ONE CHANGE

INTRODUCTION

The title for my homily for this Third Sunday in Advent [C]  is, “One  Change!” 

For a homily this morning I would like to ask some questions. Relax: you don’t have to answer them out loud. I’d suggest you answer them in-loud, to yourself during this week.

I know it’s a busy week - with at least 3 Christmas parties per person.

FIRST QUESTION

If you could talk to God and ask God to make one change in the way the world works, what change would you ask for? Just one change! 

Remember the world has been working the way it works for a long time now. Make sure you think of the ramifications of your choice.

I suggest you take your time to think about your choice this coming week.

I have often thought about this and the only thing that I could come up with is this:  God, get rid of mosquitoes. I never could come up with the reason for mosquitoes. I’m sure someone could write a short story about someone making that wish. God grants it - and then chaos results.

Complications, implications, and consequences are often not thought out.

Just say you want an end to death.

I can accept death, most of the time. If people never died, I think we would be less the person we are. So too traffic.  You think traffic is getting worse. Imagine if the roads were filled with 800 year old drivers. I think death has a powerful influence on much of what we do and how we are. So too suffering.

SECOND QUESTION

My second question is just the reverse. If God could come up to us and ask us to make one change in our life, what would it be?

Woo. That’s a tough one. Relax. We have a whole week to think about it. In fact, I think we think about that one over and over and on and off during our life.

If God could come up to us and asked us to make one change in our life, what would it be?

I think God often asks us to make significant changes in our life. God suggests these changes through our conscience - through experiences - through  movies - through Dear Abby - through novels. I think this is one way the readings at Mass work, etc.

Is there one thing that God is asking us to change in our life? Name it.

THIRD QUESTION: OTHERS

My third question is somewhat like that and I think it’s one of the ways God works on us.

The question goes like this. If you took a chair, a wooden chair, and you sat it in the middle of your living room, in your house, and if you are living with others, or place of work or your groups, and you asked them, “Is there anything you would like me to change in my life, so that life would be sweeter for you, what would that change be?”

I suspect the first response would be silence. Then your spouse, if you’re married, or your kids, or your parents, or co-workers - or close friends  might say, “Yes! There is something.” Or they might say, “Give me or us a few days and we’ll get back to you.” Or, “Could you leave the room for an hour and let us talk together and see what we come up with?”

What would they come up with?

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Now this idea of asking these questions this morning is not my idea. It’s from today’s gospel.

Crowds came out to see John the Baptist and people asked him the question, “What ought we to do?”

And he answered, “Let the person with two coats give to him who has none.” “Let the person who has food do the same.”

Tax collectors also came to him to be baptized and they asked him, “Teacher, what are we to do?” He answered them, “Exact nothing over and above your fixed amount.”

Soldiers likewise asked him, “What about us?” He told them, “Don’t bully anyone. Denounce no one falsely. Be content with your pay.”

INNER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT CHANGE

So my question is not too far-fetched.

In fact, if we listen to ourselves, don’t we have something about those we live and work with, that we would like to see them change? What is it?

Can’t we make the jump in our logic and say to ourselves: “Now if I have things in my mind about others that I think they ought to change, surely there are things about me that others want me to change.

What would those things be?

If I could pick one, what would it be?

JOY

Today’s first and second reading talk about joy and rejoicing.

Wouldn’t we all rejoice more if we all improved -- if we all changed -- if we all made just one significant change in our life?

SUGGESTIONS

What would some of those changes be?

I made a little list. I’m sure someone has a list of changes they would like to see me make. Just ask the priests over the rectory. Just hand the others in my life a ball-point pen and a piece of paper - with my name on top.

Possible changes that would make this world a better place to live in:

• More patience,
• Less noise,
• Less control
• More being on time
• Less being fixated on time
• Treating each person with dignity and fairness,
• Treating each kid equally and fairly, no favorites,
• More listening,
• Less drinking,
• Less eating,
• Not being nuts about calories and figure and looks,
• More being at home,
• Getting out of the house more,
• More time for eating together,
• Less time at the TV or computer,
• Giving the others the clicker or remote,
• Shorter meetings,
• More visits to parents who are all by themselves,
• Less nagging family others, being a pest, being like a mosquito,
• Less gossip,
• More work at work;
• Give up smoking,
• Give up cursing,
• Give up road rage,
• Calmer driving and enjoying the scenery,
• Not keeping score - like having a mosquito memory instead of an elephant memory,
• Not expecting everyone to be like me,
• Not expecting everything to be perfect,
• Allowing some sloppiness in life if I am a perfectionist,
• Being more neat and tidy if I am a slob,
• Not jumping on each other for the slightest mistake,
• Asking not telling,
• Asking others their motive or hope instead of jumping to conclusions,
• Putting family and faith first,
• Making the main organization I belong be my family,
• If I am married, working on not letting my marriage stagnate,
• Forgiving,
• Not playing the victim game forever,
• Communicating instead of manipulating,
• Discovering and using my talents,
• Asking for light and praying for help to overcome my weaknesses.

