.
And when a group builds their first temple, they have
arrived. They are established. I assume that’s one of the reasons - ONE of the
reasons - for steeples and towers.
Solomon’s temple is somewhat destroyed and looted in the
Babylonian Captivity - in 598 and 587 - by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, when he besieged Jerusalem, and marched many
Israelites into slavery and captivity.
Now in today’s first reading we have the story of Ezra
and Nehemiah getting permission to rebuild the Solomon Temple. This is around
458 BC. Darius, the Persians, beat
the Babylonians.
Ezra - Nehemiah - and many others pull this off and the
Second temple is built.
It lasts till the year till 70 CE when the Romans destroy it.
There are rumors till this day that the Jews would like
to rebuild the temple.
SOME THOUGHTS
QUESTIONS ABOUT CHURCHES IN GENERAL
There are enough temples, churches, shrines around the
world - that prove something. What do the presence of holy places tell us? How do agnostics, atheists, non-church people
respond to the reality that human beings build holy places?
That’s my key question in this homily.
Next to more in and around that question, here are a few
more questions.
What are the biggest shrines and churches and holy places
around the world?
Do you have a favorite Church building or shrine or Holy
Place?
Have you been to Lourdes? Fatima? Do you know the big
Marian Shrines of Our Lady of Aparecida in Brazil and Our Lady of Pillar in Zaragoza,
Spain or Our Lady of Lichen in Poland? How about the Largest Catholic church in
the world, Our lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro on Ivory Coast in Africa.
Have you been to Chartres? It was the most famous Marian
Pilgrimage Church in the for the longest time in the world.
For size, how about big Catholic churches like the
Seville Cathedral,, Milan Cathedral, Ulm in Minster, St. Peter’s in Rome.
How about the Mega Christian Churches on Nigeria, one
holds 75,000. There is another one in Korea with 30,000 people. And there is another one in
Georgia - Southern US, with 35,000
people in the congregation.
When I lived in Lima, Ohio I heard about people taking
bus tours to old German Churches - that had great wood carved altars and church
pieces. They could be found in far west central Ohio and mid-eastern Indiana.
The other day at breakfast we were talking about places
we would like to visit. One of the guys said he’d like to get to Sagrada
Familia in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I was able to say, “I
saw both places and it was well worth the trip and the time.”
What about chapels
- like the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona?
This church here - St. John Neumann Church - looks plain
like so many other churches and people seem to prefer St. Mary’s downtown - but
don’t forget this church of St. John Neumann has those stained glass windows up
there from Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 61st Manhattan, New York City
and Manresa - the former Jesuit retreat house here in Annapolis on the Severn
River.
I could list about 5 ugly churches - but I prefer the
beautiful ones - the great out-reachings of different communities of people for
the Lord.
CONCLUSION
I grew up in Brooklyn New York.
Now Brooklyn has often been described as the city of bars
and churches. Then the speaker says, “There’s a bar and a church on every
corner.”
That statement is not true, more true for bars than
churches, but there are a lot of bars and churches in Brooklyn.
We know what bars tell us of the needs of human beings -
but what do churches tell us about human beings?
And that’s the question and the point of this homily.
“What do churches tell us about human beings?” And let me close with some shots from the parish of my childhood: Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Brooklyn New York. This past weekend they celebrated their 125 Anniversary.
September 26. 2017
BEFORE YOU
DENY CHRIST
Before you deny Christ,
turn your other cheek, shut up,
don’t retaliate, and forgive your
brother or sister for hurting you.
Before you deny Christ,
this day, go the extra mile for another -
especially when you don’t want to. Before you deny Christ, before you don't want to have him as part of your life, give someone a bottle of cold water on a hot day or your gloves to someone without gloves on the street on a cold day.
Before you deny Christ,
take a rosary and say on all 59 beads,
the words of the
father with an epileptic son,
“Lord, I have faith;
help me with the little faith that I have.” [Mark 9:24]
Before you deny Christ,
sit off to the side at any Sunday Mass
and watch people’s faces as they come
up the aisles to receive holy communion.
