SYMPATHY: 

ON A SCALE 
OF 1 TO 10?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Sympathy: On A Scale Of 1 To 10?”

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how sympathetic am I?

That’s a self test I hear in today’s 2 readings.

When we’re in the box - or a jar -  if that’s what they will have us in if we’re cremated, will someone at our wake or in the homily or in the eulogy describe us as sympathetic?

I WOULD HOPE

I would hope so.

I would hope  the more we hear the scriptures, the more sympathetic - not pathetic - we would become.

I would hope the more we receive communion - the Word becoming flesh  - bread and wine becoming Christ  - so as to enter deeper into communion with us - becoming us - the more we will have sympathy - communion - community - with each other.

I would hope the longer we live - the more mistakes we make - the more times we were wrong in our judgments about others - the more we can laugh at ourselves - and be with each other - and not separate ourselves from others - by body distance - by labels - by words made out of sandpaper - that rub each other the wrong way.

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Right there in today’s first reading is this message of sympathy.

The author of Hebrews in today’s first reading says the word is living. It’s effective. It’s sharper than any two edged sword. It penetrates between soul and spirit - bones and marrow. It cuts. It challenges us to discern our reflections - the inner conversations of the human heart.

The author of Hebrews in today’s first reading in describing Jesus as our high priest brags about him. Listen again to the words:

“Since we have a great high priest

who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God,
let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize

with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly

been tested in every way,
yet without sin.”

Notice the word “sympathy”. It means with feelings - with sensitivity - with compassion - with awareness of what the other is going through.

It’s a literal translation of the Greek word “sympatheia” in the text.

At the end of our life will we be whining inwardly, “If I had to do it all over again, this time I would do it with more feeling - with more understanding - with more compassion? That’s what sympathy means.

Why did the crowds crowd at Jesus - encircle Jesus - reach out to touch him. Why did they eat him up? Answers: He spoke their language. He talked about the Golden Rule. He talked about a father who had two sons and one broke communion with him and left and messed up. Yet the father welcomed him back and organized a meal to celebrate his home coming. The story is about a father with sympathy. His heart was broken when the youngest son left, then healed when he came back, and was then broken again - when the older son wouldn’t come to the banquet - refused communion with father and brother. Jesus healed children. He told about being a good Samaritan. He welcomed people with leprosy and people with sin.

TODAY’S GOSPEL

In today’s gospel he calls Levi, a tax collector, the son of Alpheus  - who then invites Jesus to his house for dinner to meet his friends. The Scribes and the Pharisees saw Jesus eating with these sinners and tax collectors and asked the question to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

And Jesus overhearing them says, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Incarnation means to eat and be with others in their stories - walking in their sins and moccasins  - grasping each other.

CONCLUSION

I don’t know about you, but my problem is having sympathy with those who don’t get that. I scratch my head when I overhear people complain about people who come to Mass in shorts or they have a  short list of people who can be with Jesus  in communion.

That’s where I need more sympathy. I’m assuming when we get to heaven - please God -  when we get to the big banquet - the big dinner in heaven - we’re going to be surprised.

Please God we won’t be like the older brother and refuse to sit next to certain people in heaven. Why? Well, because communion is heaven. The Trinity is 3 Persons in Communion with Each Other - who  have invited into their mystery, their dance, their union, us and billions and billions and billions and billions more - all of us becoming the Great Dance [perichoresis (1) in Greek - notice the word  “chorus” in there - perichoresis being another one of those mysterious words for the Trinity] a symphony of sympathy - especially for us who can’t dance or sing. Listen to the Music of God. Listen to the Dance of God. The older brother heard the music and the dance - asked what it was - but didn’t enter into it. [Cf. Luke 15:25-26]

NOTES

(1) Check out in Google, “Perichoresis” a term meaning “clinging together” in reference to the Trinity started by Gregory of Nazianzus.

SATYAGRAHA

Quote for Today - January 19, 2013

"The term Satyagraha was coined by me ... in order to distinguis it from the movement then going on ... under the name of Passive Resistance.

"Its root meaning is 'holding on to truth,' hence 'force of righteousness.'  I have also called it love force or soul force. In the application of Satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not permit violence being inflicted on one's opponent, but that he must be weaned from error by patience and sympathy. For what appears truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by the infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on one's self."