CONCLUSION

Homework for this week: just pick one - put it on paper and keep that in our wallet.

Wouldn’t that be a great gift to give those I live and work with for Christmas? A better and more joyful me.  To do this is  free, but actually, it’s very expensive.

18,  38, 12,

 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 30^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “18, 38, 12”.

This could be a good sermon - that is,  if it hits you and gets you thinking - if it gets you talking to yourself - about yourself.

I am not interested in hearing, “That was a good sermon.”

I am more interested if you say nothing to me - but you talk to yourself about the stuff of a sermon. It’s nice if someone says, “I liked your sermon - but I am not interested if a person then says, “I  wish my son-in-law could hear the message.”

I like the word “sermon” better than “homily”.  A sermon is a conversation. A homily is stuff about the scriptures - the Bible. And obviously, the key conversation speakers or preachers  want to trigger is self   with  self.

THREE SCENES

There are 3 scenes in the gospels that I have in mind with the 3 numbers I’m referring to -  the numbers I entitled my homily with, “18, 38, 12.”

In Matthew 9:20 there is a woman who has blood problems - hemorrhages - for 12 years. She says to herself, “If I just touch the   tassel of his cloak I        shall be healed.” She does it and she is healed. Nice.

In John 5:5, there is this man in Jerusalem who has been a crawler for 38 years. Many times he goes to the healing pool - the Sheep Pool - Bethzatha -  to be healed  - but he’s always too slow.  Jesus heals him and he walks away healed.

Here in Luke 13: 10-17, there is this woman who is bent over for 18 years. Jesus spots her and heals her.

Hence my title for this homily: “18, 38, 12,”

EXAMINATION OF   OUR  LIFE

How about a look into our lives?

Do we have a lifetime struggle?  Do we have an addiction?

Looking at the 7 capital sins: is one our predominant fault? Laziness, gluttony, lust, anger, pride, envy, jealousy?

Looking at our life, did we have a sin that lasted x number of years and praise God, we were healed?

I’ve done a lot of AA retreats. There was one in Olivet College in Michigan that I was part of every year in the summer.  Over 200 men would be there. One of the highlights was on Saturday night. We were in a big auditorium and one of the leaders would start, “Is there any one here who is sober for just one day?” And a couple of men would stand up. And all would clap.  Still standing the leader would ask, “If there is anyone here present  who is sober for at least 2 days?” And a few more men would stand and continue standing. There would be clapping. Then 3, then 4, then 5, then 6, then 7 days.  Then one month, then 2 months, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ,8, 9, 10, 11,  12 months.

People were left standing.

Then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, years. Then 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 75 years.

I’ve seen over 75 years of sobriety.

Could we do this with all the sins?

One of the saddest moments in my life was a statement at a workshop when a specialist said there is no cure for pedophilia as well as hephebophilia [with teenagers].

Wooo. Those guys - males mainly - who have these attractions need serious supervision and boundaries for the rest of their lives.

CONCLUSION TO THIS SERMON

The title of my homily is, “18, 38, 12”.

It refers to the amount of years 3 people in the gospel were suffering.

There is another story about a young man who had a serious problem. He would fall into fires and into water and he foamed at the mouth. I love Jesus’ question when he spots this. “How long has this been going on?” [Cf. Mark 9:4-29.]

His father says, “Since he was a child….”

I’m asking in this homily to have a conversation with ourselves and our Lord about sins and addictions we might have or had and how long and how we need  to do need for serious self-stuff, prayer stuff, therapy stuff ourselves, with others and with Jesus for healing. Amen.

WHERE  ARE  YOU 

IN  THE  PICTURE? 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Where Are You In The Picture?”

I thought of group photos and class pictures when I read today’s gospel - as well as pictures of people standing there in newspaper pictures in The Capital - for example being honored as part of a local organization.

In today’s gospel, James and John - as Mark tells us - went up to Jesus with a request.

Jesus asked them, “What do wish me to do for you?”

They answered, “When you come into your glory we want to sit - one on your right and the other on your left.”

Gospel commentators like to say that these two brothers - James and John -  had no clue at times what Jesus was about. They were fishermen - called by Jesus - into quite a public life - going about with Jesus - crowds wanting to touch the tassel of his cloak - thousands wanting to hear his stories and his teachings. Jesus was famous - and they were touching the tassels of that fame as they moved around Israel. That’s quite a contrast from emptying fish from nets and then selling those fish at the Lake of Galilee.

They were like these followers of rock singers and I’ve read that some big time athletes have posse’s - 20 to 35 followers - who are always tagging along with the rich and the powerful.

James and John had no idea - what Jesus meant when he said, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

They said, “We can!”

So Jesus said, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right or my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

Mark tells us that the other 10  became indignant at James and John when they saw and heard all this happening.

GROUP PHOTOS

When you’re in a group photo where do you like to stand?