Before you deny Christ,
go to the graveyard of the Sisters of Mercy
in Portland, Maine, the IHM nuns of Scranton, PA, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, Long Island,
and study the stones and the numbers on the stones and ask at each grave, "What was it like with Christ in your life?"
Before you deny Christ,
volunteer to help with the St. Vincent de Paul Society
in any parish that helps the poor and the hungry.
Before you deny Christ,
save up your money, and make the 30 to 35 day
walking pilgrimage from St. Jean-Pied-du-Port
in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Before you deny Christ,
get to Galilee, take off your shoes,
sit on a rock or the beach,
and let the lake waters wash your feet as Jesus
washed his disciples feet at the Last Supper. Before you deny Christ, stand there with Peter after denying Jesus three times, and hear Jesus say three times, "Feed my sheep."
Painting on top: Seeing Through the Darkness: Georges Roualt's Vision of Christ
Too many people have dropped away
from Christ with very little thought -
like rain hitting one's shoulders
and we simply move on.
Monday, September 25, 2017
THE ROAR ON
THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this 25 Monday in Ordinary
Time is some words from one of my
favorite quotes. It’s some words from Marian Evans Cross [1819-1880] - better
known as George Eliot. It’s in her book, Middlemarch,
which some say is better than her better known book, Silas Marner, she says something quite profound.
Here’s the quote: “If we had a keen vision of all that is
ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the
squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is on the other
side of silence.” George Eliot, Marian
Evans Cross, [1819-1880]
Who of us have paused to hear the grass grow or the
squirrel’s heart beat?
TODAY’S GOSPEL
Let me read today’s gospel once again - with George
Eliot’s quote as background music, “Jesus said to the crowd: ‘No one who lights
a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it
on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not
become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.
Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given, and from
the one who has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away.”
PROFOUND
There’s some profound stuff here.
If you have back porch and you sit there watching a
squirrel and you pause and listen poetically, emotionally, spiritually, to that
squirrel’s heart beat, you’ll start to hear a lot more. More will be given you
as Jesus just said in today’s gospel.
If you sit there and watch the grass wave in the slight
September breeze and you hear it growing,
something profound happens - you start to get a greater sense of God -
God’s presence - God at work - creation creating and crumbling.
You’ll see elephants walking on the ground - with all 4
big feet - stomping on a 100 ants per step.
You’ll sense the poor of the earth being stepped on by the big of the
earth.
You’ll see the vigil light stands in this church or any
church and you hear the prayers of people for their children and their
marriages and their cancers.
“No one who lights a lamp and then conceals it - and you
enter into the prayers of each candle.
I was a candle boy as a boy in OLPH Brooklyn and as a kid
I heard a priest talk about the penny candles - which became a dime in time - and to enter into each prayer.
Once you get a sense of the invisible, the hidden, the
secrets of the human heart, it makes you a very sensitive person - a very
understanding person, a very forgiving
person.
You’ve walked in their shoes, in their mistakes, in their
sins.
CONCLUSION
I sense this is what Jesus picked up.
He looked at rain, water, falling to the ground around
the vines of Galilee and saw water becoming wine.
He looked at bread being eaten - and becoming the body of
another.
He saw little kids - scared - afraid - touching the hem
of their mother’s cloaks and becoming reassured.
He saw fishermen walking down to their boats with empty
nets - but seeing in them the hope for full nets of fish.
He saw deaths and burials and funerals - of prisoners on
crosses along the roads of Palestine - of widow’s husbands and sons - and he
saw them being greeted by God, Our Father, in Paradise.
September 25. 2017
CAREFUL WITH THE WORDS
Our words mean different things
at different times. As E.E. Cummings
would have put it: Be of words a little
more careful than anything. He said
that of love. I’m saying that of words.
An “I love you!” can mean very different at a
25th Wedding Anniversary compared to a
Wedding Day - so too a so, so day in the 16th
year of a marriage with a quick “I love you” while looking at the mail instead of the
other.