Mohandas Karamchand [Mahatma] Gandhi [1869-1948] in Defense against charge of sedition [March 23, 1922]. 

I found the above quote in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. It's  from Mahatma [Great Soul] Gandhi and has a footnote that points the following words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

Martin Luther King Jr. in his Speech Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize [December 11, 1964]

PAUSE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 1^st Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Pause!”

How good are we at pausing ----------- resting --------------- being silent -------------------- stopping --------------------------- becoming quiet?

TODAY’S READINGS

As usual I picked up  today’s readings to read them out loud - so as to come up with a homily. Ooops!  I caught myself - before I started. I forgot to pray. I don’t always catch myself - pausing for a prayer beforehand. I closed my eyes and said a prayer to the Holy Spirit - for light - hoping something would hit me as I was reading the Word - something  that might help all of us.

Ooops. Sometimes I  look at an Ikon of Jesus Christ that is on my wall above me - above my computer.

Pause!

To pause is important.

As I read today’s first reading  - Hebrews 4: 1-5, 11 - I noticed that  the text had the word “rest” in it - 6 times. Interesting.

I then asked, “What’s the Greek word in the original text that they translated it by the English word  “rest”? It was  “katapausin” all 6 times - 5 nouns - 1 verb.

I then tried to find the derivation of the English word “rest” - which was used to translate the Greek word “katapausin”. I found in Webster’s dictionary that it’s from an old English word - that comes from an old German word, “rast”. Okay.

Then I remembered the word “rest” in of Jesus’ words:  “Come to me all you who are weary or heavily burdened and I will give you rest!” Matthew 11: 28. I wondered if Matthew has that same word “katapausin”.  It didn’t. It had the word “anapausin”.

It was then that I said to myself, “Stupid. Stupid. Stupid! The English word 'pause' comes from both these words - each of which has a different prefix: “ana” up and “kata” down - but the same root word "pausin". We had studied about Xenophon’s Anabasis - the “going up” of the army he was part of. Our professor told us that “Katabasis” would mean in contrast, the “retreat”, or “going home” or “going down”.

Obviously, I like to pause at words - to see where they come from - to see their roots - prefixes and suffixes, etc. - and see what I can learn.

So the message for today is one word: Pause!  Rest. Stop. Calm. Peace. Relax.

COMMENTARIES

I noticed in the Collegeville Bible Commentary on The Letter to the Hebrews  that the author of this text in Hebrews is stressing three understandings of  this theme of “rest”:

1) The Promised Land: the dream place of rest for the Hebrews.

2) The Sabbath Rest: the 7^th day of Creation - the 7^th day for the Jews (Saturday) - the 7^th Day for the Christians (Sunday),

3) The Eternal Rest - eternity - heaven.

Stop! 

Pause at that! Besides the meaning of the some words, there’s plenty of food for thought right there at those 3 rest stops for some reflection today.

1) How many people around the world are like the Israelites in the desert, longing for the Promised Land? They are experiencing ongoing wars and raids and eviction and forced migration. They have a dream for peace. If only we could get to Scandinavia or America? If only we could relocate to somewhere where there is no horror and shooting and terror and bombs?  Those out of work, long for a paycheck and a home and food and peace.

2) How many people have to work 7 days a week? How many people don’t have Sabbath or weekends or breaks or holidays?

3) How many people don’t believe or sense or have even heard for sure that there is a life after this life - Resurrection - the Good News of Jesus.

As to inner rest, today’s gospel has the story of a man who can’t move outwardly. He’s paralyzed. Some friends bring him to Jesus. The crowd is crowing them out. They go up on the room and cut through it and lower the paralyzed man down with ropes to Jesus.

Jesus pauses to see the paralyzed man. Then Jesus shocks those present by forgiving the man of his sins.

I’ve preached on this gospel many, many, many times, so that’s why I went with today’s first reading. I want to learn something new. 

In the context of my message about rest or pausing, let me ask this question: “How many people are restless, or can’t be at peace, because of their sins? Sins can paralyze. Sins can force us to spend the rest of the day, the year, one’s life worrying about  a bad mistake on their part. Sin paralyzes people. Forgiveness is necessary for healing - to become unparalyzed.

CONCLUSION: ENOUGH ALREADY

So a conclusion is to take a break, pause, which is what we are doing here by being at Mass, and look at the issue of rest in our lives - and the rest of our lives and the rest of our existence.