I’ve often heard, “If a person knows their picture is in the paper or if someone shows us a picture that we know we’re in, the first person that we look for in the picture is ourselves.”

Is that true? 

I don’t know - and is it more today - now that everyone has a camera on their cell phone?

OKAY, NOW WHAT?

I got that thought and those questions and observations when I read today’s gospel.

Is it enough for a sermon?

You be the judge.

You be the judge of yourself.

I believe one of Jesus’ messages is emptying ourselves of too much self.

I read somewhere that the two things that help people get out of themselves is marriage and having kids. In both those situations we have to think of others - much more than self.

I like the Hindu message about ego: EEEEEEEEE-GO.

Today’s first reading talks about this mysterious character in the Old Testament called the Suffering Servant.  Here in Isaiah we have several of the Suffering Servant songs.

Isaiah was thinking about how some people are picked on. Isaiah was getting himself thinking about how we bully and demean and put down other human beings.

This is what happens to people at times when they are crushed by life - and how do we deal with such struggles. It could be divorce, being cheated on, having family disasters and our last name is run through the mud.  It can also happen to those who are saints - servants - givers - and others feel small in their presence - so they try to put them down.

This is what happened to Jesus - when the Pharisees were forever criticizing him - and they and the scribes wanted to get him.

In today’s second reading, is the author of Hebrews saying that is why Jesus was able to have sympathy with us  because he was pushed into our weaknesses.

MAKING THIS PRACTICAL

To make this practical let’s do what Jesus did.

He stressed being the servant - the giver - the go-fer - the last and not the first.

We go into the restaurant with family or friends. At the door we can step back and let others who are coming out come out ahead of us - and we can hold the door for our party.  We can take the lesser seat if some are lesser seats. We can get the waiter or waitresses name. We can say to someone who hasn’t said a word, “Hey Jack you haven’t said anything about this, what’s your take?”

In every conversation, someone says something, and it triggers something in us, and we take over the conversation. Or we can put ourselves last and be the listener.

In driving, in coming out of parking lots, there are lots of opportunities to put others first.

In being handed the meat loaf - if that’s the way the meal goes - we can say to ourselves, “I hope I get an end piece - but so does Joe or Sally - so we leave the piece we want for someone else.

In pictures, we can make sure folks are not blocked out - and everyone gets the chance to be out front.

CONCLUSION

I think there is a doable message here - helping others out of the shadows and come into the light.

Jesus was PC - Pre Camera. DaVinci in his last supper painting puts Jesus front and middle center - but maybe at that dinner he was off to the side - and maybe James and John were center cut - and surprise Jesus was off to the side.

FOUR  WAYS  

TO  GO  TO  HELL  

 THEME

Today’s readings challenge us to avoid various ways of “going to hell” as well as causing “hell” for other people.

OPENING IMAGE

In the Thirteenth Century, Dante Alighieri wrote an epic poem called, The Divine Comedy or “Divina Comedia”. In the 19^th century, there was renewed interest in this great work. Books, studies, lectures on Dante were in vogue. Wouldn’t it be great in the Twentieth Century, if someone would put together a 13 part series on Public Television, called, “The Divine Comedy”? If done well and with commentary, it could be an extremely effective educational experience. Hopefully, it would also be a conversion experience for anyone who would watch it.

The Divine Comedy has all the ingredients of science fiction and fantasy movies. It can catch our imagination. In brief, Dante takes his audience on an imaginary journey through the circles of hell, into purgatory, and then finally into heaven.

It seems that there have been people in every century who have been fascinated by his message. What about us? Is it now time for the people in our century to look at this man and this man’s powerful message?

Ours is the century of the here and now. Ours is the century of The Denial of Death. Ours is the century of the denial of hell. Ours is the century when we need to look at the reality of heaven, as well as the absence of a sense of hell. Ours is also the century of two world wars, Hiroshima and Auschwitz, Korea and Vietnam, millions of abortions and millions of people starving to death. All we have to do is open our eyes and we can see hell. All we have to do is open our eyes and see the hope of God breaking through in the here and now. The human hope for: Incarnation! Resurrection! Ascension! Pentecost! Redemption! “I have come that you might have life and have it to the full” (John 10: 10)

Dante wrote with pictures and images. He visualizes hell, purgatory and heaven for us. Where did he look to see what he saw? Of course, he had a great imagination. But he also said, “I found the origin of my hell in the world which we inhabit.” Read the poem and you’ll see what he means by that. See whom he puts in hell and where he puts them in hell. It’s better than the best soap operas.

The poet seems to see more than we see. Oscar Wilde said, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.” Or take T.S. Eliot. He spent a lot of time reading Dante. And after pondering both Dante and the beginning of this century, T. S. Eliot put Dante’s thoughts into new words. For example, read his poems, “The Waste Land” and “The Hollow Men” and you will discover two of his ways to describe this century.

In our century then, Dante could give us a sense of both the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Hell in the here and now.

HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS

When we read today’s readings, especially the Gospel and the Second Reading, don’t we get a picture of hell, both here and hereafter?