In the meanwhile, just in case I was too wordy with my word stuff, let throw in one example that I have used all my life concerning this theme.

When I was in high school or college, way back, I once heard Jim Brown the famous football player on the Cleveland Browns being interviewed. He said something like this, “Watch young running backs  when they get tackled. They push off and fight to stand up and run back to the huddle. He said, “That’s wasted energy. When I get tackled. I slowly let the others get off me and get up. Then I slowly get up and slowly walk back to the huddle for the next play. Then watch me move.”

AT  THE  WAKE

Quote for Today - January  18, 2013

"The dead tell no tales - but there's many a thing learned at the wake."

Irish Proverb


HOMEWORK:

Think of funerals and wakes you've been to and what you learned about the person who died that you didn't know till you heard the eulogy, read the obituary, or talked to others about the deceased.

DIPLOMAT:

YOU GOTTA KNOW

JUST WHEN....

Quote for Today - January 17, 2013

"A diplomat must always think twice before saying nothing."

Irish Proverb

WHERE ARE 

OUR DESERTED PLACES?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 1^st Wednesday in Ordinary Time is, “Where Are Our Deserted Places?"

In today’s gospel - Mark 1: 29-39 - we have mention of a theme we find several times in the gospels:

Rising very early before dawn,
he left and went off to a deserted place,

where he prayed.

The title of my homily is, “Where Are Our Deserted Places?

I know I have preached on this topic and theme at various times.

Where are my deserted places?

MAKE A LIST

Make a list of the places where you can go to in order to escape, to find peace, to be alone.

My father loved the cellar.  A friend of mine built a chapel out of his garage. My niece told me about a Muslim co-worker, who used a closet to get in some of her prayers. I know of a lady who used to hide from her four sons under the kitchen sink. You’d have to be in great shape to do that one. My sister-in-law used the bathroom - to escape from her seven daughters when they were tiny. Fingernails from tiny hands on a locked bathroom door can induce guilt.

Where are your deserted places? The Eucharistic chapel, a corner in this church or St. Mary’s, a book, the library, a walk in the cold or the warm, shopping, a drive, the back porch, the house when nobody is home, Quiet Water’s Park, the Naval Academy, a museum, sitting with a journal, painting, writing a poem, knitting, making Ranger Rosaries, etc.?  Where are your woman caves, man caves, secret places?

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s gospel for starters triggers this topic, theme and question about deserted places?

Today’s gospel takes place in Capernaum - just off the Lake of Galilee. I can read today’s gospel and put myself in Capernaum with ease - because I was  there once. Anyone who has been to Israel knows this. Capernaum is part of the bus ride - part of the tour. It has the Fourth Century synagogue - whose restoration began in 1922-24. again in 1969, and 1984.  

When I was there in 2000 with 22 priests, Father Stephen Doyle, a Franciscan, who was leading the retreat and tour read today’s gospel story in one of its versions, He told us that this roofless ruin of a synagogue was possibly where this gospel took place - and then gave us a half hour or a hour for quiet prayer. Wonderful.

 Then we went to where the ruins of Peter’s house. It now has a church built over it - a church with glass floors - through which you can see the ruins - where today’s gospel took place - where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law. That place was somewhat crowded compared to the space in the synagogue area - and it’s huge stones on which people can sit - and reflect.

Then we went to the gift shop and I bought this book by Stanislao Loffreda, Recovering Capharnaum. I have stepped back in many a gift shop in a place like Capharnaum - and noticed people often buying a pamphlet or guild book about a place - perhaps to hold onto the holy - perhaps to be able to go back there in memory - in some quiet place - in some quiet time - in the future.

CONCLUSION

Where are your quiet places? 

How do you quiet down?  

What do you do to grow and know the Lord and yourself and others better?  

What did Jesus do in his quiet places? 

The gospels tell us he talked to Our Father - and I’m sure he figured out how to do what today’s first reading from Hebrews 2: 14-18 - tells us he did: how to become like his brothers and sisters in every way. 

That’s our Jesus. That’s our brother! No wonder everyone was looking for him. They wanted to eat him up. 

HELLO!

Quote for Today - January 16,  2013

"A blind man should not be sent to buy paint."

Irish Proverb


HOMEWORK:

Come up with 5 applications of this proverb.

For example: Size 20's should not be telling size 12's how to diet.