Jesus does exactly what Dante does. He tries to scare the hell out of us. He tells us, it’s better to go to heaven crippled, missing an eye, or a hand, or a foot, than to go to hell with a perfect 10 for a body.

In the second reading, James goes the same route as Jesus and Dante. He describes people crying and weeping. He tries to get us to visualize the rotting of clothes, silver and gold. He tells the rich, as well as anyone else who is listening, that if you create a hell here on earth for others, you are creating a hell for yourself here and hereafter. All those who store up treasure by cheating or overworking others, better be careful. You might think you’re storing up silver and gold. Actually you are storing up “a burning fire ... as your treasure for the last days.”

So our readings are quite strong today. They are a warning about hell. They are a prophetic cry for the Kingdom of Heaven. They give the negative, so that we will move towards the positive.

PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS

Now to be practical, what I would like to do now is to continue to reflect on today’s readings, and present 4 ways that they point out we can go to hell, so that all of us will go the opposite way.

                    1) Be Narrow and Jealous,

                    2) Be Selfish and Greedy,

                    3) Give Bad Example,

                    4) Deny Hell and Forget About Heaven.

The goal is not to be sensational, but to do what Jesus and James and Dante tried to do: Picture Hell, so that you won’t want to live there. Picture Hell, so that you won’t make life a hell for anyone else. Picture hell, so that your goal will be heaven for yourself and your neighbor.

1)       Be Narrow and Jealous

The first way to live in hell and create hell for other people is to be narrow and jealous. Wilson Mizer wrote, “The most pitiful human ailment is a birdseed heart.”

In today’s first reading, we see what a birdseed heart looks like. Joshua, as well as two young followers of Moses, become jealous when two men, with the interesting names of Eldad and Medad, begin prophesying in the camp. The Spirit of God had come on both of them. Unfortunately, the Spirit didn’t inform Joshua or the two young followers of Moses about it. They went to Moses to try to drag him into their jealousy and closed attitude towards Eldad and Medad. Moses answers with a big heart, “Are you jealous on my account? If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to the all!”

In today’s Gospel, we see the same human problem arise. John becomes jealous of a man who is an exorcist, who uses Jesus’ name without asking permission, or was it John’s fear of losing prestige? Jesus, answers as Moses answered, “You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.”

A psychiatrist was visiting a mental hospital. While sitting at lunch, the head of the hospital said to the visitor, in the presence of 5 or 6 of his staff, “See that lady over there: the one with the beautiful smile behind the counter there, serving mashed potatoes. She is the most important person in the hospital. In fact, she is the best therapist here. Everybody goes to her with their problems: the doctors, the patients, the maintenance people, the people in the kitchen. Would that we had 10 more like her.” Three of the doctors on hearing that almost choked on their mashed potatoes in jealously and anger. After all they were the most important people in the hospital. They had laminated plaques to prove it.

So we see jealousy and narrowness, not only in religion, but in all areas of life or should we say death? Those in religion don’t have a monopoly on jealousy and narrowness. But those who are jealous and narrow have a monopoly on creating hell for others.

2)       Be Selfish and Greedy

The second way to go to hell and create hellholes for others is to be selfish and greedy. This is obvious. It doesn’t need too much explanation.

Dostoevski said, “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

Hell is the inability to love. It’s the inability to give. It’s the inability to share. If there is any one message that Jesus proclaimed from the housetops, it’s that. Read Matthew 25. You go to hell, if you don’t give cups of water and clothing, if you don’t visit the sick and take in the stranger.

Or read today’s second reading again. James does not tell us that being rich is the problem. The problem is either in how we get our money or in the not sharing of it. In today’s gospel, we hear those strange comments about plucking eyes out, cutting hands and feet off. Obviously, Jesus is not telling us to start cutting ourselves up. He’s telling us that eyes are for seeing others in their needs and not just ourselves. Hands and feet are given, so that we can better serve our brothers and sisters. Hands are for giving a glass of cold water or a cup of hot coffee. Hands are for helping, not hurting, especially children. Hands are for patting others on the back and not ourselves. If you don’t use them to make this a better world to live in, you might as well not have them.

Be selfish and greedy and you start living in hell. Start being selfish and greedy and you start making living for those around you a hell as well.

3)       Give Bad Example

The third way to go to hell is to give bad example.

Today’s gospel, which contains a series of very early catechetical sayings of Jesus, also warns us about not giving bad example to the “little ones”. Bible commentators point out that the “little ones” could be new believers, as well as little children.

Sweet, sweet Jesus, doesn’t seem so sweet, when we listen to his saying about the millstone being tied around our neck and being thrown into the sea. Picture that saying along with the words about cutting off one’s hands and feet and plucking out one’s eyes, and you’ll see that Jesus is talking pretty strongly to us today. Yes, he could tell us to look at the birds of the air, but he could also paint some pictures with sticks of dynamite for a frame.

Dante puts people like Judas and Lucifer, Brutus and Cassius, down at the bottom of hell because of their betrayals. We are warned quite clearly about leading others into temptation.

But what do we zero in on when we think of bad example and temptations? Too often we limit temptations and bad example to sex and movies and drugs. We get hot and bothered about those who invite young people to try drugs.

But what about all the invitations we give to others by our behavior and our values? What do we stress as important in life? Is it stuff? Money? Watch our for Number 1? What are we pumping into the minds of the next generation?

Do we ever read and discuss the gospel with others we live with? Do people ever see us praying? Do others ever see us putting in a full day’s work for a full day’s pay? Or do we tell new workers, “Coast. The boss is never around?”

4)       Deny Hell and Forget About Heaven

The fourth way to go to hell is to deny it exists, to forget about the Kingdom of Heaven and only concentrate on the kingdom of stuff in the kingdom of the here and the now.

We have here perhaps one of the main values of pushing people to read Dante’s Divine Comedy. In this the Twentieth Century, we have heard more and more people get off statements about not believing in hell anymore. It’s as if by denying something, we could make it disappear. Try that principle next time you catch a cold or get a dent in your car.

The New Testament and our Creed affirm Sunday after Sunday, that there is a heaven and a hell. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what things God has prepared for those who love him.” The gospels, like Dante, take us through imaginary trips to both heaven and hell.

And why? It’s to warn us of their reality, both here and hereafter. It’s to warn us to serve others and not be self serving. It’s to try to challenge us to do our part to make this world the Kingdom of Heaven and to try to put an end to the hell some people have to face each day.

Our pope, John Paul II, in his social statements, keeps warning us about the hungry and the thirsty of our world, the poor who are at our doorsteps. And what image does he use to try to wake us up? So often it’s the image of heaven and hell in the story of Dives and Lazarus. Read it. It’s in the 16^th chapter of Luke. It’s much shorter than The Divine Comedy of Dante. But it too will scare the hell out of us. (Cf. Luke 16: 19 - 31). Now of course, heaven won’t be resting in Abraham’s bosom and people won’t see a big chasm between heaven and hell. But what is real is that there are people in our midst today who are living in hell and we walk by them every day. Of course, we can apply this parable of Jesus only to people on the bowery and miss people in our own homes. The people Jesus warns us about not seeing might even sleep in the same bed with us or eat at our table. They might be in the same office with us or in the same bench in church. Do we see them? They might be starving for affection or a good word. They might be starving for a better job or more food. Do we see them? They might be starving for a second chance. Do we know they exist at our very door step? If we don’t, we are already in hell.

CONCLUSION

Poets like Dante, prophets like Jesus, tells us then, that we have a choice: heaven or hell? We can choose to be:

                    1) Jealous or generous?

                    2) Selfish or self giving?

                    3) Giving bad example or giving good example?

                    4) Dying in heaven or living in heaven?

The choice is always ours. And as Moses says at the ending of today’s first reading, “If only the whole people of the Lord were prophets, and the Lord gave his Spirit to the all.” Surprise! Listen to Jesus, and you’ll find out that he has. If only, we would accept that Spirit. It would be heaven! There would be no more hell!

HOW WOULD YOU SCULPT OR  PICTURE OUR LADY OF SORROWS  OR THE PIETA? 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “How Would You Sculpt or Picture Our Lady of Sorrows or the Pieta?”

Teachers and parents, aunts and babysitters, know that little kids love to draw with crayons or sculpt with clay. They don’t say, “I don’t know how to draw!” They just do it.

How would you sculpt or picture Our Lady of Sorrows or the Pieta?

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows - Mater Dolorosa - The Pieta. It follows the feast of the Holy Cross. Like the 13th station of the cross following the 12th station. The sorrowful mother is holding her dead son.

QUESTION

How would you sculpt the scene?

Michelangelo did 2 pietas. We all know the famous one in St. Peter’s. It’s in the back. When you come into St. Pater’s look to your right. There it is. It traveled to the United States for the New York World’s Fair in the 1960’s. It was the one that was banged up by a guy with a sledge hammer.

Then there is the other one that is tall and thin. It’s in Florence.

How would you  paint the scene?

There are all kinds of paintings of Mary, the Mother of Sorrows. There is the famous icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help

MY ART

I would sculpt Mary holding a globe and the globe would have people on it. It would be a globe of people. I might even build into the globe 14 television monitors  - each having scenes from around the world of people suffering. I would have about 5 minutes of tough world scenes on each TV monitor. I’d show car and plane crashes. There would also be TV news clips which feature stories about killings, torture, rapes, corruption, bishop cover ups, stealing. Just watch the 10 o’clock evening news.

QUESTION

Why is Mary so popular? Why are there so many pietas? Why are there so many pictures of Mary? Suffering is so universal. So real. So much pain.

QUESTION

How would you sculpt the Sorrowful Mother?

HORACE McKENNA, S.J.

[Down through  the  years I have heard about a wonderful Jesuit priest in Washington D.C.  with the name of Horace McKenna, S.J. Then when I was stationed in Annapolis - with lots of people who went to Jesuit schools in DC, I heard his name mentioned even more.  

I heard a relative once say, “If all priests were like Father Horace McKenna,  I’d go to church more often."  

In these times when priests are not being seen in the best light, I thought I’d do  a blog piece and a shout out about this great servant: Father Horace McKenna. 

Years ago  I did this for Father Alec Reid, a Redemptorist, who worked in Northern Ireland. Check my blog for September 8,  2014. Also check this blog piece about Father Horace McKenna, Jesuit. Thanks.]

OBITUARY FOR FATHER HORACE McKENNA, SJ

Horace B. McKenna S.J., founder of S.O.M.E. (So Others Might Eat) and advocate of the Sursum Corda Cooperative. He was born on January 2, 1899 and died on May 11, 1982.

The youngest of 6 children, Horace was born in 1899 New York City, the son of Dr.Charles F. McKenna, a respected chemist and first chemical engineering graduate of Columbia University School of Mines, and Laura O'Neill McKenna. Educated at Fordham Preparatory School, he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew-on-the-Hudson on July 30, 1916. Between 1921 and 1923, he taught in a Jesuit school in Manila, Philippines. There, he discovered the desperate needs of the poor and oppressed. He was ordained June 23, 1929 and assigned to pastor parishes in southern Maryland amidst poverty and Church, St. James' Church, St. Ignatius' Church and St. Inigoes's where he was assigned in June of 1931. Here he worked for twenty-two years, and among his efforts helped create the Ridge Purchasing and Marketing Association. He was active in civil rights, Vietnam-era anti-war protests and the Poor People's Campaign.

From 1953 to 1958, he served at St. Aloysius Gonzaga parish, a Jesuit church a few blocks north of the U.S. Capitol and then as assistant pastor at the Church of the Gesu in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1958 to 1964. In 1964 he returned to St. Aloysius and remained there for the rest of his life, living at Gonzaga College High School and serving the poor. In his commitment to social  justice in Washington, D.C., Fr. McKenna founded So Others Might Eat, a soup kitchen, clinic and employment center; Martha's Table, a soup kitchen and child education center; and House of Ruth, a center for homeless women. He was also one of the leaders in establishing the Sursum Corda Cooperative, a housing development for the poor. Documentation of his life's work is maintained in the Georgetown University -Library Special Collections Division.

Fr. McKenna was named "Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian Magazine in 1977. He received an honorary degree from the University of Scranton in 1998. The McKenna Center, a local shelter and soup kitchen for homeless men, located under the Great Church of St. Aloysius, was named after him in 1982. McKenna Walk NW, a short street within Sursum Corda, is also named after him.

The Father McKenna Center is still located in the basement of Saint Aloysius Catholic Church at 900 North Capitol Street NW in Washington, DC. The McKenna Center exists to meet the needs of the poor and homeless who reside in one of Washington’s poorest neighborhoods despite being in the shadow of the US Capitol Building. McKenna Center serves the needs of the poor, men, women and children. Each day, the McKenna Center fulfills the Gospel instruction to “feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and clothe the naked”.

HORACE MCKENNA

APOSTLE OF THE POOR

Kevin O’Brien

America Magazine,

September 17, 2007

A line still forms outside the Father McKenna Center at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. People come to the cramped but homey church basement looking for food, clothing, housing and personal support. They still tell stories about Father McKenna, who died 25 years ago. To know the story of Father McKenna is to enter into the lives of the poor whom he loved as a father. “You can’t understand me if you don’t understand my people,” Horace liked to tell his friends as he brought them for a walk around the neighborhood.

In his lifetime, as they do today, people freely called Father McKenna a “saint.” His father, Charles, had a sense of things to come. In his insightful biography, Horace: Priest for the Poor, John S. Monagan recounts how Charles insisted that his son be baptized with the name Horace. The priest protested: There is no St. Horace. “He’ll be the first,” Charles replied. Thus was Horace McKenna baptized in a New York City church in the winter of 1899.

Horace met the Jesuits at Fordham Preparatory School in the Bronx. As war raged in Europe, Horace entered the tranquil confines of the Jesuit novitiate overlooking the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, north of New York City. There he immersed himself in Jesuit ways of praying and benefited from a learning that was, by his own account, “deep, broad and accurate.” After professing his first vows, he studied humanities and philosophy, growing in “confidence in thought, truth and love.”

Horace was then assigned to teach at a high school for affluent boys in Manila, Philippines. Far removed from his comfortable upbringing and the insular world of studies, Horace felt his mind and heart stretched. He remembered particularly how an elderly Filipino Jesuit would regularly canvass the school playground for scraps of food left over by the privileged students. The brother would then bring the food over to the school wall, where hungry children anxiously waited for the delivery. According to Monagan, the Jesuit brother’s kindness and the children’s desperation made a lasting impression on Horace.

When he returned to the United States to study theology at the Jesuit seminary in Woodstock, Md., not far from Baltimore, Horace taught Sunday school to African-American children who were not permitted to attend the segregated parochial school. Like his experience with the poor in Manila, his contact with those children transformed his understanding of his priesthood. After Horace was ordained in 1929, he asked his superiors to send him to work with African-American families suffering under segregation laws.

With the blessing of his superiors, Father McKenna made his way to southern Maryland, where for over 20 years he served as a pastor. Horace thrived in his sacramental and pastoral duties, traveling around southern Maryland in his old car. Walter Burghardt, S.J., then a young priest, recalls driving with Horace and stopping frequently so that Horace could say hello to people along the way, usually addressing them by their last name as a sign of respect. During the Great Depression, Horace set up a food distribution system and over the years provided assistance to struggling farmers. Inspired by other Jesuit trailblazers like John LaFarge and Richard McSorley, who worked in southern Maryland at one time or another, Horace vigorously advocated for racial integration in churches and schools.

Horace could become impatient (a “passionate impatience,” Horace admitted) with a too-cautious approach to racial integration. His zeal won him many friends and a fair number of adversaries, even among his fellow Jesuits and priests who argued for a more gradual approach to racial equality. With a blend of friendliness and righteous persistence, Father McKenna always spoke his mind. After one tense, emotionally raw town meeting, Horace approached a man in the hostile audience, extended his hand and said, “I hope there are no hard feelings.” The man responded by looking up at the rafters and saying, “There’s where you should be hanging from.”

As racial tensions continued to flare, Father McKenna was transferred in 1953 from his beloved southern Maryland to St. Aloysius Church in the District of Columbia. Except for a six-year stint at a parish in Philadelphia, Horace would spend the rest of his life ministering just blocks from the U.S. Capitol. “It’s the same work,” he said, “chasing sheep; except that the ground is harder.” The St. Vincent de Paul Society office in the basement of the church became a center for Horace’s charitable work.

Just as he had driven around the counties of southern Maryland, Horace walked the streets around the church, getting to know his neighbors by name. By the mid-1960s, St. Al’s, once mostly white, had twice as many black parishioners as white. The once residential neighborhood was changing. White families were moving to the suburbs and office buildings were rising. The redevelopment around North Capitol Street caused a shortage of affordable housing for the urban poor. Responding to this need, Horace and his friends established a new housing complex. They named it Sursum Corda, a Latin expression from the Mass that means, “Lift up your hearts.”

Horace’s work was ecumenical at its core: he partnered with other churches and served anyone in need, regardless of their religion. In 1970, with the help of friends at Georgetown and other religious leaders, Horace founded S.O.M.E. (So Others Might Eat), an organization that provided hot meals to the hungry not far from St. Al’s.

Horace could not turn away anyone needing help, including a man who gave his legal address as “the back seat of Father McKenna’s car.” On one occasion, his car was stolen. The thief was caught in West Virginia. When Horace arrived there to retrieve the car, he refused to press charges and even gave the thief a ride home to D.C. If asked, he gave away whatever money he had in his pocket. Father McKenna did not hesitate to eat or sleep overnight in the city’s homeless shelters, because he “wanted to see how my brothers in Christ are treated.”

On most days, Horace amiably greeted people in the line that formed outside the church basement. As Horace’s reputation for generosity grew, so did the line. Gonzaga High School students, many of whom came from Washington’s affluent suburbs, would walk by the line every day. One of those students was Martin O’Malley, now governor of Maryland. He recently told The Washington Post: “So you’d come in from the lily-white suburbs and you’d see the nation’s Capitol looming in front of you and then...you’d walk by the morning line of homeless and poor and jobless men who were waiting in line at Father Horace McKenna’s. That was not lost to many of us walking into school by that line every day: how lucky we were, how much we had.”

Horace was an avid fundraiser and communicated news of his work to well-connected friends along the East Coast. He tried to educate the privileged about the plight of the poor. Accolades and honorary degrees came his way. He courted politicians in the name of the poor. With his charming personality, simplicity of lifestyle and selfless zeal, Horace easily won over benefactors.

In the late 1960s and 70s, marches and protests were common in the District of Columbia. Horace walked down to the mall and befriended the protesters. He marched against the Vietnam War. By the end of his life, as the nuclear arms race continued unabated, Father McKenna described himself as a pacifist.

Amid all his social work, Horace remained faithful to his ministry as a parish priest. His prayer and preaching grounded his activism.

Celebrating Mass was the center of his day. He earned a reputation as a succinct, engaging homilist and as a wise, compassionate confessor. He called the confessional the “peace box,” because people found peace there. A fellow priest commented, “He was so close to the Lord that he could speak with authority and we could reasonably believe that this was the divine word.”

Horace’s most difficult time as a priest came in 1968, after Pope Paul VI issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae. He publicly dissented from the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had issued guidelines for priests to apply the teaching prohibiting the use of artificial birth control. Horace, who had great personal affection for the cardinal, joined a group of priests in protesting a literal application of the encyclical. Relying on more than 40 years experience hearing confessions, Horace argued for some pastoral accommodation for married couples who as a matter of conscience found the teaching unduly burdensome. Because of this dissent, Cardinal O’Boyle, who had equal esteem for Horace, restricted him from hearing confessions. Being kept from the “peace box” pained Horace deeply. After two-and-a-half years of canonical appeals and personal pleas, Horace and other dissenting priests expressed assent to a series of statements of doctrine, after which O’Boyle restored their faculties to hear confessions.

As he approached his 80th birthday, Horace encountered physical limits to his once boundless activity. Though his mind remained sharp, he started to lose his sight and needed help getting around. Talk of his saintly character grew. When Washingtonian magazine named Horace a “Washingtonian of the year,” the editors commented, “He is said to be the closest thing we have to a saint.” Mayor Barry of Washington, D.C., declared July 15, 1979, “Horace McKenna Day” and named him “Apostle of the Poor.” Governor Hughes of Maryland awarded Horace a special citation for his service in southern Maryland. He was given his fourth honorary degree, this time by Fordham University. Of his many honors, Horace treasured most of all the celebration of his 50th anniversary as a priest, hosted by his Jesuit brothers.

On May 11, 1982, Horace suffered a massive heart attack and died. Years earlier, Horace had imagined what would happen after his death:

When God lets me into heaven, I think I’ll ask to go off in a corner somewhere for half an hour and sit down and cry because the strain is off, the work is done, and I haven’t been unfaithful or disloyal, all these needs that I have known are in the hands of Providence and I don’t have to worry any longer who’s at the door, whose breadbox is empty, whose baby is sick, whose house is shaken and discouraged, and whose children can’t read.

The Church of St. Aloysius was packed for Horace’s funeral: rich and poor, black and white, men and women from all walks of life. He was laid to rest in the Jesuit cemetery on the Georgetown University campus, buried in a simple coffin, befitting both his lifelong vow of poverty and his faithful accompaniment of the poor.

Kevin Gillespie, S.J., recalls an encounter with Horace one cold winter night just months before he died. Kevin was a young Jesuit teaching at Gonzaga High School. Father McKenna, partially blind and using a cane, asked Kevin to drive him to a homeless shelter. “I want to be where Jesus is tonight,” Horace explained. Arriving at the shelter, a group of men came out to greet them. Kevin helped Horace get out of the car and entrusted him to the arms of the men of the street who loved him as a father. They carefully led Horace into the shelter, the door shutting behind them. Their saint had come home to them one last time.

One testament to a saintly life is the vigor with which the holy person’s work is carried on. On the first anniversary of Horace’s death, Archbishop James Hickey of Washington, D.C., dedicated the newly renovated basement of St. Al’s in honor of Horace. The Father McKenna Center has since expanded to include a small shelter for men. S.O.M.E. now offers food, clothing, health care, job training and housing to thousands of people each year. Sursum Corda continues to operate, but its future as publicly supported housing is precarious. 

Horace’s old neighborhood is changing rapidly. The gentrification of the area and development of more office buildings have further squeezed poorer families out of the neighborhood.

To those facing present-day challenges and opportunities, Horace would undoubtedly offer his encouragement. During his lifetime, he would often interject at meetings a question pertinent to those carrying on his mission today: “And what about the poor?”

A single-minded focus characterizes those special people we call “saints.” For Horace, the focus was always the poor and powerless. In them, he glimpsed the face of Christ; in them, he always found a home.

This article also appeared in print, under the headline "Horace McKenna, Apostle of the Poor," in the September 17, 2007 issue.

WORDS OF WISDOM

FROM FATHER HORACE  MCKENNA

"I really believe that every person is a revelation of God - the joy of God, the love of God. I feel that the human person on the street is the appearance of Jesus Christ consumed with human needs. Christ is in the wretched person, as well as the young person, the young woman or the young child. Their smile is so fresh, like a bud or an open flower that speaks of the wealth of the plant beneath the surface. And that wealth is God. "

"You can't talk to a person about his or her soul if that person has no food."

"In the old days, we would go out in pairs and take care of the Widow Jones who had no bread or the Widow Smith whose rent was due. But now, the poor are a swarm all around us. We can't go out to them. How could you go to sixty homes? How could you go everywhere at once? We have to be ready when they come to us."

"The greatest undeveloped resource of our nation and of our world is the poor."

"The poor can't lift themselves up by their bootstraps because they have no boots."

“When  God lets me into heaven, I think I’ll ask to go off in a corner somewhere for half an hour and sit down and cry because the strain is off, the work is done, and I haven’t been unfaithful or disloyal, all these needs that I have known are in the hands of Providence and I don’t have to worry any longer who’s at the door, whose breadbox is empty, whose baby is sick, whose house is shaken and discouraged, and whose children can’t read."